Review of our LessWrong Hamburg First Meetup:

I arrived early and the location was somewhat crowded and the reserved table in the back had been replaced by a center table - but I managed to switch for a better one.

Then I put up some books and a sign and was quickly greated by the first LWer.

We started with smalltalk, finding common background quickly. 

I had brought some books from the LW reading list I had in my collection and surprise: Half of them were recognized and the remaining quickly started a discussion (the Kahneman I later lent to C.F.).

Some friends trickled in and after some introduction we played Wits and Wagers and then Pandemic (without biasing because the game was new to most).  

Summary: The Meetup was a success for me. We introduced some friends to LW ideas and we enjoyed a lively discussion not without controversy. I adapted to the Meetup format easily.    

One idea I had was a Meetup Diary which I used to plan the Meetup and take notes in. I think it still beats digital for things like quick notes and diagrams. I had it handy to check our schedule, draw Bayes diagrams and write down a telephone number. I plan to have it around and maybe lend it to later Meetup organizers.

Outlook for the next Meetup: We planned it for Friday 21th in company offices somewhere in Hamburg, Altona (thanks to F.R. who will confirm the location later with a separate Post).

Topics will be then

• Procrastination (I committed to read up and present some techniques in exchange for C.F. committing to use beeminder).
• More discussion of LW topics, most likely: effective altruism
• I will bring books and games again.

More Meetups will likely follow roughly every fourtnight and alternating Friday and weekends.

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of January 7th. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for Christmas week. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of December 10th. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of November 27th. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of October 29th. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of October 29th. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of October 15th. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of October 1st. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of September 17th. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of September 3rd. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of August 20th. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of August 6th. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of July 23rd. 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 everyone who contributes!

Last week's diary; archive of prior diaries.

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of July 9th. 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 everyone who contributes!

Academian put up a wiki page with links to the prior May and June threads for reference.  Good idea, thanks!

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of June 25th. (Based on the rate of participation in prior threads, I thought it might be a good idea to start posting every other week instead of every week.  Only so much new stuff happens in a week.) 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 everyone who contributes!

(Previously: 5/14/12, 5/21/12, 5/28/12, 6/4/12, 6/11/12)

^{(Warning: Intermittent gooey personal details inside)}

I'm surprised I haven't seen this topic brought up before, but I haven't, and cursory searches of "diary" and "journal" came up with nothing, albeit largely because the latter got a bunch of hits for scientific journals. But I digress. I have recently started a journal. So recently, in fact, that there are only two entries. There were a number of motivating factors that went into this decision, which correlate rather directly with the number of goals I have for this project.

First, I think it will help me be less stressed. I estimate that at least 60% of my stress is due to the fact that I refuse to even think about the things I need to do until I actually start on them. Because I haven't actually thought through what I need to do, I often feel swamped and very stressed, even when I have comparatively little that needs done. When I actually start working on it, I realize that I don't have as much as I thought, and worried for nothing. One of the things I want to do in this (and haven't in my first two entries, very well) is briefly mention things I know I am procrastinating on. I haven't done this yet, because I forgot for the first two entries, but I intend to have a section of "What am I procrastinating on" for every entry.

Speaking of which: Secondly, I want to stop procrastinating so much. Stopping to actually think about what I need to do will naturally make me more productive. I've noticed that whenever I actually start thinking about things I need to do, I start doing it immediately. I also want to have a section "Productive things I've done today". This will give me some kind of incentive system to actually be productive, since I won't want to acknowledge when I haven't done anything I didn't have to.

Third, I have a terrible memory for things that don't matter that much. I don't know if this will help that or not, but at least I'll have some record of what I've done. And it only stands to reason that reviewing one's activities in a day would help one remember them. I first got an idea of this when I made this comment. I doubt this would specifically address that problem, but at least I would have a record of something.

Fourth, I want data on what makes me happy. Part of what I'm doing is keeping a companion Excel file to my OneNote folder. For each entry, I assess my emotional levels on a scale of 0-100, with 50 designed to be what I perceive an average day to be like. Emotional levels I'm currently using are: Happiness, Stress, Motivation, Energy, Relationship Satisfaction, and an arbitrary category called "Winningness". I'm sure everyone on LW understands what I mean. :-) I also record about how much time I spent doing various things that day. Under the productive category, I have going to class, homework/studying, Extracurricular Activities, Work, and a total category. Under the social category, I have time spent with my girlfriend, and time spent with general friends, and another total category. Under recreation, I record time spent watching Television, reading, and playing various games I enjoy, as well as a total category. Lastly, I'm recording miscellaneous things:

• Sleep the previous night (hours)
• Current length of To-Do list
• Tasks added to To-Do
• Items checked off the To-Do
• Day of the Week
• Where I am that day (Rather, where I'm sleeping that night)
• How much I've eaten that day (Again on a scale of 0-100, 50 average)
  • This is somewhat of a problem for me, I don't really eat as much as I should. I considered recording specific foods, but that seems like it would get out of hand very quickly, even though it makes a lot of sense, neurologically, that the type of food I would eat would be correlated with happiness levels. It feels wrong not recording the difference in the gooey butter cake that I ate for breakfast this morning (It was fast, and I needed to study, don't judge me!) and a bowl of oatmeal. I'd also like a better scale, like an exact caloric count, but that would really take too much effort.
• How much I've exercised that day (Same scale)

I will probably post again on this topic once I actually have some form of history doing it, including evaluations of the practice, recommendations, things I would change etc. But right now, I would like advice from you all. What am I missing that I should be doing? Does anyone Journal? Is it as involved in this? Has anyone tried and failed? I would particularly like advice on things I might include in the Excel file.