This trick works for almost the reason you gave, and it will work for some people/things and not for others. It will work better for getting up because it’s something you do every day. And belief is a factor (or more precisely, suspension of disbelief), because it will not work for a person who spends the 10-count thinking about it not working, or how tired they are, or anything else but imagining they’ll get up at the end of the count.
That’s because the actual mechanism that makes this work is something called monoidealism: having one and only one thought absorbing your nonverbal imagination. It’s foundational to hypnosis, auto-suggestion and a variety of other things, including the “law of attraction”. It’s even used in my “clean your desk” video, although I didn’t grok the theory at the time. (It’s a side-effect of the set of directions I use, actually. But it can still easily fail if somebody is busy thinking “this is all bullshit” or something like that, while doing it.)
Since figuring out monoidealism (first through discussions about “suspension of disbelief” here on LW, then supplemented with client experiments and finally doing enough hypnosis research to find that there’s already a word for it), I’ve found that I can get myself to do all sorts of things this way, with a much higher degree of consistency, even for things I used to have more trouble with.
(I have noticed one side-effect, though, which is that I sometimes hesitate to apply the trick—which makes me realize at that point that I haven’t really decided whether or not doing the thing in question is a good idea. So at that point I just fall back to my usual troubleshooting techniques to get rid of the conflicts before proceeding.)
you’ve just obviated tons of approaches to procrastination. I can’t believe how obvious this is in retrospect. thanks, you may very well have significantly changed my life.
you’ve just obviated tons of approaches to procrastination. I can’t believe how obvious this is in retrospect. thanks, you may very well have significantly changed my life.
I’m not quite so positive about that. Despite Eliezer’s enthusiasm for having a deep theory that explains everything, it can be a lot less useful in practice. In this particular case, all I’ve explained is the difference between what works and what doesn’t, not how to get from one to the other!
There is a little bit more that I wrote about this in a recent blog article, How We Get Stuck. But probably more to the point is that you need to know how not to believe your “meta” thoughts, which can easily trick you into imagining something else.
right, but the x factor is what i was missing. before i wasn’t aware of what exactly was the difference between the times when I managed to get things done and not.
This trick works for almost the reason you gave, and it will work for some people/things and not for others. It will work better for getting up because it’s something you do every day. And belief is a factor (or more precisely, suspension of disbelief), because it will not work for a person who spends the 10-count thinking about it not working, or how tired they are, or anything else but imagining they’ll get up at the end of the count.
That’s because the actual mechanism that makes this work is something called monoidealism: having one and only one thought absorbing your nonverbal imagination. It’s foundational to hypnosis, auto-suggestion and a variety of other things, including the “law of attraction”. It’s even used in my “clean your desk” video, although I didn’t grok the theory at the time. (It’s a side-effect of the set of directions I use, actually. But it can still easily fail if somebody is busy thinking “this is all bullshit” or something like that, while doing it.)
Since figuring out monoidealism (first through discussions about “suspension of disbelief” here on LW, then supplemented with client experiments and finally doing enough hypnosis research to find that there’s already a word for it), I’ve found that I can get myself to do all sorts of things this way, with a much higher degree of consistency, even for things I used to have more trouble with.
(I have noticed one side-effect, though, which is that I sometimes hesitate to apply the trick—which makes me realize at that point that I haven’t really decided whether or not doing the thing in question is a good idea. So at that point I just fall back to my usual troubleshooting techniques to get rid of the conflicts before proceeding.)
you’ve just obviated tons of approaches to procrastination. I can’t believe how obvious this is in retrospect. thanks, you may very well have significantly changed my life.
So it’s been 11 years. Do you still remember pjeby’s advice? Did it change your life?
I’m not quite so positive about that. Despite Eliezer’s enthusiasm for having a deep theory that explains everything, it can be a lot less useful in practice. In this particular case, all I’ve explained is the difference between what works and what doesn’t, not how to get from one to the other!
There is a little bit more that I wrote about this in a recent blog article, How We Get Stuck. But probably more to the point is that you need to know how not to believe your “meta” thoughts, which can easily trick you into imagining something else.
right, but the x factor is what i was missing. before i wasn’t aware of what exactly was the difference between the times when I managed to get things done and not.