Original post: http://bearlamp.com.au/the-barriers-to-the-task/

For about two months now I have been putting in effort to run in the mornings.  To make this happen, I had to take away all the barriers to me wanting to do that.  There were plenty of them, and I failed to leave my house plenty of times.  Some examples are:

Making sure I don't need correct clothes - I leave my house shirtless and barefoot, and grab my key on the way out.  

Pre-commitment to run - I take my shirt off when getting into bed the night before, so I don't even have to consider the action in the morning when I roll out of bed.

Being busy in the morning - I no longer plan any appointments before 11am.  Depending on the sunrise (I don't use alarms), I wake up in the morning, spend some time reading things, then roll out of bed to go to the toilet and leave my house.  In Sydney we just passed the depths of winter and it's beginning to get light earlier and earlier in the morning.  Which is easy now; but was harder when getting up at 7 meant getting up in the dark.  

There were days when I would wake up at 8am, stay in bed until 9am, then realise if I left for a run (which takes around an hour - 10am), then came back to have a shower (which takes 20mins - 10:20), then left to travel to my first meeting (which can take 30mins 10:50).  That means if anything goes wrong I can be late to an 11am appointment.  But also - if I have a 10am meeting I have to skip my run to get there on time.

Going to bed at a reasonable hour - I am still getting used to deciding not to work myself ragged.  I decided to accept that sleep is important, and trust to let my body sleep as long as it needs.  This sometimes also means that I can successfully get bonus time by keeping healthy sleep habits.  But also - if I go to sleep after midnight I might not get up until later, which means I compromise my "time" to go running by shoving it into other habits.

Deciding where to run - google maps, look for local parks, plan a route with the least roads and least traffic.  I did this once and then it was done.  It was also exciting to measure the route and be able to run further and further each day/week/month.

What's in your way?

If you are not doing something that you think is good and right (or healthy, or otherwise desireable) there are likely things in your way.  If you just found out about an action that is good, well and right and there is nothing stopping you from doing it; great.  You are lucky this time - Just.Do.It.

If you are one of the rest of us; who know that:

• daily exercise is good for you
• The right amount of sleep is good for you
• Eating certain foods are better than others
• certain social habits are better than others
• certain hobbies are more fulfilling (to our needs or goals) than others

And you have known this a while but still find yourself not taking the actions you want.  It's time to start asking what is in your way.  You might find it on someone else's list, but you are looking for the needle in the haystack.  

You are much better off doing this (System 2 exercise):

1. take 15 minutes with pencil and paper.
2. At the top write, "I want to ______________".
3. If you know that's true you might not need this step - if you are not sure - write out why it might be true or not true.
   
4. Write down the barriers that are in the way of you doing the thing.  think;
   • "can I do this right now?" (might not always be an action you can take while sitting around thinking about it - i.e. eating different foods)
   • "why can't I just do this at every opportunity that arises?"
   • "how do I increase the frequency of opportunities?"
5. Write out the things you are doing instead of that thing.
   These things are the barriers in your way as well.
6. For each point - consider what you are going to do about them.

Questions:

• What actions have you tried to take on?
• What barriers have you encountered in doing so?
• How did you solve that barrier?
• What are you struggling with taking on in the future?

Meta: this borrows from the Immunity to Change process, that can be best read about in the book, "right weight, right mind".  It also borrows from CFAR style techniques like resolve cycles (also known as focused grit), hamming questions, murphy-jitsu.

Meta: this took one hour to write.

Cross posted to lesswrong: http://lesswrong.com/lw/nuq

Following on from: 

• http://lesswrong.com/lw/m2r/lesswrong_experience_on_alcohol/ and
• http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/m3j/tally_of_lesswrong_experience_on_alcohol/

I would like to ask for other people's experience of flavours.  I am dividing food into significant categories that I can think of.  I don't really like the 5 tastes categories for this task, but I am aware of them.  This post is meant to be about taste preference although it might end up about dietary preferences.

following on from this thread: 

http://lesswrong.com/lw/m14/id_like_advice_from_lw_regarding_migraines/c9kr?context=3

User Algon asked:
I don't drink alcohol, but is it really all that? I just assumed that most people have alcoholic beverages for the 'buzz'/intoxication.

