I think asking “what’s the best way” is assuming it’s just one thing. I see no reason it can’t be the combination of a whole laundry list of things, just like “placebo effect” can be multiple things:
motivational effect (“I have an awesome new strategy! THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING”)
regression to the mean (“I had an awful period, cast about for a new strategy, and simultaneously, things seem to be getting better! And of course correlation=causation”)
survivorship bias (if 10 people start a useless thing simultaneously, after a few weeks a good chunk of them probably still think it’s working; a few months later, there will be many fewer survivors...)
wishful thinking (“I had a bad few days—but they were exceptions and have a perfectly reasonable explanation X, Y, and Z, so I still have faith in this thing.”)
time delay before meta-akrasia kicks in (“That part of me hasn’t figured out the right excuses and tactics to defeat the new system, so it’s working—temporarily.”)
It seems some of your ideas basically amount to “no techniques really work, and people only think they work because of random variation and measurement error and stuff”. Not sure how plausible this is.
It seems some of your ideas basically amount to “no techniques really work, and people only think they work because of random variation and measurement error and stuff”. Not sure how plausible this is.
Though it would be odd (and require a strong explanation) if no productivity techniques do work. Which is like saying, no medicines really work, it’s all just placebo effect etc. Since productivity fails for particular reasons (e.g. procrastination), and presumably techniques (like medicines) can be designed to fix or at least mitigate those reasons.
I think asking “what’s the best way” is assuming it’s just one thing. I see no reason it can’t be the combination of a whole laundry list of things, just like “placebo effect” can be multiple things:
motivational effect (“I have an awesome new strategy! THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING”)
regression to the mean (“I had an awful period, cast about for a new strategy, and simultaneously, things seem to be getting better! And of course correlation=causation”)
survivorship bias (if 10 people start a useless thing simultaneously, after a few weeks a good chunk of them probably still think it’s working; a few months later, there will be many fewer survivors...)
wishful thinking (“I had a bad few days—but they were exceptions and have a perfectly reasonable explanation X, Y, and Z, so I still have faith in this thing.”)
time delay before meta-akrasia kicks in (“That part of me hasn’t figured out the right excuses and tactics to defeat the new system, so it’s working—temporarily.”)
I’m sure you could suggest some more.
It seems some of your ideas basically amount to “no techniques really work, and people only think they work because of random variation and measurement error and stuff”. Not sure how plausible this is.
Currently, it’s pretty darn plausible.
Though it would be odd (and require a strong explanation) if no productivity techniques do work. Which is like saying, no medicines really work, it’s all just placebo effect etc. Since productivity fails for particular reasons (e.g. procrastination), and presumably techniques (like medicines) can be designed to fix or at least mitigate those reasons.