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[Link] US tech giants found Partnership on AI to Benefit People and Society to ensure AI is developed safely and ethically

4 Gunnar_Zarncke 29 September 2016 08:39PM

Time management and Do your tasks in a different order

-6 Elo 16 August 2016 11:15PM

Original post: http://bearlamp.com.au/time-management-and-do-your-tasks-in-a-different-order/


I have been trying out some (new for me) time management techniques.  Various people tell me that they do this naturally, but I had to learn it manually.

This one involves:

  1. noticing that you don't really know what you are doing right now.
  2. looking up when and where is the next fixed appointment.
  3. Calculating how long between now and then.
  4. Working out what you want to do before the appointment.
  5. Counting down the rest of the time and work out how much spare time you have.

In a worked example:

  1. It's 8am and I don't really know what I have to do next.
  2. I have a meeting at 12am.
  3. that's 4 hours away
  4. Before that meeting I want to:
    • check facebook
    • check my emails
    • Have breakfast
    • write a post
    • travel to the appointment
    • Shower and dress for the appointment
  5. In time calculations that is:
    • check facebook - unknown
    • check my emails - I could spend 30mins on it.
    • Have breakfast - 15mins
    • write a post - 2 hours
    • Shower and dress for the appointment - 20mins
    • travel to the appointment - 20mins

Total: 3hrs 25mins + facebook time.


In this example; if my facebook time takes 35mins I have literally no wiggle room on my estimates.  But more importantly - if I do my facebook time first - and then fail to stop at 35mins, it means that I will either be running late for the rest of the day OR I will have to cut something short.  The old me would probably cut the last task in the list short.  Which might mean running late to the appointment, and it might mean not finishing writing a post on that day, and leaving it as a draft.

Recently I have been trying out a new factor on this system.  To change the order of the tasks.  Some tasks have fixed lengths in time.  Some tasks are more flexible.  For example, the amount of time it takes to shower and get ready is relatively fixed in time.  However the amount of time it takes to write a post can vary extensively.

With this in mind, I will change the order of the tasks.  Where I used to have a shower last, just as I am rushing out - so that I am fresh clean and ready for a meeting (a great idea if I do say so myself). I will now do something like this:

  • Shower and dress for the appointment - 20mins
  • write a post - 2 hours
  • check my emails - I could spend 30mins on it.
  • Have breakfast - 15mins
  • Shower and dress for the appointment - 20mins
  • travel to the appointment - 20mins
  • check facebook - unknown

Or even:

  • Shower and dress for the appointment - 20mins
  • write a post - 2 hours
  • Have breakfast - 15mins
  • Shower and dress for the appointment - 20mins
  • travel to the appointment - 20mins
  • check my emails - I could spend 30mins on it.
  • check facebook - unknown

Do the fixed tasks all in a row and then do the flexible tasks last.  This means I might have got to my appointment 65 minutes early in the 2nd order, or 35 minutes early in order 1, and worked there on the FB or email.

This also means that if any task has to get cut, truncated or shortened due to a failure of myself to account for time, or some blip happening, like traffic, difficulty finding parking, a blog post taking longer to write or any number of other possibilities - The least important task (of checking facebook) gets cut.  Not one of the more important ones.

Today is not a day to work on cutting down or cutting out of facebook, or sending strategic emails that reduce my email workload.  Today is just a day to do things in a different order.  See how that goes, and make incremental progress on the problem.


Meta: this took 21 minutes to write and I am nearly running late to my next appointment.

Cross posted to lesswrong: 

LessWrong in Brisbane, Australia

5 TRManderson 04 September 2014 05:20AM

At present, the LessWrong presence in Brisbane is essentially non-existent. We have Brisbane Skeptics in the Pub, and that's the closest you can get. During the most recent Australia-wide LessWrong hangout, Nick Wolf of Melbourne and Eliot Redelman of Sydney persuaded me to create a Facebook group for LessWrong in Brisbane. This post is solely to announce that.

The group can be found here.

Ideally a meetup will occur once more than the small handful currently on the group have joined.

LW Study Group Facebook Page

16 Benito 08 April 2013 09:15PM

Update: There is now an online sign up to groups with workflowy, based on subject and current ability. You do not have to be signed up to Facebook to join a group, but do add an email address so that the group can contact you:  https://workflowy.com/shared/cf1fd9ca-885f-c1b9-c2e8-e3a315f70138/

 

The recent Main article, searching for interest in LWers studying maths together, had many comments showing enthusiasm, but nothing really happened.

