Pillage then burn!

More seriously, the things you don't want to do right now are probably the things that you should be doing. Works for me.

I'm in the military and have strict standards of appearance with regards to hair, uniform, etc. I've spent most of my life believing that spending any time at all on your appearance is a waste of time, as it has no effect on your ability to get stuff done. I've played along with Army regs because that's the rules, but I half-assed it a lot, because I really didn't see the point.

Then I realized (after thinking about it for 2,000 miles of driving) that "society expects it" is actually a really good reason for doing something. A lot of social norms seem stupid and contrived, and I still kind of resent doing stupid things just because everyone else does it, but there are benefits to not being an arrogant prick who's always fighting the standard.

Now I'm going to go spend 10 minutes preparing my uniform, and I don't feel bitter about it at all.

Also, I got tired of packing everything up and then not being able to find anything for a couple weeks. So I wrote down where I packed everything. Why did it take me an entire year to think of that?

Welcome to LessWrong!

If you get to either the main or the discussion page by clicking on either button, you should see a smaller row of buttons immediately beneath the two big buttons ("Main" and "Discussion"). One of them should read "Saved"; if you click on that, you'll see all of the posts you've saved.

Found HPMOR, changed my life, etc. Been reading for a couple years, and I figure it's finally time to start actually doing something. Not an academic at all. I'm in the Army and spend my free time with creative writing, but I understand most of the material, and I am capable of applying it.

I have a question that's not in the FAQ. I recently read The Social Coprocessor Model. I want to reread it again in the future without keeping a tab permanently open. There is a save button near the bottom, and I clicked it. How exactly does this work? I can't figure out how to access the post from the main page. I suppose I could always keep a document with my favorite links or clutter up my browser's favorites, but it seems stupid if there's already a system in place here.

I remember enjoying the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander when I was at that reading level. It's a lot like Lord of the Rings for children. A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfeld.

Learning how to practice. I'm going through some rather rigorous hands-on training where more than half of the students end up failing out. It distresses me to see everyone wasting a full hour running an entire problem when the particular action they actually need help on takes 10 minutes, tops. Practicing efficiently is one of the best things my father taught me. Graduate+ level musicians are bound to have great tips for this. Of course, effective studying is in many ways similar, but it seems more intuitive. That is, no one could possibly be stupid enough to study for a literature exam by sitting down reading the book cover to cover several times.