Group Rationality Diary, March 1-21

gjm

This is the public group rationality diary for March 1-21, 2015. It seems to be traditional to put a jokily defensive remark about downvoting here, but let's try omitting it and see what happens. Usually these are for 2-week periods, but as I write this it's already the 6th so I've extended it one week; but I recommend that the next be for 2 weeks again, March 22 to April 4. Here's the usual explanation:

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: February 15-28

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group rationality diary for March 1-21, 2015. It seems to be traditional to put a jokily defensive remark about downvoting here, but let's try omitting it and see what happens. Usually these are for 2-week periods, but as I write this it's already the 6th so I've extended it one week; but I recommend that the next be for 2 weeks again, March 22 to April 4. Here's the usual explanation:

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: February 15-28

Rationality diaries archive

My sleep tends to be delayed and irregular. I put my alarm clock in a locked box. In the morning, it takes ~45 seconds to get out of bed, walk across the room, and open the combination lock. Since doing so, my waking time has greatly smoothed.

I've always been sort of jealous of people for whom this sort of solution works. When my brother was still in high school, I woke up to drive him to school every morning, then went back to sleep when I got home. I'm better about it now than I was then, but still not enough for this sort of thing to work. I keep my alarm clock on the other side of the room and I never even remember walking over there to turn it off.