Turn your head, change what you see, and you’ll change yourself.
I don’t quite see the connection to control theory, but yes, I’ve been practicing stimulus hygiene and controlled self-priming by intentionally exposing myself to “desirable” stimuli and limiting exposure to “undesirable” ones (my internal name for this is “prime-steering”—as opposed to uncontrolled “prime-drift”), and I like the results so far.
(BTW, one of the tricks I found for quickly and cheaply changing my “immediate surroundings” is simply changing my desktop wallpaper.)
Elimination of two my primary addictions—PC gaming, mostly TF2 and WoW AH moneymaking (100% elimination for both so far), and aimless internet surfing (now reduced to about 10% of its former glory.)
Significant reduction of procrastination time in general (ironically, I’m procrastinating right now—I’m posting at LessWrong :) -- but I have an excuse this time, I had a 16-hour workday yesterday (I know, not something to be proud of, but it’s a fact.)
Being able to actually act according to my current better judgement, with verifiable results in the real world. This is an addiction in itself.
Note of caution: the results are just about 3 months old, so I can’t say yet that the tricks work reliably. Also, I wasn’t under any serious stress or pressure, so I can’t say whether these tricks will work under such conditions. And finally, these are tricks, so perhaps they work only on myself, and I have no deep theories to explain why they work.
(Cousin, looks like we’re turning your thread into an akrasia trickfest.)
Wow that’s amazing Vladimir, well done. The obvious next question is.… how did you do it? Please give an example of at least one of your tricks if possible.
Edit: I’ve made a top-level post for sharing anti-akrasia techniques—go ahead and share your techniques as well. Let’s continue the discussion there.
A very quick outline (I’ll post a detailed version later).
Determine what is your current better judgment. This is critical—I noticed that I hesitate to trick myself into doing anything I don’t consider to be relevant to my goal.
Constant asking myself: “is the activity I’m doing at the moment advancing me toward the desired state of reality”? If the answer is “no”, know that I’m procrastinating.
80⁄20 elimination, Tim Ferris / Pareto style (I’m skeptical about the rest of Tim’s book, but the Elimination chapter is pure gold).
Parkinson’s law (work expands to fill the time allotted). Again, Tim has some advice on it—basically, it boils down to scheduling most important things (in the 80⁄20 sense) first, with aggressive deadlines.
PJ Eby’s secret meaning of “just do it”. He considers the article to be outdated, but its key paragraph worked wonders for me. Basically, “just do it” = “don’t do anything else”. In its pure form, “not doing anything else” is too macho for me, so I leave a line of retreat for myself—I permit myself to eat, think about anything (not just the task), walk, have sex, but no surfing unless it’s on-topic, no doodling on paper unless it’s on-topic, etc.
Self-priming—I try to expose myself to stimuli related to my current task, and to shield myself from irrelevant stimuli, no matter how pleasant (e.g. I run away from my toddler daughter, because prolonged exposure to cuteness tends to totally ruin my ability to work efficiently :)
Begin. For example, if you need to do some stuff in Excel, just open an empty spreadsheet and type in the table header. Just stupidly staring at this makes you better at spreadsheets and your task—your mind pulls linked concepts to the fast-access cache, without your consent, and you don’t need to do anything.
Mindless repetition of things like “I want to do/make/design/create/code the best X in the world” (X stands for a short-term todo item, not some far-off goal) -- I’ve been doing this for at least a decade, and it seems to work (don’t know how, but perhaps it’s related to Cached Selves).
Sorry if I forgot something—gotta run (will edit later.)
(Obligatory note of caution—these are tricks, they are not proven by experimental results, I’ve been using them for just about 3 months, they aren’t tested under serious stress / pressure, I have no deep theories to explain why they work, and the evidence I offer is purely anecdotal.)
Perhaps any further discussion would be better served by encouraging Vladimir to make a top-level post on the subject? This seems to be veering slightly off-topic.
The post is still in your drafts—it’s not submitted to LW proper, although it looks to you like it is. (You can verify this by signing out and looking at the new posts.)
However, my wet dream is http://www.micronaut.ch—they have the most stunning microscopic photography I have ever seen, but unfortunately they don’t offer their imagery as wallpapers or microstock (they offer prints on demand).
I don’t quite see the connection to control theory, but yes, I’ve been practicing stimulus hygiene and controlled self-priming by intentionally exposing myself to “desirable” stimuli and limiting exposure to “undesirable” ones (my internal name for this is “prime-steering”—as opposed to uncontrolled “prime-drift”), and I like the results so far.
