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Brillyant comments on Abuse of Productivity Systems - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (57)
Your answers seem definitive, but I see no reason to accept them as any more than a guess about how certain aspects of human motivation should be modeled.
I've been working on some motivation/productivity systems for myself for a couple years and, after some very significant initial success, have encountered some hiccups. I'm interested in figuring out new useful ways to proceed.
I'm skeptical of some of the "sounds good and/or science-y enough but doesn't actually work" stuff on LW. I was interested in knowing why you think Bob and Sally are wrong in the ways you think they are wrong, and why they ought to proceed in the way you say they ought.
This, for instance, seems too simple:
In my experience, there is a synergistic aspect to using certain time-management tools in order to create generalized motivation. That is, experiencing efficient productivity in something, whether or not it is terribly useful in it's own right, helps to create a motivational energy that can be used toward very useful means.
And in the OP, I see no reason Bob's technique of using ANKI to learn additional languages necessarily could not work if he could find a hack for increased motivation. Yes, his desire to move to France was the original motivation that drove his success in learning French, and now that is missing. But that's where the game begins.
The really interesting question here, I think, is how to create the "artificial" motivation to learn additional languages if you decide that is a thing you want to have achieved. After all, it's not terribly impressive to become motivated do a thing you need or desire to do. The real task is to find ways to do the things that would benefit you even if you don't have a desire for them at the present time.
There's no point in arguing about this, but let me just say that they didn't seem that way to me.
In the continuation of that thread, I point out that:
I don't think many people would miss this connection. But first, it was useful to split our mental buckets and define what concepts we are talking about, before talking about complicated synergies that occur between concepts.
In any case, you raise other interesting points, so let's move on to this:
OK.
So now I'll try to give you a fun tool, that I personally find useful.
Please try it out and tell me what you think.
It is called the "find motivation" game.
It goes like this:
Choose something you are not motivated to do (but would like to see it done somehow).
Realize that for you to identify something you would like to see done, even though you have no motivation to do it, already requires you to have motivation on some level. Otherwise, you would never have raised this issue in step 1.
Trace back until you find that motivation.
Repeat the game until you run out of things to choose in step 1.
While this does not guarantee that you have enough motivation, it at least guarantees you have some.
In other words, I don't believe you can call any of your motivation "artificial" and be self-consistent.
should edit 1 to read:
On your "game": Meh.
In the example, Bob fails because he hasn't sufficient motivation to learn other languages. This is tied to the fact he is confusing motivation with productivity methods. Okay.
He still has some motivation. Just not enough. And that's the problem that needs solving. Zero versus tiny motivation. Meh. Okay. Yon win.
In the real world, we are aware certain pursuits would be good for us, but we don't do them. You could say there is the small seed of motivation that exists evidenced by the fact that we recognize we want to want to do these things, but the problems of actually making accomplishments still exists. Bob still fails despite having ostensibly good productivity methods in place.
Anyway, I'm tapping on this. I think this is basically a thread where no one has established good definitions of any of the key words being discussed. I don't see any reason to believe the ideas here are novel or practically useful.
A particulary example; I will call "activation energy" where it's difficult to have motivation to start a task but once you have started the task you can continue fine.
Activation energy type problems can be solved by time-management or the more general "organisation" class of solution. Specifically; if you can organise a lower activation energy to the task; you can motivate yourself to do it.
Then you can reduce the activation energy to starting the task; Thus solving a motivation problem with organisation. But again; I agree with SquirrelInHell that these are usually different problems (with synergy).
(I also see that you tapped out so you don't need to reply if you don't want to)
I think there is a physiological component to this in addition to motivation.