Willpower Schedule
TL;DR: your level of willpower depends on how much willpower you expect to need (hypothesis)
Time start: 21:44:55 (this is my third exercise in speed writing a LW post)
I.
There is a lot of controversy about how our level of willpower is affected by various factors, including doing “exhausting” tasks before, as well as being told that willpower is a resource that depletes easily, or doesn’t etc.
(sorry, I can’t go look for references—that would break the speedwriting exercise!)
I am not going to repeat the discussions that already cover those topics; however, I have a new tentative model which (I think) fits the existing data very well, is easy to test, and supersedes all previous models that I have seen.
II.
The idea is very simple, but before I explain it, let me give a similar example from a different aspect of our lives. The example is going to be concerned with, uh, poo.
Have you ever noticed that (if you have a sufficiently regular lifestyle), conveniently you always feel that you need to go to the toilet at times when it’s possible to do so? Like for example, how often do you need to go when you are on a bus, versus at home or work?
The function of your bowels is regulated by reading subconscious signals about your situation—e.g. if you are stressed, you might become constipated. But it is not only that—there is a way in which it responds to your routines, and what you are planning to do, not just the things that are already affecting you.
Have you ever had the experience of a background thought popping up in your mind that you might need to go within the next few hours, but the time was not convenient, so you told that thought to hold it a little bit more? And then it did just that?
III.
The example from the previous section, though possibly quite POOrly choosen (sorry, I couldn’t resist), shows something important.
Our subconscious reactions and “settings” of our bodies can interact with our conscious plans in a “smart” way. That is, they do not have to wait to see the effects of what you are doing, to adjust to it—they can pull information from your conscious plans and adjust *before*.
And this is, more or less, the insight that I have added to my current working theory of willpower. It is not very complicated, but perhaps non-obvious. Sufficiently non-obvious that I don’t think anyone has suggested it before, even after seeing experimental results that match this excellently.
IV.
To be more accurate, I claim that how much willpower you will have depends on several important factors, such as your energy and mood, but it also depends on how much willpower you expect to need.
For example, if you plan to have a “rest day” and not do any serious work, you might find that you are much less *able* to do work on that day than usual.
It’s easy enough to test—so instead of arguing this theoretically, please do just that—give it a test. And make sure to record your levels of willpower several times a day for some time—you’ll get some useful data!
Time end: 20:00:53. Statistics: 534 words, 2924 characters, 15.97 minutes, 33.4 wpm, 183.1 cpm
Have you considered posting these things to your blog instead?
I find your comment somewhat surprising—could you unpack it?
(E.g. what exactly was your reaction, what part or property of the post triggered it, how do you consider blogs different from LW discussion, do you have some general policies that govern what you do in such matters etc.?)
I don’t see why this would “supersede” other models. I don’t have to test it in my own case, because I already know that I am less willing to work if I did not expect to have to work. That doesn’t mean that willpower is not a consumable resource. For example, you can compare it with money. If I go out and expect to spend $20, I might tell people, “I can’t afford that,” if the thing is going to cost $100. But if I had expected it to cost $100, I might have spent that amount. None of that shows that money is not a consumable resource.
Using your money analogy, what I’m saying above is that if you expect the item to cost $20, you will go to the shop with only $20 or $25 in your wallet. So you won’t buy the item if it costs $100.
This theory is compatible with willpower being expendable—obviously, you can’t carry more cash in your wallet than the total amount you own.
So it is a more detailed model, in which you can be short of money in two ways: you can’t afford this at all, or you didn’t think to have that much cash on you when you left the house.
I’m not sure if going to the bathroom is a “smart” adjustment between conscious and subconscious, or if it’s closer to firing neurons in the region associated with it (that is to say, instead of a communication networks, it may be closer to just flipping on a switch). What would agree with the latter, is that studies show that the region of the brain associated with it is overly active when under the influence of alcohol. I think resting all day (and as a result, not wishing to do serious work) could probably be better explained by less blood flow to the brain (and as a result, less oxygen) due to lack of movement. On top of this, our bodies tend to operate in 12-hour cycles. If you are active for a while, your telling your brain it’s in that 12-hour cycle. If your inactive, your telling it your in your inactive cycle.
Prometheus, thank you for your intelligent comment. What you are saying is testable, and I plan to get more data on this. My experience seems to not be limited to 12-hour periods, but I’ll specifically control for that for now on.