Group Rationality Diary, May 1-15

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for May 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.

Previous diary: April 16-30

Next diary: May 16-31

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for May 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.

Previous diary: April 16-30

Next diary: May 16-31

Rationality diaries archive

habits

I joined a challenge to do duolingo Spanish daily. Now I've stopped enforcing daily duolingo practice. It's still on my habits as something to reward myself for, but it won't hit me as a negative thing if I don't do it every single day.

metagame

Stopped keeping a daily assessment of how far I'm going with a "perfect day" streak, in which I get all my daily repeat items done. My system already supplies rewards for streaks. If you try to use a stick instead of a carrot on my subconscious, it will take the stick from you and start beating itself up willy nilly.
Increased the "price" of rewards like an hour of fanfiction, dipping into my chocolate bowl, and going out for drinks. I'm way overloaded on GoldPoints in HabitRPG, it doesn't mean anything to hit the reward buttons if I can't see an effect.

emotional responses

Spent a few days in a haze of fanfiction. Curse you, Alicorn, for making effulgence so entrancing. Curse you too Eliezer, for recommending Toasterverse. I finally broke out with an offhand realization that I hadn't done a happiness meditation in a while. It had all been mindfulness lately, as opposed to the style of sitting and thinking about whether I could be okay with just being me. A lot of minor things were irritating me, and I was starting to internalize feeling uncomfortable as an inherent property of being me. Fanfiction is an okay escape from being me, but it's difficult to stumble upon better solutions to a problem I'm not allowing myself to acknowledge.