Group Rationality Diary, October 16-31

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for October 16-31.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

The poll earlier this month seems to be sufficiently in favor of maintaining the current schedule that extra votes are unlikely to change things much, but if you'd really like to register your opinion, you are welcome to do so here.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Immediate past diary: October 1-15

Next diary: November 1-15

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for October 16-31.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Immediate past diary: October 1-15

Next diary: November 1-15

Rationality diaries archive

Recently noticed that a lot of the time I eat junk food is when I wander into the kitchen because I'm bored, and junk food is easy to eat. So I decided to start buying vegetables in advance, cutting them up at the start of the week into edible chunks / preparing them slightly, and having dressing on hand to eat with them. This has resulted in me eating vegetables as a snack significantly more often, because it is now fairly trivial to do so.

Of course, keeping up the habit of preparing them at the start of the week is the hard part. For those with more cash than me, it might be worth it to just buy those party vegetable trays from the grocery store.

A number of non-junk foods do not require any preparation and are already conveniently sized. Small carrots, snap peas, cherry tomatoes, and berries, for example. (Now if only I liked those...)

12Cthulhoo13y

I solved the problem long ago by not buying junk food at all. This way, I have to ask myself whether I am really hungry, and therefore need a proper meal, or if it's only boredom. In the second case, cooking a full meal isn't worth it, so I spare myself the extra calories. I lost 8kg in three months with this simple trick.

0Viliam_Bur13y

Yes, the advantage of the junk food is that you can go directly to the "eating mode" instead of the "food prepare mode". So it is useful to prepare the food when not hungry.