This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for December 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: November 16-30
If it's your ultimate goal to be better at throwing things out, and not just to have less stuff short-term, you're actually punishing yourself for engaging in the desired behavior when you withhold credit for doing so (or spend any time on negative feelings as a result of doing the task), which seems counterproductive.
You might find an auxiliary habit of patting yourself on the back (or similar small reward-feeling behavior) when you do your task to be more helpful!