If you’re setting up the trivial impetus yourself and your brain has had enough time to connect the dots, I’d guess the akrasic difficulty of setting up the impetus will tend to equal the akrasic difficulty of doing the damn thing in the first place. So the impetus has to spontaneously come from outside, and the advice turns into this: physically move to a long-term environment that spurs you to be productive, e.g. if you’re a procrastinator, change jobs to find a strict boss.
I haven’t found this to be the case. Let’s take a trivial impetus idea I came up with, to use the next time I move: I can put a piece of candy in each box (on the bottom). If I just grab a handful of Creme Savers, put them in my pocket, and drop one into each box as I pack, that’s easy. I don’t think I’d experience any akrasia about doing that that wouldn’t also stop me from packing, so assuming I get my packing done, the candy will also be packed. Then, when it comes time to unpack, the fact that every box unpacked means a piece of candy would serve as a trivial impetus to get unpacking accomplished.
If you’re setting up the trivial impetus yourself and your brain has had enough time to connect the dots, I’d guess the akrasic difficulty of setting up the impetus will tend to equal the akrasic difficulty of doing the damn thing in the first place. So the impetus has to spontaneously come from outside, and the advice turns into this: physically move to a long-term environment that spurs you to be productive, e.g. if you’re a procrastinator, change jobs to find a strict boss.
I haven’t found this to be the case. Let’s take a trivial impetus idea I came up with, to use the next time I move: I can put a piece of candy in each box (on the bottom). If I just grab a handful of Creme Savers, put them in my pocket, and drop one into each box as I pack, that’s easy. I don’t think I’d experience any akrasia about doing that that wouldn’t also stop me from packing, so assuming I get my packing done, the candy will also be packed. Then, when it comes time to unpack, the fact that every box unpacked means a piece of candy would serve as a trivial impetus to get unpacking accomplished.
Ah—you’re setting up the impetus intertemporally, not “right now for right now” as I’d assumed. Good catch, this might work.