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kpreid comments on Group rationality diary, May 5th - 23rd - Less Wrong Discussion
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I've decided to work on getting rid of a trivial useless habit: pushing pedestrian crossing buttons more than once.
Now, there's an argument that it's not completely worthless to do so: the typical button has no feedback whatsoever that it's recognized my push, so if it is at all unreliable then an extra push reduces the chances of a complete extra cycle wait at little cost to me since I have nothing else to do.
But the failure case has never actually happened in recent history, so I'm spending too much time pushing buttons.
So far I have remembered to push only once out of about ten times (2-3 per day). Of course, I immediately remember this resolution right after pushing twice.
What more useful thing would you be doing with that time, if you weren't wasting it on pushing buttons?
Good question.
I could spend it looking at other parts of the world around me, something I don't do as much of as I ought. I could spend it thinking about whatever I was thinking about before that moment. (Of course, it's possible to do these things while still pushing the button, but as we know human brains aren't perfect multitaskers.)
(The cost is also not just in time: it also wears out the button and my hands a tiny bit more than necessary.)
Decision fatigue is a thing, ao this is likely a net loss. If yiu enjoy this sort pf thing, you may still want to do it, but I do not think it will make you more formidable.