At least 2 of the initial occurrences-the game night working so well and happening to hear about an important market trend-were not caused by any deliberate action on my part. They were basically random and unexpected. Systematizing them and making them continue to happen was not luck, but that’s the point of the post.
My understanding of luck is a situation where the circumstances “break” in your favor regardless of your attention or intention, or even in opposition to most likely outcome. (e.g. I was lucky not to get injured when X happened and many poeple around me were injured.)
People frequently refer to one-off positive events as “lucky breaks”, which is why I used that phrase. But I don’t care about the word luck specifically. The point of the post is to take one-off positive events or things that worked unexpectedly well and make them happen repeatedly and automatically.
What I see described in this post is something much closer to my concept of “common sense”.
Is there some very valuable and novel aspect to the content I am overlooking?
Most people don’t respond to positive events by setting them up to happen automatically and repeatedly in their lives. The lesson is not “do things you enjoy”, it’s “take something that worked really well and set it up so that it happens consistently without conscious effort on your part.”
Very few people respond to an unexpected positive event with “now I’ll set up a system to make this happen repeatedly.” Humans are generally good at repeatedly doing things that they intentionally tried and worked well, but not good at spotting the things that happened without effort on their part, but which could be copied and repeated. The game night is again a good example-I didn’t set up the initial game night, somebody else did. But I noticed that I enjoyed the game night a lot and got a lot of value out of it, so I set up a repeating game night at my apartment every two weeks.
I encourage people to focus on the “lucky breaks”, because those are common blind spots. Another important factor was taking a systematic approach (“let’s set up a repeating biweekly game night”) as opposed to an effortful approach (“I should attend more game nights.”)
People frequently refer to one-off positive events as “lucky breaks”, which is why I used that phrase. But I don’t care about the word luck specifically. The point of the post is to take one-off positive events or things that worked unexpectedly well and make them happen repeatedly and automatically.
Noted.
Very few people respond to an unexpected positive event with “now I’ll set up a system to make this happen repeatedly.”
I’m not sure how a “game night” qualifies as an “unexpected positive event”. Surely game makers are aware that games are positive experiences for people...
Humans are generally good at repeatedly doing things that they intentionally tried and worked well, but not good at spotting the things that happened without effort on their part, but which could be copied and repeated.
...and I don’t know that this is the case. Can you give an example of how people are “generally not good at this”?
It seems to me people (pretty commonly) intentionally incorporate things that work into their lives, and do so on an recurring schedule. You happen (luckily or not) upon something you enjoy/is helpful/is profitable/just works and you make it a part of your life.
Isn’t that the basis for how most people spend their time? Isn’t that just called “learning” and putting what you learn into practice? If not, can you explain the difference between what you are proposing and learning what works and then doing what you learn?
...and I don’t know that this is the case. Can you give an example of how people are “generally not good at this”?
You gave one yourself in your previous comment-you mentioned that you should talk to experts more. That suggests to me that you have not set up a system to repeatedly ensure that you talk to experts when it would be helpful.
Anyway, the post is a nice reminder to reach out to an expert so I am going to try do do that today.
The approach I suggest would be to set up a system to do this repeatedly, not just once. For example, you could set up a Beeminder task or calendar reminder to reach out to an expert every week.
Isn’t that the basis for how most people spend their time? Isn’t that just called “learning” and putting what you learn into practice? If not, can you explain the difference between what you are proposing and learning what works and then doing what you learn?
Learning what works and doing what you learn is an obviously good thing, my approach is one way of implementing that. Focusing on “lucky breaks” redirects your attention to things that have worked for you before which you haven’t already systematized-in your case, reaching out to experts. Focusing on making them systematic places the burden to do those things outside yourself, e.g. by using motivational tools such as Beeminder.
The responses I’ve received suggest that the phrase “systematic lucky breaks” resonates with a lot of people. But I think it would be helpful if you were to take the Beeminder/StickK idea and write a post specifically on that topic. And it would probably resonate with a segment of Less Wrong for whom my post doesn’t work.
Perhaps… though I’m not sure if another Beeminder post would be helpful at LW. I guess I’d need to look through what has already been written and see if there is anything I might be able to add. We’ll see.
And I’m not sure if the title or the article resonates with LW at all. It may, but it depends on what you mean by “resonates” and what the comments and votes mean.
As I mentioned in my first comment, I’m unclear on what X upvotes means at LW. Most of the commentary seems to be a discussion about martial arts… or our discussion about the merits and focus of the article.
If there is some rationale for a threshold for upvotes above which we can confidently say that an article is good/useful/novel/clear/appropriately-titled, then I’m certainly willing to take that into consideration. As it stands, I frankly have little clue what X upvotes and Y total comments indicates about an article’s ability to map the territory.