(BTW, one of the tricks I found for quickly and cheaply changing my “immediate surroundings” is simply changing my desktop wallpaper.)
Yep—using the wallpaper trick too. Also, forcing myself to go somewhere in the evenings instead of sitting at home pays off a lot.
How do you choose the “somewhere”—do you have a purpose in mind, or you’re just drifting?
The purpose is to stop thinking and start reacting, the necessary ingredients are people and music.
Could you expand a bit on the nature and effectiveness of the results you’ve gotten?
Elimination of two my primary addictions—PC gaming, mostly TF2 and WoW AH moneymaking (100% elimination for both so far), and aimless internet surfing (now reduced to about 10% of its former glory.)
Significant reduction of procrastination time in general (ironically, I’m procrastinating right now—I’m posting at LessWrong :) -- but I have an excuse this time, I had a 16-hour workday yesterday (I know, not something to be proud of, but it’s a fact.)
Being able to actually act according to my current better judgement, with verifiable results in the real world. This is an addiction in itself.
Note of caution: the results are just about 3 months old, so I can’t say yet that the tricks work reliably. Also, I wasn’t under any serious stress or pressure, so I can’t say whether these tricks will work under such conditions. And finally, these are tricks, so perhaps they work only on myself, and I have no deep theories to explain why they work.
(Cousin, looks like we’re turning your thread into an akrasia trickfest.)
Wow that’s amazing Vladimir, well done. The obvious next question is.… how did you do it? Please give an example of at least one of your tricks if possible.
Edit: I’ve made a top-level post for sharing anti-akrasia techniques—go ahead and share your techniques as well. Let’s continue the discussion there.
A very quick outline (I’ll post a detailed version later).
Determine what is your current better judgment. This is critical—I noticed that I hesitate to trick myself into doing anything I don’t consider to be relevant to my goal.
Constant asking myself: “is the activity I’m doing at the moment advancing me toward the desired state of reality”? If the answer is “no”, know that I’m procrastinating.
80⁄20 elimination, Tim Ferris / Pareto style (I’m skeptical about the rest of Tim’s book, but the Elimination chapter is pure gold).
Parkinson’s law (work expands to fill the time allotted). Again, Tim has some advice on it—basically, it boils down to scheduling most important things (in the 80⁄20 sense) first, with aggressive deadlines.
PJ Eby’s secret meaning of “just do it”. He considers the article to be outdated, but its key paragraph worked wonders for me. Basically, “just do it” = “don’t do anything else”. In its pure form, “not doing anything else” is too macho for me, so I leave a line of retreat for myself—I permit myself to eat, think about anything (not just the task), walk, have sex, but no surfing unless it’s on-topic, no doodling on paper unless it’s on-topic, etc.
Self-priming—I try to expose myself to stimuli related to my current task, and to shield myself from irrelevant stimuli, no matter how pleasant (e.g. I run away from my toddler daughter, because prolonged exposure to cuteness tends to totally ruin my ability to work efficiently :)
Begin. For example, if you need to do some stuff in Excel, just open an empty spreadsheet and type in the table header. Just stupidly staring at this makes you better at spreadsheets and your task—your mind pulls linked concepts to the fast-access cache, without your consent, and you don’t need to do anything.
Mindless repetition of things like “I want to do/make/design/create/code the best X in the world” (X stands for a short-term todo item, not some far-off goal) -- I’ve been doing this for at least a decade, and it seems to work (don’t know how, but perhaps it’s related to Cached Selves).
Sorry if I forgot something—gotta run (will edit later.)
(Obligatory note of caution—these are tricks, they are not proven by experimental results, I’ve been using them for just about 3 months, they aren’t tested under serious stress / pressure, I have no deep theories to explain why they work, and the evidence I offer is purely anecdotal.)
Perhaps any further discussion would be better served by encouraging Vladimir to make a top-level post on the subject? This seems to be veering slightly off-topic.
I agree. Go Vladimir!
Done.
The post is still in your drafts—it’s not submitted to LW proper, although it looks to you like it is. (You can verify this by signing out and looking at the new posts.)
Uh, how do I submit it?
Edit: nevermind, found it.
Suggest some good wallpapers.
Superb nature photos, pastoral porn and some Hubble:
http://www.wpdb.de/
High-quality dual screen / widescreen backgrounds:
http://www.mandolux.com/
Assorted stuff (different topics, sizes, quality):
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/12/10/50-most-amazing-dual-screen-desktop-wallpapers/
However, my wet dream is http://www.micronaut.ch—they have the most stunning microscopic photography I have ever seen, but unfortunately they don’t offer their imagery as wallpapers or microstock (they offer prints on demand).