This is a small one, but when I realised that I wasn't going to meet my Friday evening deadline, I emailed my advisor to let her know along with the reason I'd missed it, whereas in the past I would have not told her and then spent the weekend alternating between, stress about the missed deadline, extreme procrastination, and madly trying to get the work finished. She responded supportively and now I'm feeling much less stressed and procrastinate-y than I otherwise would have.

On another related axis, my efforts at being accepting and emotionally stable are starting to pay off in the form of massively decreased negative self-talk, increased comfort and emotional intimacy with friends, and decreased sense of pointless obligation and guilt with respect to other people's problems. My methods have involved medication for my anxiety/depression, reading a bunch of self-helpy stuff like parts of Scott's blog, Kate Donovan's blog, Nonviolent Communication, How to Lose at Everything and Still Win Big, and (still working through) The Charisma Myth, obsessive journalling, and spending as much time as feasible hanging out with, reading, and talking to people who embody the traits I want to have.

Finished my assessment of Toastmasters and decided my resources can be put to better use elsewhere. Still maintain contact with acquaintances made to keep up networking.

Established a reading schedule for my personal library that is enjoyable and beneficial and allows for me to cover both physical books and audio books equally.

Began researching my diet again and proposed to cut out fruit juice (to be replaced with yogurt) and crackers (to be replaced with solid fruit and homemade trail mix). I next want to move away from excess sugar (i.e. chocolate) in my trail mix and eventually work my sugar intake down once more. I'm discovering that sugar proves pesky to get rid of, being crammed into everything.

Prediction: This is somewhat of a prediction and somewhat of a plan. I've considered keeping a diary or some sort of personal record, but have no real desire to write for myself. I've never found diary keeping very helpful. So, instead, I'm planning to start a blog. My prediction, based on my own understanding of my behavior and thought patterns, is that I will keep up the habit of updating a blog for about two to three weeks (with the current aim being to make at least one post a week), before ennui sets in and I begin to question the efficacy of the action. If left unchecked or unplanned for, this ennui will cause me to stop and abandon the project. So, I need a planned means of dealing with the ennui when it arises. My plan is, first off, to make the style different from my other projects, so that it does not fill like a writing project, but at the same time, it also does not feel like a monologue to myself. I also will impose a rule to spend no time writing about writing itself unless as criticism of other works. Finally, each post needs a goal. If each post has a specific objective, then I can measure their efficacy at meeting that objective. If I find the posts satisfactory, then the blog is worth the time. If I find them lacking, then the blog can be improved.

UPDATE: I started the blog and intend to update it each Sunday that I am able. I need to decide on a means of measuring its efficacy. For now, I will simply go off if I am enjoying myself or not.

Two years ago I took out a high limit, zero annual fees, credit card and put it away for a rainy day (you know: omg water damage kind of rainy day). This week I needed that card unexpectedly and I was very concerned that my plans were for nothing, I had no idea what my pin was. So I made a guess, and got it right on the first try. Two years ago I managed to set the pin to something I could guess, and then completely forgot about it.

The point of this story is, I rarely have it brought to my attention how much the planning and foresight of my past selves have made my life better. We look back and say 'I'm glad I've grown and learnt so much, wadavis(2012) was fairly ignorant", alternatively works of improvement are constant works in progress like your work or your schooling and it never comes up that last years work has made wonderful improvements to this years life..

It was very much like finding an Easter Egg left behind by my life's developer, past me.

I finished Alex Vermeer's 8760 Guide, which I've been trudging on-and-off through for months. I now have a plan of sorts for the next half-year; this is quite a novelty for me. The plan is programming projects, job applications, emotional monitoring, and getting rid of unnecessary stuff.

I am implementing a motivation hack (thank you Nick Winter!) of deliberately telling people what I'm up to, even if it feels like motivation overkill, because I need some overkill. That is what I originally started doing posting to the group diaries for, but I got sidetracked.

• job applications: I'm compiling a list of local startups and walking up and asking them what they need help with, and if it's nothing I can currently help with then what skills I can install to make myself useful. I'm doing the "build up a portfolio, then apply" approach also, but that's slow-going. More importantly: the fact that thinking about talking to the kind of people I want to work with sends me into a terror-and-shame spiral is a reason to start trying to do it now instead of later. This is something that will happen every other day when I move down into Salt Lake, more weekly for now.
• Programming projects include: a text-adventure game, a personal ramblings website with JS/JQuery navigation, and aforementioned emotional monitoring. I'll be poking people for feedback about them. I got my dad to burn an Ubuntu disk, because Windows won't let me program anything interesting.
• Getting rid of unnecessary stuff mostly got done while I was writing my plan. I did a couple of yard sales and swap meets, next up is secondhand stores.
• Networking is also happening. Weekly lunch dates with co-workers, short after-shift reviews, and weekly goal setting. My temp job is not terribly important, but the habits are; I want to seek out people instead of avoiding them.

Established a useful new habit

I really started to do active listening. On the earlier times I tried to improve my listening it didn't really take off (after reading von Thun and Rosenberg). Now after reading ‎Olivia Fox Cabanes The Charisma Myth I do make probably. Probably due a combination of insights, good examples and a chance to practice.

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

Due to the very promising new LW thread I updated my belief on a small point.

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

After my wife and I split up I still clung to some joint events with her and the children (brithdays...) which she wanted to separate further. During a family therapy session this I became clearly aware of this which increased my feelings of loss but also allowed to find a satisfactory solution. My fear was that the separation would increase unbounded at the cost for the children and at a loss of control on my side. But the fear was unfounded.

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

Read Athol Kay's MAP and half through The Charisma Myth. The first could have made a difference earlier (but will likely do the next time. The second shows results already.

Tried doing any of the above and failed

I strongly consider taking some risk where I may fail. I'm strongly risk-averse and would normally go down the easier path. But this job opportunity has clear chances and the risks aren't that bad after all.

I've sort of internalized the idea that everything is, at least in principle, a solvable problem. And more importantly, that this corresponds without conflict to the normal way that I go around being good and human when not operating under the rationalist guise.

I'd say rationalism often takes this in-principle role in my thinking, providing a meta-level solution to extremely hard problems that my brain is already trying to solve by non-rationalist means. In the example set by the recent months in my life, I've had an extremely hard time reconciling my knowledge that I'm the one to blame for all of my problems, with the idea that I shouldn't feel guilty for not being perfect at solving all of my problems. This is a very human question that's filled to the brim with mental pitfalls, but I've been able to make a little progress by recognizing that, by definition and method, instrumental rationality is actually equivalent to making myself good and awesome, whether or not the on-paper rationalist method is the one my brain is using most of the time. I'm better capable of realizing that the human inability to be theoretically optimal is subsumed by human rationality, that the only optimal that exists is the kind that is actual, and that all that is left to do is take the infinite stream of possible self-improvements you can think of and start checking them off the list.

And so, when faced with something that seems next to impossible to solve (e.g. finding somebody to love ) there's no reason to blame the world, myself, or my proclivity to blame the world or myself. There's only the chance to do the most possible fun thing, which is to enjoy the journey of being myself, where myself is defined as someone who ceaselessly self-improves, even when that means putting less pressure on myself to improve on the object level.

For a while the "weirdness" of Less Wrong made me want to shy away from really engaging with the people here, but I'd love for that to change. If everything is a solvable problem, and we only want to solve things that are problems, then either Less Wrong is just fine (and I can improve my perception), or it is sort of actually weird but can be improved. And I wouldn't mind contributing wherever this is possible.