Luke, I want to thank you for writing the articles on procrastination and happines. Somehow you managed to write a text that appears both scientific and legible. And short enough. And actionable. This weekend I am going to make a short translated version in a more “to do”-like form, which I will print and periodically read to remind myself.
For me so far the best tool to overcome acrasia is the Beeminder. Most other strategies I have tried before failed after a week or sooner (the biggest exception was the exercise plan 5BX that I used for three months). Also some lessons from P.J.Eby that I found online helped me a lot. One important idea I found in his lessons is that our attention to external things is more persistent than our attention to things in our heads; so if there is an important idea, it helps to place it into the environment by writing it on paper. I guess it also helps that my Beeminder data exist somewhere outside my head, even outside my own computer.
Beeminder is very useful because it measures and records progress. Too bad I use it only since December 2011, so I don’t have historical data to compare. I am ashamed to admit that my goals are very humble nowadays—a small daily exercise, running once a week, writing one blog article per week, sleeping before midnight—but even these goals were hardly attainable for me months ago, when my laziness fully exploded. And by the way reading LW helped me to set realistic goals. When setting a goal, I try to use outside view and ask myself what is the probability that I will actually do it, and what evidence exists. If I feel the probability is less than 80-90%, I don’t set the goal, because I prefer smaller goals with higher probability than greater goals with less probability; I want reliable progress, not random success. (I can still try to reach more ambitious goals without writing them to Beeminder.)
So these days I am very certain that LW helps me to overcome my procrastination. (Without LW I wouldn’t have found Beeminder nor P.J.Eby, so I include this to LW’s value too.) And the only cost is time, which I would have spent on other web sites anyway. I am starting from almost level zero, so even if my progress means much to me, it is probably not impressive to anyone else (unless they are in a similar situation like I was half year ago). My point is—Beeminder is useful not only to overcome acrasia, but also to measure your progress.
So if anyone wants to be sure that their “becoming stronger” is not just a placebo effect, here is a tool. It is not good for everything; it can measure how many articles I write on my blog, but not their quality, so optimizing too much could result in writing a lot of rubbish; also it can be used only on repeated activities… but it’s better than nothing.
Viliam, thanks so much! What’s surprising to me is that you’re getting that much motivational power out of Beeminder even without pledging money to stay on your yellow brick roads. Theoretically, that’s where the real motivational power comes from—setting up a commitment device.
If you agree that hyperbolic discounting is at the heart of akrasia then you should, I believe, agree that commitment devices are fundamental to the solution. But tracking and visualizing your progress on a graph of course goes a long way by itself.
As I’ve argued on LessWrong before it’s the combination of data visualization and commitment devices that’s going to make Beeminder take over the world. I figure by solving akrasia we can easily double world GDP, for example, right? :)
[Disclosure, if it wasn’t obvious: I’m part of Beeminder. Viliam’s gushing, on the other hand, is thoroughly untainted—we don’t know him(?) in real life even.]
I guess for me the power of Beeminder is in visualization and planning. For example now it is very calming to see that my exercise plan for previous 20 days progresses flawlessly. It also helps that some of my plans are decided in advance, so I don’t waste mental energy and time deciding whether I should do something now or later.
Another useful technique, less reliable but more simple—each evening I take a small piece of paper and write a “to do” list for tomorrow. I don’t always follow the list, but at least I have a “default option” what to do next when I am undecisive. I would summarize both techniques as: “Make decisions in your brightest moments, and then follow them obediently.” I guess my brightest moments are when I am going to sleep, because then the strongest temptation to procrastinate (continue web browsing) is over.
I don’t pledge money or anything like this, because I want a motivational device, not a punishment device. (Sorry I am ruining your income model, but you made the rules.) As P.J.Eby says: “What pushes you forward, holds you back.” The emotion I want is reassurance (I did it in the past, I can do it today and tomorrow), not pressure of fear. Because if I associate positive feelings with Beeminder, I will want to use it more; if I associate negative feelings, I will try to avoid using it.
Measuring goals in only half of the solution—and you did it perfectly. Thanks! The other half is setting reasonable goals. This may depend on user’s personality: my preferred method is to set humble goals, measure that I can achieve them, and then slowly increase them based on already collected data.
What’s surprising to me is that you’re getting that much motivational power out of Beeminder even without pledging money to stay on your yellow brick roads. Theoretically, that’s where the real motivational power comes from—setting up a commitment device.
Well, you’ll eventually have some suggestive data one way or the other; my guess, though, is that there won’t be a strong correlation between precommitment amounts and success.
Rather, I expect you’ll mostly see people who 1) keep running off roads or giving up, or 2) who succeed after a small number of failures. People who crank up to a midrange and then stay on their road(s) forever after seem unlikely to me. (This is why I think private branding or flat-fee approaches are your best bet for stable and sustainable funding in the long term.)
I could be wrong, of course. An awful lot depends on what population you end up being a cross-section of.
I figure by solving akrasia
That’s not going to happen, trust me. ;-) There is no silver bullet for that (i.e., no universal solution that doesn’t require extensive individual customization), and I’ve worked with plenty of people for whom Beeminder would be a curse rather than a blessing.
