[Link]How to Achieve Impossible Career Goals (My manifesto on instrumental rationality)
Hey guys,
Don’t normally post from my blog to here, but the latest massive post on goal achievement in 2015 has a ton that would be relevant to people here.
Some things that I think would be of particular interest to LWers:
The section called “Map the Path to Your Goal” has some really great stuff on planning that haven’t seen many other places. I know planning gets a bad wrap here, but when combined with the “Contigency Plans” method near the bottom of the post, I’ve found this stuff to be killer for getting results for students.
At the bottom, there’s a section called “Choosing More Habits” that breaks down habits into the only five categories you should ever focus on. If you’re planning to systematically take on new habits in 2015, this will help.
The section called “a proactive mindset” has some fun mental reframes to play around with.
I wasn’t aware of that. Examples? Reasons?
I may have generalized from a few instances that I’ve seen, of the variety of “You shouldn’t make long term plans because it’s an effort in futility (reality gets in the way)
OTOH, when I enter in planning into the search bar, the very first article I get is this one: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jg/planning_fallacy/ - with the snippet “the planning fallacy is that people think they can plan”
I think that betrays a misunderstanding of the planning fallacy. The planning fallacy is the inability of humans to instinctively think and account for risks in such a way as to make accurate schedules for plans. E.g. we seem to assume things will go as planned, we do not stop to think about what could go wrong and when and what responses would be appropriate, we tend to underestimate how much work is required, and overestimate how much we will be able to contribute, etc.
It’s not that planning is a fallacy, it’s that we have built-in fallacies (biases) related to how we naturally go about planning.
I was just as surprised at that. Planning is perhaps the most essential skill to applied rationality. It’s also one of our most powerful built-in instincts, when we remember to use it. If there’s anti-planning sentiment here on LW, please share a link.
Thanks for writing this! I’m going to be spending the next few days setting goals (4-year, 1-year, quarterly, this month), and this came at a good time with solid actionable advice (though the salesman tone throughout the website is a little offputting).
No problem, glad you found it useful.
I’m going to be trying a strategy this year of writing a good amount of more in-depth posts like this, so it’s good to hear that someone got value out of it.
Also, I can understand how the tone might put you off… It’s not aimed at the hyperintelligent LW crowd.