Hello everyone! This is Valentine.

I spent my first day back from minicamp... sleeping! And spending time with my wonderful wife. I was optimizing for recovery there after getting a total of something like 12 hours of sleep over the weekend. Totally worth it for all those amazing conversations and connections, though!

But after that, starting this morning I used a number of Critch's techniques to help deal with some aversions and emotional distaste surrounding writing my dissertation. I've been using the trick Anna & Critch told me independently (I think!) of rewarding the noticing of something that I want to change; that was the one key piece of habit-changing that I had totally missed.

I noticed rather quickly that there's always a sufficiently meta-level that can be modified in order to deal with the difficulty at hand. For instance, this morning when it came time to start working on my dissertation, I noticed some disquiet inside about that. It wasn't immediately obvious that I could just make myself want to write. But I wanted to want to write, and I could use the why behind that in near-mode to create a slight increase in my wanting to write - which I immediately rewarded. And then that snowballed.

I found I had to add an odd loop I hadn't initially expected: I had to (a) reward noticing feelings of guilt or anxiety associated with the writing and (b) reward any small improvements from a CBT blow against the distorted thinking underlying the feelings. I've known CBT to work pretty well in the past, but adding this bit with conditioning via rewarding small improvements made it much more rapid to turn into relatively automatic habit.

I also spent a good chunk of time journaling the whole weekend since that's what I've found to be effective for reinforcing episodic memory.

Much of this happened via the Pomodoro technique. I've used it before, but I weaved conditioning stuff into it (rewarding myself for starting one & rewarding myself for having completed one, and rewarding noticing a desire to do something distracting and also for returning attention to the task at hand).

Hello, fellow minicampers, this is Ethan! Hello to everyone else too :)

Monday night a few of us went blues dancing, and rather than being all awkward like I've done in the past, I used Critch's smile association method and ended up really enjoying myself!

And I spent the 14-16 hour drive from San Francisco back to Tucson with excellent posture (based on Luke and Cat's recommendation that it made me look fantastic), smiling and thinking something like "Yeah, I'm a badass," every time I thought of my posture to make a positive association with posture and with self-modification.

Just started using remember the milk, and I made a list of priorities / medium and short term goals using freemind.

Hey I'm Zach, So today, using Critich's idea for associative memory. I went to the cupboard 5 times pulled out my phone and did a little dance. This is to help get me in the habit of calorie counting.

Oh and i told a few people about this but i'll share this too. I have always hated fashion with a passion (i did not mean the rhyme). I found out what i actually hate is "mainstream fashion." For those at the fashion session watching luke's part of the presentation left me with a "well crap i have to look like that in order to be "fashionable" " feeling, it was a dreadful feeling. Reflecting on it and talking to Rick more i found out that i actually like more around what Colin was wearing.

got a degree in psychology and a couple credits short of a minor in philosophy. I had a poor gpa due mostly to the fact that i started as a computer engineer and have some learning disabilities that i didn't realize then. I want to be able do something with my psych degree such as go to grad school to do research in psych but have no idea if i can make it. Also, currently i am a cashier who is looking for a tech job (i have an associates in information technology and 6 years of part time experience) but i can't seem to get one. Any help would be appreciated, I could use help both in figuring out what i want to do, how to conduct a job search and many other things.

I believe that a partnership (moreso than a mentor-mentee relationship) would be efficient in reducing my own akrasia. Is this what you mean by an anti-akrasia partner? If so, insies.

I'd totally like to help people!

For reference, I ran a robotics team, got into Harvard, am taking a gap year, and am currently being paid to do things that I find interesting.

I'd also like to reduce x-risk and encourage a friendly singularity, and my current plan is to create a rationalist community capable of developing and empirically testing other rationality moves like kicking. I don't think that I have the skills necessary to achieve that yet, but I'm optimistic about my ability to acquire them.

I love this plan, and would be excited to participate, both as mentor and mentee. I would even be happy to hear advice from people younger than myself. I am a software developer, machine learning researcher, and philosopher of science living in Cambridge (I often go to the meetups there).

consider it an experiment in tapping Less Wrong's social capital in a novel fashion.

This is a good idea. We should be doing more to help each other win.

Interesting and important question, although I tend to agree with AlexSchell that the claim made about taking eyewitness testimony seriously is unrealistic.

Not sure why someone downvoted it...

For digestive problems of all kind, I recommend supplemental enzymes shortly before meals. In some people, they work better than more harmful or complicated or expensive medical interventions. http://www.amazon.com/Super-Enzymes-Now-Foods-Tablets/dp/B002FK1NJA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1331024844&sr=8-3

Have you tried using implementation intentions they seem like they have good research backing. See this , and this