So using a little algebra, I’m deducing you’re 24 years old. You’ve got plenty of time to turn your life around. The most important thing is that you keep going.
I am not disabled so I’m doing a lot of other optimizing here. But this is based on what I’ve read from Scott H Young and Cal Newport.
Write yourself a weekly schedule. Commit yourself to doing 40 hours of work next week. No more, no less. The work can be anything productive, ex. writing fantasy, exercising, house chores. The important thing is that you learn the meta-skill of working on a schedule.
Once you achieve this, your confidence will rise and your obstacles will be easier. It is the first step of a success spiral.
I don’t think most people who are in an office for 40 hours work anything like 40 hours. (Not that that’s a bad thing—taking breaks is good, and I think most people underestimate how much time they need to spend recharging in order to operate at peak effectiveness.)
I agree. (I certainly spend much less than 100% of my office time doing useful work. It’s not clear to me how the difference should be partitioned between “taking necessary time to recharge, process things in the background, etc.” and “being a lazy slacker”.)
This is a clever idea, but could you provide more information? I see how it would make sense intuitively, but is there any evidence suggesting that doing any work, regardless of what it is, for a certain amount of time can improve performance/focus on a very specific task?
If I ‘work’ for forty hours next week on reading LW, it will have a direct improvement on other areas, say on how much school work I would be comfortable doing?
If I ‘work’ for forty hours next week on reading LW
Reading Less Wrong is consumptive, not productive. You need to have something to show for your work, ex. a novel draft, a fitter body, a cleaner house.
If you want to accomplish anything in a post-forager society, you’re going to need to learn how to plan, and how to follow through with those plans. How are you going to get anything done if you don’t have the discipline to put in the hours?
And yes, self-discipline in one area is linked to self-discipline in another. You have a “tank” so to speak of self-control that gets depleted when you are doing something difficult, and gets renewed when you are resting or leasuring. Using your self-control in any area depletes the amount of self-control left for another. If you have small tank (low self-discipline) then you run out of fuel faster (you quit working sooner). In the long run though, you can increase the size of your tank by by doing difficult tasks, such as working for a specified number of hours each week.
Reading Less Wrong is consumptive, not productive. You need to have something to show for your work, ex. a novel draft, a fitter body, a cleaner house.
Isn’t easy/hard the more useful distinction than consumptive/productive? After all, reading the news is productive in the sense of having something to show for it, because you will seem more informed in conversation. And working out can be a form of consumption, if you buy a gym membership.
Personally, I’ve always loved working out. So I don’t have much to gain by trying to motivate myself to work out even more, because I’m obviously already very fit. And “forcing” myself to work out isn’t going to test my self-discipline either. If I’m going to put in 40 hours of scheduled “work” next week, then at least some of it should be spent on things I find hard, and therefore don’t do often enough.
Similarly, if reading geeky blog articles is what you do for fun, CAE_Jones, (which seems probable since you’re here) it’s unlikely that reading even more geeky blog articles will improve your life. That said, you might want to start off scheduling things you would expect yourself to do anyway, for the same reason that you might want to start off scheduling less that 40 hours a week, and slowly work your way up. Just to ease into it.
I am aware of ego depletion. What am I not convinced of is that general work, in any area, will increase the time it takes prior to ego depletion. Could you perhaps point me in the direction of any appropriate research?
Furthermore, if this were true, why would it only apply to what you termed ‘productive’ and not ‘consumptive’ work? Would studying for a class not apply to this rationale? If not, why not? If so, wouldn’t reading Less Wrong also help extend the ‘time to ego-depletion’?
So using a little algebra, I’m deducing you’re 24 years old. You’ve got plenty of time to turn your life around. The most important thing is that you keep going.
I am not disabled so I’m doing a lot of other optimizing here. But this is based on what I’ve read from Scott H Young and Cal Newport.
Write yourself a weekly schedule. Commit yourself to doing 40 hours of work next week. No more, no less. The work can be anything productive, ex. writing fantasy, exercising, house chores. The important thing is that you learn the meta-skill of working on a schedule.
Once you achieve this, your confidence will rise and your obstacles will be easier. It is the first step of a success spiral.
I suggest committing to something less (maybe a lot less) than 40 hours next week, then a bit more the week after that, etc.
I don’t think most people who are in an office for 40 hours work anything like 40 hours. (Not that that’s a bad thing—taking breaks is good, and I think most people underestimate how much time they need to spend recharging in order to operate at peak effectiveness.)
I agree. (I certainly spend much less than 100% of my office time doing useful work. It’s not clear to me how the difference should be partitioned between “taking necessary time to recharge, process things in the background, etc.” and “being a lazy slacker”.)
Well yeah, maybe work your way up to 40 hours. But you should have an upper-limit on how much you work.
This is a clever idea, but could you provide more information? I see how it would make sense intuitively, but is there any evidence suggesting that doing any work, regardless of what it is, for a certain amount of time can improve performance/focus on a very specific task?
If I ‘work’ for forty hours next week on reading LW, it will have a direct improvement on other areas, say on how much school work I would be comfortable doing?
Reading Less Wrong is consumptive, not productive. You need to have something to show for your work, ex. a novel draft, a fitter body, a cleaner house.
If you want to accomplish anything in a post-forager society, you’re going to need to learn how to plan, and how to follow through with those plans. How are you going to get anything done if you don’t have the discipline to put in the hours?
And yes, self-discipline in one area is linked to self-discipline in another. You have a “tank” so to speak of self-control that gets depleted when you are doing something difficult, and gets renewed when you are resting or leasuring. Using your self-control in any area depletes the amount of self-control left for another. If you have small tank (low self-discipline) then you run out of fuel faster (you quit working sooner). In the long run though, you can increase the size of your tank by by doing difficult tasks, such as working for a specified number of hours each week.
Isn’t easy/hard the more useful distinction than consumptive/productive? After all, reading the news is productive in the sense of having something to show for it, because you will seem more informed in conversation. And working out can be a form of consumption, if you buy a gym membership.
Personally, I’ve always loved working out. So I don’t have much to gain by trying to motivate myself to work out even more, because I’m obviously already very fit. And “forcing” myself to work out isn’t going to test my self-discipline either. If I’m going to put in 40 hours of scheduled “work” next week, then at least some of it should be spent on things I find hard, and therefore don’t do often enough.
Similarly, if reading geeky blog articles is what you do for fun, CAE_Jones, (which seems probable since you’re here) it’s unlikely that reading even more geeky blog articles will improve your life. That said, you might want to start off scheduling things you would expect yourself to do anyway, for the same reason that you might want to start off scheduling less that 40 hours a week, and slowly work your way up. Just to ease into it.
Yeah that’s a better way of putting it. Reading Less Wrong might be work for some people, but it’s not for me it probably isn’t for CAE_Jones.
I am aware of ego depletion. What am I not convinced of is that general work, in any area, will increase the time it takes prior to ego depletion. Could you perhaps point me in the direction of any appropriate research?
Furthermore, if this were true, why would it only apply to what you termed ‘productive’ and not ‘consumptive’ work? Would studying for a class not apply to this rationale? If not, why not? If so, wouldn’t reading Less Wrong also help extend the ‘time to ego-depletion’?
Aaronde corrected me. I should have said “things that use your willpower”.