This post was super helpful to me on a number of points, including:
Separating “rejuvenative breaks” from “procrastination spirals”
Encouraging me to track “time since last 1:1 with friend”
Getting social permission to try sending Calendly links to friends
I do somewhat vacillate between the ideas of “willpower is finite, optimize accordingly” presented here, and “screw it, just follow your obsessions” (see twoSSC, twoPG essays). It’s possible these aren’t actually opposed and that setting up systems frees you to dive deeply into your fascinations… but basically, I wonder how much structure the people we idolize enforce in their day. You do have a ton of blog posts which I’m now enjoying, so that is some positive proof!
One point of confusion: Is the “digital calendar” you mentioned like, Google Calendar? Or a physical, dedicated screen that exists just to surface your calendar?
Awesome, really glad you enjoyed it! It sounds like you might find my post on social initiative interesting, where I elaborate a bit on how I think about social systems.
With regards to “optimize willpower” vs “seek obsessions”, I think that’s a super important question I’m somewhat confused about. I find that for me personally, often things I find genuinely fun, valuable and rewarding still take willpower to start doing, and the mindset I’ve outlined in this post is really helpful to ensure I actually do those. But I think there’s also a skill of noticing in the moment when an obsession comes to mind, and running with it, even if it involves violating some systems. I’ve tried outlining my thoughts on how to find obsessions, and generally manage intrinsic motivation here.
You might enjoy Lynette Bye’s series with various highly-productive EAs on how they manage their productivity systems (IIRC, Owen Cotton-Barratt’s stood out as obsession focused, most of them felt systems focused, though there’s probably a selection bias towards people with systems being more interested in that kind of interview).
Digital calendar = Google Calendar, and surrounding systems to eg check it every morning and generally having it feel like the default to “always do the thing in my calendar”
This post was super helpful to me on a number of points, including:
Separating “rejuvenative breaks” from “procrastination spirals”
Encouraging me to track “time since last 1:1 with friend”
Getting social permission to try sending Calendly links to friends
I do somewhat vacillate between the ideas of “willpower is finite, optimize accordingly” presented here, and “screw it, just follow your obsessions” (see two SSC, two PG essays). It’s possible these aren’t actually opposed and that setting up systems frees you to dive deeply into your fascinations… but basically, I wonder how much structure the people we idolize enforce in their day. You do have a ton of blog posts which I’m now enjoying, so that is some positive proof!
One point of confusion: Is the “digital calendar” you mentioned like, Google Calendar? Or a physical, dedicated screen that exists just to surface your calendar?
Awesome, really glad you enjoyed it! It sounds like you might find my post on social initiative interesting, where I elaborate a bit on how I think about social systems.
With regards to “optimize willpower” vs “seek obsessions”, I think that’s a super important question I’m somewhat confused about. I find that for me personally, often things I find genuinely fun, valuable and rewarding still take willpower to start doing, and the mindset I’ve outlined in this post is really helpful to ensure I actually do those. But I think there’s also a skill of noticing in the moment when an obsession comes to mind, and running with it, even if it involves violating some systems. I’ve tried outlining my thoughts on how to find obsessions, and generally manage intrinsic motivation here.
You might enjoy Lynette Bye’s series with various highly-productive EAs on how they manage their productivity systems (IIRC, Owen Cotton-Barratt’s stood out as obsession focused, most of them felt systems focused, though there’s probably a selection bias towards people with systems being more interested in that kind of interview).
Digital calendar = Google Calendar, and surrounding systems to eg check it every morning and generally having it feel like the default to “always do the thing in my calendar”