I related my experience:

I have come to the conclusion that I taste things differently to a large subset of the population. I have a very sweet tooth and am very sensitive to bitter flavours.

I don't eat olives, most alcohol only tastes like the alcoholic aftertaste (which apparently some people don't taste) - imagine the strongest burning taste of the purest alcohol you have tasted, some people never taste that, I taste it with nearly every alcoholic beverage. Beer is usually awfully bitter too.

The only wine I could ever bother to drink is desert wine (its very sweet) and only slowly. (or also a half shot of rum and maple syrup)

Having said all this - yes; some people love their alcoholic beverages for their flavours.

-----------

I am wondering what the sensory experience of other LW users is of alcohol.  Do you drink (if not why not?)?  Do you have specific preferences? Do you have a particular pallet for foods (probably relevant)?

I hypothesise a lower proportion of drinkers than the rest of the population.  (subject of course to cultural norms where you come from)

----------

Edit: I will make another post in a week about taste preferences because (as we probably already know) human tastes vary. I did want to mention that I avoid spicy things except for sweet chilli which is not spicy at all.  And I don't drink coffee (because it tastes bad and I am always very awake and never need caffeine to wake me up). I am also quite sure I am a super-taster but wanted to not use that word for concern that the jargon might confuse people who don't yet know about it.

Thanks for all the responses!  This has been really interesting and exactly what I expected (number of posts)!  

In regards to experiences, I would mention that heavy drinking is linked with nearly every health problem you could think of and I am surprised we had a selection of several heavy drinkers (to those who are heavy drinkers I would suggest reading about the health implications and reconsidering the lifestyle, it sounds like most of you are not addicted).  about the heavy drinkers - I suspect that is not representative of average, but rather the people who feel they are outliers decided to mention their cases (of people who did not reply; there are probably none or very few heavy drinkers, whereas there are probably some who did not reply and are light drinkers or did not reply and don't drink).

I hope to reply to a bunch of the comments and should get to it in the next few days.

Thank you again!  Maybe this should be included on the next survey...

Edit 2: follow up post -http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/m3j/tally_of_lesswrong_experience_on_alcohol/

A look at all natural foods through the lenses of Bayesianism, optimisation, and friendly utility functions.

How should we consider foods that claim to be "all natural"? Or, since that claim is a cheap signal, foods that have few ingredients, all of them easy to recognise and all "natural"? Or "GM free"?

From the logical point of view, the case is clear: valuing these foods is nothing more that the appeal to nature fallacy. Natural products include many pernicious things (such as tobacco, hemlock, belladonna, countless parasites, etc...). And the difference between natural and not-natural isn't obvious: synthetic vitamin C is identical to the "natural" molecule, and gene modifications are just advanced forms of selective breeding.

But we're not just logicians, we're Bayesians. So let's make a few prior assumptions:

• There are far more possible products in the universe that are bad to eat than are good.
• Products that humans have been consuming for generations are much more likely to be good to eat that than a random product.

Now let's see the food industry as optimising along a few axis:

1. Cost. This should be low.
2. Immediate consumer satisfaction (including taste, appearance, texture, general well-being for a week or so). This should be high.
3. Long term damage to the consumer's health. This should be low.

A Guardian article on the impact of climate change on food security. This is worrying (albeit perhaps not a global catastrophic (or existential) risk). It has the potential to wipe out the gains made against extreme poverty in the last few decades.

Should we be so pessimistic? Climate change might be averted through government action or a technological fix; or the poorest might get rich enough to be protected from this insecurity; or we could see a second 'Green Revolution' with GM, etc. I've also seen some discussion that climate change could in fact increase food cultivation - in Russia and Canada for example.

How do people feel about this - optimistic or pessimistic?