Group Rationality Diary, November 1-15

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for November 1-15.

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 16-31

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for November 1-15.

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 16-31

Rationality diaries archive

Finished 2 classes from Udacity. Not important for the learned content (it was two "introduction to programming" classes), but as a test of my ability to persevere. I think the online education's big danger is people starting and not finishing; and also, starting and not finishing many things is my personal weakness. So by 100% completing of two classes (watching all lessons mostly at 1.5× speed, making notes, doing all exercises) I proved to myself I can do it. Now I am in a middle of a more difficult class.

Actually, the difficult part was to realize that with online education, one still has to take notes, just like in an offline classroom. It is too easy to understand something now, and forget it completely a few days later. With notes, continuing the classes was relatively easy... it feels like another variant of online procrastination, which is something I am already good at. :D It's not the best use of my time, but certainly better than average.

EDIT: It's 3 classes now! :)

the difficult part was to realize that with online education, one still has to take notes, just like in an offline classroom

Aha. That may be part of what's been missing in my previous attempts. Well, that and accountability, but I think I've solved that one