In any case, I’ll vote it up one more right now for providing the catalyst to an interesting discussion with you. :) (I’m not sure if that’s a valid reason to use the thumb’s up button, but it seems as good as any...)
Also, I should clarify on my suggestion for a title—Since, upon our further discussion, it seems your point was implementing a systematic approach to “doing things that work”, I meant to suggest you rename the post and add some clarifying language in the post about using accountability/akrasia-fighting tools like commitment contracts via Beeminder or StickK. Renaming the post without adding the requisite language in the post would be kinda silly.
At least 2 of the initial occurrences-the game night working so well and happening to hear about an important market trend-were not caused by any deliberate action on my part. They were basically random and unexpected. Systematizing them and making them continue to happen was not luck, but that’s the point of the post.
People frequently refer to one-off positive events as “lucky breaks”, which is why I used that phrase. But I don’t care about the word luck specifically. The point of the post is to take one-off positive events or things that worked unexpectedly well and make them happen repeatedly and automatically.
Most people don’t respond to positive events by setting them up to happen automatically and repeatedly in their lives. The lesson is not “do things you enjoy”, it’s “take something that worked really well and set it up so that it happens consistently without conscious effort on your part.”
Very few people respond to an unexpected positive event with “now I’ll set up a system to make this happen repeatedly.” Humans are generally good at repeatedly doing things that they intentionally tried and worked well, but not good at spotting the things that happened without effort on their part, but which could be copied and repeated. The game night is again a good example-I didn’t set up the initial game night, somebody else did. But I noticed that I enjoyed the game night a lot and got a lot of value out of it, so I set up a repeating game night at my apartment every two weeks.
I encourage people to focus on the “lucky breaks”, because those are common blind spots. Another important factor was taking a systematic approach (“let’s set up a repeating biweekly game night”) as opposed to an effortful approach (“I should attend more game nights.”)
Noted.
I’m not sure how a “game night” qualifies as an “unexpected positive event”. Surely game makers are aware that games are positive experiences for people...
...and I don’t know that this is the case. Can you give an example of how people are “generally not good at this”?
It seems to me people (pretty commonly) intentionally incorporate things that work into their lives, and do so on an recurring schedule. You happen (luckily or not) upon something you enjoy/is helpful/is profitable/just works and you make it a part of your life.
Isn’t that the basis for how most people spend their time? Isn’t that just called “learning” and putting what you learn into practice? If not, can you explain the difference between what you are proposing and learning what works and then doing what you learn?
Thanks for raising these points.
You gave one yourself in your previous comment-you mentioned that you should talk to experts more. That suggests to me that you have not set up a system to repeatedly ensure that you talk to experts when it would be helpful.
The approach I suggest would be to set up a system to do this repeatedly, not just once. For example, you could set up a Beeminder task or calendar reminder to reach out to an expert every week.
Learning what works and doing what you learn is an obviously good thing, my approach is one way of implementing that. Focusing on “lucky breaks” redirects your attention to things that have worked for you before which you haven’t already systematized-in your case, reaching out to experts. Focusing on making them systematic places the burden to do those things outside yourself, e.g. by using motivational tools such as Beeminder.
Suggestion for new post title: Beeminder (or StickK) Can Help You
The post doesn’t seem to be about lucky breaks. And it apparently isn’t specifically about learning.
The crux seems to be that a systematic approach to incorporating things that work can improve your life. I concur.
The responses I’ve received suggest that the phrase “systematic lucky breaks” resonates with a lot of people. But I think it would be helpful if you were to take the Beeminder/StickK idea and write a post specifically on that topic. And it would probably resonate with a segment of Less Wrong for whom my post doesn’t work.
Perhaps… though I’m not sure if another Beeminder post would be helpful at LW. I guess I’d need to look through what has already been written and see if there is anything I might be able to add. We’ll see.
And I’m not sure if the title or the article resonates with LW at all. It may, but it depends on what you mean by “resonates” and what the comments and votes mean.
As I mentioned in my first comment, I’m unclear on what X upvotes means at LW. Most of the commentary seems to be a discussion about martial arts… or our discussion about the merits and focus of the article.
If there is some rationale for a threshold for upvotes above which we can confidently say that an article is good/useful/novel/clear/appropriately-titled, then I’m certainly willing to take that into consideration. As it stands, I frankly have little clue what X upvotes and Y total comments indicates about an article’s ability to map the territory.
In any case, I’ll vote it up one more right now for providing the catalyst to an interesting discussion with you. :) (I’m not sure if that’s a valid reason to use the thumb’s up button, but it seems as good as any...)
Also, I should clarify on my suggestion for a title—Since, upon our further discussion, it seems your point was implementing a systematic approach to “doing things that work”, I meant to suggest you rename the post and add some clarifying language in the post about using accountability/akrasia-fighting tools like commitment contracts via Beeminder or StickK. Renaming the post without adding the requisite language in the post would be kinda silly.