if you prime an excuse for doing poorly, you will do poorly.
This is the most useful sentence I’ve read today.
I care strongly about winning. When I look back on a day and ask myself what I could have done better, I want answering to be a struggle, and not for lack of imagination. I’m not content to coast through life, so I optimize relentlessly. This sentiment might be familiar to LW readers. I don’t know. Maybe.
When a day goes particularly well or poorly, I want to know why, and over the last few years I’ve picked a few patterns out of my diary. I know some of my success and failure modes, so I can optimize my working environment in my favor.
In the past, I’ve often been successful even while sleep-deprived. I may be a bit slower, a bit more forgetful, and significantly less creative, but I can still plow through tasks of moderate difficulty. Two months ago, I activated a difficult project, so I resolved to start getting plenty of sleep all the time, then promptly forgot my original reason and associated “well-rested” with “productive on anything”. In the last two months, my rate of even moderate success while sleep-deprived has dropped to almost zero. “I was intending to read that book, or watch that show, or play that game eventually, and I’m not going to be efficient today, so it might as well be now”, I’ll say.
With this dangerous knowledge that I was irrational enough to misuse, I can predict my days into failure.
This is the most useful sentence I’ve read today.
I care strongly about winning. When I look back on a day and ask myself what I could have done better, I want answering to be a struggle, and not for lack of imagination. I’m not content to coast through life, so I optimize relentlessly. This sentiment might be familiar to LW readers. I don’t know. Maybe.
When a day goes particularly well or poorly, I want to know why, and over the last few years I’ve picked a few patterns out of my diary. I know some of my success and failure modes, so I can optimize my working environment in my favor.
In the past, I’ve often been successful even while sleep-deprived. I may be a bit slower, a bit more forgetful, and significantly less creative, but I can still plow through tasks of moderate difficulty. Two months ago, I activated a difficult project, so I resolved to start getting plenty of sleep all the time, then promptly forgot my original reason and associated “well-rested” with “productive on anything”. In the last two months, my rate of even moderate success while sleep-deprived has dropped to almost zero. “I was intending to read that book, or watch that show, or play that game eventually, and I’m not going to be efficient today, so it might as well be now”, I’ll say.
With this dangerous knowledge that I was irrational enough to misuse, I can predict my days into failure.