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Tools I use to help achieve #1: LeechBlock (Firefox) or Chrome Nanny (Chrome).
Tool I use to help achieve #2: Beeminder.
Tools I use to help achieve #3: Focus@Will and Coffitivity.
In response to
Time-logging programs and/or spreadsheets
I often hear rationalists seeking out things like this, but I've yet to hear any of them outright assert or even imply that this is a useful thing to do. I myself have thought about such things before, and my answer has been that I switch tabs and contexts too rapidly to accurately measure these things. In order to get anywhere near effective measurements, I'd need interfaces magnitude orders more pluggable than existing software implementations allow. (Firefox, for example does not value programmability or pluggability, but rather extensibility.) Despite the usefulness of such projects, they will take considerable effort, and I've simply not been able to motivate myself to bother simply for the sake of tracking time spent. I won't argue it doesn't have any benefits, even known benefits, but I have yet to see any kind of evidence that it is legitimately useful. Perhaps the evidence is not found in the places I've expected it to be thus far.
If anyone can justify the benefits or give me tangible evidence of any such thing, I would appreciate it.
I track my time using RescueTime. The value to me is improving my calibration with respect to how well I feel I'm working, as compared to my actual RescueTime hours. Sometimes I think "Wow, I really worked a lot today" when in fact I didn't get many hours in, and I'd rather have my intuition match the metrics. I don't have a special justification/goal beyond that but I'm hoping something useful pops out.
I suspect that this is an instance of low cost, low median outcomes, but with high upside -- it's unlikely you'll find something that makes a difference, but the cost isn't very high, and there's always a chance that, without putting numbers on it, you are missing some productivity intervention which would make a big difference to you. For example, perhaps you think poorly when you're sleep deprived, but you don't know it, but tracking productivity would let you know that's happening.
At the NY Quantified Self meetup a few weeks ago, somebody reported tracking her post-concussion symptoms and discovered that, in fact, she wasn't suffering from a concussion at all -- it was a very different condition which required separate treatment.
This list is pretty basic, and the tips work: I would expect most people interested in productivity (a lot of people on this site) to scan the list and nod their head to each one -- "yep I know that".
So if you read this and are surprised at any point, or think "I'm not sure if I do that" then you should pay attention, because there's low hanging fruit to be picked in productivity.
Interestingly, the blog author misses a big one, which is captured in the Charlie Munger quote: self-improvement has big returns, and you should spend a substantial amount of time on it.
I'll also paraphrase the five items: know what times of day are your most productive times; get the right amount of sleep; find ways to reduce distractions and external noise; take advantage of your setting (at my desk, in bed) as a cue; and work on things you're passionate about.
[LINK] How to increase conscientiousness
I wrote an interactive blog post, How To Increase Conscientiousness, which has some steps which I think might increase your conscientiousness. I'm not sure if it works, but I would love to see some curious low-conscientiousness people try it and post your results here.
If you do it, please do it before reading the comments on this post, as they may contain spoilers.
If you are feeling especially helpful, also take a Big Five personality test like this one and report your percentile result on Conscientiousness.
In response to
Help us name a short primer on AI risk!
These suggestions lean towards sensationalism:
- Losing the Future: The Potential of AI
- The Power of Intelligence: an overview of AI Risk
- Smarter than Us: an overview of AI Risk
- The Fragile Future: an overview of AI Risk
- An introduction to superhuman intelligence and the risks it poses
Along the lines of "Fragile Future" - I like alliteration:
- The Common Cause: how artificial intelligence will save the world -- or destroy it. (neat double meaning, maybe a bit too abstracted)
- The Digital Demon (uhm... a bit too personified)
- The Silicon Satan (okay, this is getting ridiculous)
Honestly I really like Fragile Future though.
In response to
Winter Solstice 2013 Kickstarter - The Big One.
Ray, you are awesome and this stuff is awesome also. Pledged.
For others: if you want to know if you'll enjoy the stuff Ray produces, I would say if you enjoy the "humanism" arc of HPMOR (http://hpmor.com/chapter/45) you will certainly enjoy this. For some reason that chapter, and Ray's work, both resonate very strongly emotionally with me.
In response to
What's Your Hourly Rate?
Oh hello, this is mine. Thanks for submitting it.
Very inspirational! Do you have any resources in particular that helped you learn to cook?
I would recommend the book Ruhlman's Twenty (http://www.amazon.com/Ruhlmans-Twenty-Techniques-Recipes-Manifesto/dp/0811876438). It's not a cookbook, though it has recipes -- it's a thorough overview on the purpose of twenty basic ingredients in cooking (water, eggs, butter, salt, etc.).
In response to
comment
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on
What should a college student do to maximize future earnings for effective altruism?
I did notice the "venture-funded" clause. I mention it at the end of my comment. Perhaps I should have specified at the beginning.
I'd be interested to know how many startups get VC funding. Of course, at that point, you have to decide what qualifies as a startup. If a couple of guys make a website in their spare time and never seriously work on it, does that count as a startup?
In response to
comment
by
on
What should a college student do to maximize future earnings for effective altruism?
I'd call it a startup when you work fulltime on it, and it's designed for fast growth (as in Paul Graham's "Startup = Growth" essay, http://paulgraham.com/growth.html)
Venture funded is a big barrier, and filters a lot of startups. But it mostly filters them by personality type. I expect that most smart, extremely resourceful, good work ethic people could get venture funding if they wanted it. These attributes are what Y Combinator filters for. But the real correlate with success (and therefore money-making) is finding product/market fit. I think that's a lot harder than getting venture funding, and a lot more important.
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Setup a system to reward myself for checking things off a to-do list. It has caused me to actually maintain the to-do list accurately (it's been nearly a week now - most to-do list things I've tried have only lasted a couple of days).
It works by using a Google Spreadsheet script to (with 50% probability) send me a text message saying "go get a candy" whenever I mark an X in a certain column in the spreadsheet. I actually do go get these candies immediately when I get this text message.