Part of the point is that humans are not homo economicus: not all values are fungible, and some values are in conflict within a given individual.
Luke, I want to thank you for writing the articles on procrastination and happines. Somehow you managed to write a text that appears both scientific and legible. And short enough. And actionable. This weekend I am going to make a short translated version in a more “to do”-like form, which I will print and periodically read to remind myself.
For me so far the best tool to overcome acrasia is the Beeminder. Most other strategies I have tried before failed after a week or sooner (the biggest exception was the exercise plan 5BX that I used for three months). Also some lessons from P.J.Eby that I found online helped me a lot. One important idea I found in his lessons is that our attention to external things is more persistent than our attention to things in our heads; so if there is an important idea, it helps to place it into the environment by writing it on paper. I guess it also helps that my Beeminder data exist somewhere outside my head, even outside my own computer.
Beeminder is very useful because it measures and records progress. Too bad I use it only since December 2011, so I don’t have historical data to compare. I am ashamed to admit that my goals are very humble nowadays—a small daily exercise, running once a week, writing one blog article per week, sleeping before midnight—but even these goals were hardly attainable for me months ago, when my laziness fully exploded. And by the way reading LW helped me to set realistic goals. When setting a goal, I try to use outside view and ask myself what is the probability that I will actually do it, and what evidence exists. If I feel the probability is less than 80-90%, I don’t set the goal, because I prefer smaller goals with higher probability than greater goals with less probability; I want reliable progress, not random success. (I can still try to reach more ambitious goals without writing them to Beeminder.)
So these days I am very certain that LW helps me to overcome my procrastination. (Without LW I wouldn’t have found Beeminder nor P.J.Eby, so I include this to LW’s value too.) And the only cost is time, which I would have spent on other web sites anyway. I am starting from almost level zero, so even if my progress means much to me, it is probably not impressive to anyone else (unless they are in a similar situation like I was half year ago). My point is—Beeminder is useful not only to overcome acrasia, but also to measure your progress.
So if anyone wants to be sure that their “becoming stronger” is not just a placebo effect, here is a tool. It is not good for everything; it can measure how many articles I write on my blog, but not their quality, so optimizing too much could result in writing a lot of rubbish; also it can be used only on repeated activities… but it’s better than nothing.
Viliam, thanks so much! What’s surprising to me is that you’re getting that much motivational power out of Beeminder even without pledging money to stay on your yellow brick roads. Theoretically, that’s where the real motivational power comes from—setting up a commitment device.
If you agree that hyperbolic discounting is at the heart of akrasia then you should, I believe, agree that commitment devices are fundamental to the solution. But tracking and visualizing your progress on a graph of course goes a long way by itself.
As I’ve argued on LessWrong before it’s the combination of data visualization and commitment devices that’s going to make Beeminder take over the world. I figure by solving akrasia we can easily double world GDP, for example, right? :)
[Disclosure, if it wasn’t obvious: I’m part of Beeminder. Viliam’s gushing, on the other hand, is thoroughly untainted—we don’t know him(?) in real life even.]
I guess for me the power of Beeminder is in visualization and planning. For example now it is very calming to see that my exercise plan for previous 20 days progresses flawlessly. It also helps that some of my plans are decided in advance, so I don’t waste mental energy and time deciding whether I should do something now or later.
Another useful technique, less reliable but more simple—each evening I take a small piece of paper and write a “to do” list for tomorrow. I don’t always follow the list, but at least I have a “default option” what to do next when I am undecisive. I would summarize both techniques as: “Make decisions in your brightest moments, and then follow them obediently.” I guess my brightest moments are when I am going to sleep, because then the strongest temptation to procrastinate (continue web browsing) is over.
I don’t pledge money or anything like this, because I want a motivational device, not a punishment device. (Sorry I am ruining your income model, but you made the rules.) As P.J.Eby says: “What pushes you forward, holds you back.” The emotion I want is reassurance (I did it in the past, I can do it today and tomorrow), not pressure of fear. Because if I associate positive feelings with Beeminder, I will want to use it more; if I associate negative feelings, I will try to avoid using it.
Measuring goals in only half of the solution—and you did it perfectly. Thanks! The other half is setting reasonable goals. This may depend on user’s personality: my preferred method is to set humble goals, measure that I can achieve them, and then slowly increase them based on already collected data.
Well, you’ll eventually have some suggestive data one way or the other; my guess, though, is that there won’t be a strong correlation between precommitment amounts and success.
Rather, I expect you’ll mostly see people who 1) keep running off roads or giving up, or 2) who succeed after a small number of failures. People who crank up to a midrange and then stay on their road(s) forever after seem unlikely to me. (This is why I think private branding or flat-fee approaches are your best bet for stable and sustainable funding in the long term.)
I could be wrong, of course. An awful lot depends on what population you end up being a cross-section of.
That’s not going to happen, trust me. ;-) There is no silver bullet for that (i.e., no universal solution that doesn’t require extensive individual customization), and I’ve worked with plenty of people for whom Beeminder would be a curse rather than a blessing.
Part of the point is that humans are not homo economicus: not all values are fungible, and some values are in conflict within a given individual.