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[LINK] How A Lamp Took Away My Reading And A Box Brought It Back

9 Post author: CronoDAS 30 January 2016 04:55PM

By Ferrett Steinmetz

Ferrett isn't officially a Rationality Blogger, but he posts things that seem relevant fairly often. This one is in the spirit of "Beware Trivial Inconveniences". It's the story of how he realized that a small change in his environment led to a big change in his behavior...

Comments (4)

Comment author: Houshalter 01 February 2016 04:27:23PM 3 points [-]

He's posting this right after he got a new kindle. Of course if you buy a fancy new device you are going to use it more at first. Let's see if, a year later, he continues reading in bed, or goes back to his phone.

I know that sounds overly cynical, but I have made minor changes to my life that made big improvements. And I wanted to post about them going "hey guys this one weird trick totally changed my life!" And then a week later I was back to my old habits. The enthusiasm around the new idea turned out to be more important than the change itself.

Comment author: LessWrong 31 January 2016 09:20:53AM 2 points [-]
Comment author: Elo 30 January 2016 08:54:29PM 2 points [-]

Ferrett is great. Highly reccommend for both his fiction and his blogging.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 30 January 2016 07:46:59PM *  7 points [-]

Interestingly, Brienne just posted a rather similar story, though for her the environment's effect on her behavior is much more immediately obvious than in Ferrett's case.