Briefly: I’m looking for a person (or group) with whom I can mutually discuss self improvement and personal goals (and nothing else) on a regular basis.
Also, note, this post is an example of asking a personally important question on LW. The following idea is not meant as a general mindhack, but just as something I want to try out myself.
We are unconsciously motivated by those around us. The Milgram experiment and the Asch conformity experiment are the two best examples of social influence that come to my mind, though I’m sure there are plenty more (if you haven’t heard of them, I really suggest spending a minute).
I’ve tended to see this drive to conform to the expectations of others as a weakness of the human mind, and yes, it can be destructive. However, as long as its there, I should exploit it. Specifically, I want to exploit it to fight akrasia.
Utilizing positive social influence is a pretty common tactic for fighting drug addictions (like in AA), but I haven’t really heard of it being used to fight unproductivity. Sharing your personal work/improvement goals with someone in the same position as yourself, along with reflecting on previous attempts, could potentially be powerful. Humans simply feel more responsible for the things they tell other people about, and less responsible for the things they bottle up and don’t tell anyone (like all of my productivity strategies).
The setup that I envision would be something like this:
On a chat room, or some system like skype.1
Meet weekly at a very specific time for a set amount of time.
Your partner has a list of the productivity goals you set during the previous session. They ask you about your performance, forcing you to explain either your success or your failure.
Your partner tries to articulate what went wrong or what went right from your explanation (giving you a second perspective).
Once both parties have shared and evaluated, you set your new goals in light of your new experience (and with your partner’s input, hopefully being more effective).
The partnership continues as long as it is useful for all parties.
I’ve tried doing something similar to this with my friends, but it just didn’t work. We already knew each other too well, and there wasn’t that air of dispassionate professionality. We were friends, but not partners (in this sense of the word).
If something close to what I describe already exists, or at least serves the same purpose, I would love to hear about it (I already tried the LW study hall, but it wasn’t really the structure or atmosphere I was going for). Otherwise, I’d be thrilled to find someone here to try doing this with. You can PM me if you don’t want to post here.
1. After explaining this whole idea to someone IRL, they remarked that there would be little social influence because we would only be meeting online in a pseudo-anonymous way. However, I don’t find this to be the case personally when I talk with people online, so a virtual environment would be no detriment (hopefully this isn’t just unique to me).
Edit (29/3/2015): Just for the record, I wanted to say that I was able to make the connection I wanted, via a PM. Thanks LW!
Where can I go to exploit social influence to fight akrasia?
Briefly: I’m looking for a person (or group) with whom I can mutually discuss self improvement and personal goals (and nothing else) on a regular basis.
Also, note, this post is an example of asking a personally important question on LW. The following idea is not meant as a general mindhack, but just as something I want to try out myself.
We are unconsciously motivated by those around us. The Milgram experiment and the Asch conformity experiment are the two best examples of social influence that come to my mind, though I’m sure there are plenty more (if you haven’t heard of them, I really suggest spending a minute).
I’ve tended to see this drive to conform to the expectations of others as a weakness of the human mind, and yes, it can be destructive. However, as long as its there, I should exploit it. Specifically, I want to exploit it to fight akrasia.
Utilizing positive social influence is a pretty common tactic for fighting drug addictions (like in AA), but I haven’t really heard of it being used to fight unproductivity. Sharing your personal work/improvement goals with someone in the same position as yourself, along with reflecting on previous attempts, could potentially be powerful. Humans simply feel more responsible for the things they tell other people about, and less responsible for the things they bottle up and don’t tell anyone (like all of my productivity strategies).
The setup that I envision would be something like this:
On a chat room, or some system like skype.1
Meet weekly at a very specific time for a set amount of time.
Your partner has a list of the productivity goals you set during the previous session. They ask you about your performance, forcing you to explain either your success or your failure.
Your partner tries to articulate what went wrong or what went right from your explanation (giving you a second perspective).
Once both parties have shared and evaluated, you set your new goals in light of your new experience (and with your partner’s input, hopefully being more effective).
The partnership continues as long as it is useful for all parties.
I’ve tried doing something similar to this with my friends, but it just didn’t work. We already knew each other too well, and there wasn’t that air of dispassionate professionality. We were friends, but not partners (in this sense of the word).
If something close to what I describe already exists, or at least serves the same purpose, I would love to hear about it (I already tried the LW study hall, but it wasn’t really the structure or atmosphere I was going for). Otherwise, I’d be thrilled to find someone here to try doing this with. You can PM me if you don’t want to post here.
1. After explaining this whole idea to someone IRL, they remarked that there would be little social influence because we would only be meeting online in a pseudo-anonymous way. However, I don’t find this to be the case personally when I talk with people online, so a virtual environment would be no detriment (hopefully this isn’t just unique to me).
Edit (29/3/2015): Just for the record, I wanted to say that I was able to make the connection I wanted, via a PM. Thanks LW!