On an aside, I think that on LessWrong, we tend not to work together all that well. The wiki isn't kept bright and shiny, and most of the ideas we search for are in loose blog posts that often take a while to find. However, I think having a single place in which to work together on a specific topic, might encourage effect groups. Especially if it's in a place that you get fairly regular reminders from.

So, here's a Less Wrong Study Group Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/131607983690959/

Rixie suggested that we could split into smaller groups, based on age. I was thinking perhaps ability. Maybe even a group leader. However, before sitting and pondering this for eternity (just until we have a perfect structure), perhaps we should 'just try it'.

So, who exactly do I think should join the group?

Well, if you're interested in learning maths, and think that being surrounded by LWers might enhance your learning, this group is intended for you. If you're interested in learning maths, but you think that reading a textbook on your own is daunting, or you've tried and had difficulty previously, then this group is intended for you.

Also, if you're interested in learning other LessWrongy subjects (perhaps some cognitive science, or more economics-y stuffs) then this group could do that. If ten people join who want a basic idea economics, then they can work together. This isn't specificly maths, it's whatever we make it.

Personally, when I read a textbook, there's often a paragraph describing a key idea, and the author's words fly right over my head. I've often thought the best thing for me, would to have someone else who I could talk through that bit with. Maybe he or she would see it easily. Maybe I'd see something they wouldn't get.

I also wouldn't worry about level of prior knowledge. Mainly, because mine is zilch :)

So, what are you waiting for?

(No seriously. Just try it.)

 

Edit: It is true that anonymity is difficult to preserve on Facebook. I am entirely unfamiliar with google, and I certainly would have to make that regular effort to check it there too. If you do wish to join but have issues with public knowledge, please PM me, and I'll keep in contact with you through email (or other if you prefer). I will discuss with you there how to best take part in a study group.

Idle speculation about anchoring and the Facebook IPO

-1 RolfAndreassen 15 August 2012 01:00AM

Facebook IPO'd at a price of 38 dollars a share, which apparently gave it a price-to-earnings ratio in the range of 100 - extremely, fantastically high. The price dropped pretty rapidly and is currently somewhere around 20 dollars; which still, presumably, gives it a very high P/E ratio somewhere in the forties. Now, suppose it had IPO'd at a more historically-reasonable P/E of, say, 20 - still high, but not stratospheric. That would put the initial share price somewhere around 10 or 12 dollars. Is there any strong reason to believe that the price would then have *risen* to where it is now? It is not obvious to me that the current price is supported by anything but the historical price - in other words, it's trading around 20 because it has recently traded around 25. 

My point: I can't help but wonder if someone connected to the IPO had read Kahneman on anchoring. Somebody, clearly, was buying the stock at 33, just as someone is still buying at 20; I wonder if the chain of thought had that apparently-arbitrary number "38" in it somewhere, making 33 look cheap - fundamentals be damned! And if this happened, who benefited, and what ought we to conclude about the efficiency of markets? 

The Trickle-Down Effect of Good Communities

11 lukeprog 08 January 2011 03:58PM

We don't know who came up with the ancient Indian idea of karma or why they did so, but one of its social functions is to motivate people to behave better. If people really believe that they will suffer for their evil actions and prosper for their good actions due to a law of nature, this probably motivates them to do more good and less evil.

Less Wrong, of course, has a karma system. You gain karma points if you write something that people value, and you lose karma points if you write something that people think is inappropriate. At low levels, gaining karma points gives you new posting privileges. At high levels, karma points indicate something like your status in the community.

Recently I noticed that I post better comments on Less Wrong than I usually do on my own site. I think this is partly due to Less Wrong's karma system. When I draft a comment or a post for Less Wrong, I'm more likely to (1) talk to others charitably and with respect and (2) go out of my way to provide useful links and context than I when I draft a comment for my own site!

And now I find myself motivated to bring a stronger emphasis on those qualities to the writing on my own site. So the Less Wrong karma system is having a trickle-down effect into other areas of my life.

Which got me thinking... it might be helpful to have a karma system in "real life," beyond the pages of Less Wrong (or reddit). Maybe something like Facebook karma. People could anonymously add and subtract points on people's Facebook profiles according to whether or not that person acted like a douche in daily life. This could be done by a smartphone app, and plugged into Facebook via an opt-in Facebook app that users could voluntarily choose to add to their profiles.