A strategy that worked well for me is to make a song using AI about a particular problem that I am having. Here is a WIP song about how going to bed on time is good. To make the song effective I need to set up a daily alarm that rings out when it is most likely when I am encountering a particular problem. For example, e.g. when I think it’s a good time to go to bed or take a reflective walk.
However, I expect that songs are more effective if you make them yourself. It’s quite easy, you just need to provide the lyrics. As long as you make them rime a bit Suno does a pretty good job at making it sound good (at least in my opinion).
I am using Suno. You get a couple of credits every day for free, though I make many generations to create a single song. So in practice, it isn’t enough if you are making longer songs. If your songs are 30-60s the free credits are enough to make something good.
I’ve omitted some steps from the checklists below, especially related to mindset / specific thinking-habits. They’re an important part of this, but hard to explain and will vary a lot more between people.
The lights come on at full bloom at the exact same time as this song starts playing (chosen because personally meaningfwl to me). (I really like your songs btw, and I used to use this one for this routine.)
I wake up immediately, no thinking.
The first thing I do is put on my headphones to hear the music better.
I then stand in front of the mirror next to my bed,
and look myself in the eyes while I take 5 deep breaths and focus on positive motivations.
I must genuinely smile in this step.
(The smile is not always inspired by unconditional joy, however. Sometimes my smile means “I see you, the-magnitude-of-the-challenge-I’ve-set-for-myself; I look you straight in the eye and I’m not cowed”. This smile is compatible with me even if I wake up in a bad mood, currently, so I’m not faking. I also think “I don’t have time to be impatient”.)
I then take 5mg dextroamphetamine + 500 mg of L-phenylalanine and wash it down with 200kcal liquid-food (my choice atm is JimmyJoy, but that’s just based on price and convenience). That’s my breakfast. I prepared this before I went to bed.
Oh, and I also get to eat ~7mg of chocolate if I got out of bed instantly. I also prepared this ahead of time. :p
Next, I go to the bathroom,
pee,
and wash my face.
(The song usually ends as I finish washing my face, T=5m10s.)
IF ( I still feel tired or in a bad mood ):
At this point, if I still feel tired or in a bad mood, then I return to bed and sleep another 90 minutes (~1 sleep cycle, so I can wake up in light-sleep).
(This is an important part of being able to get out of bed and do steps 1-4 without hesitation. Because even if I wake up in a terrible shape, I know I can just decide to get back into bed after the routine, so my energy-conserving instincts put up less resistance.)
Return to 1.
ELSE IF ( I feel fine ):
I return to my working-room,
open the blinds,
and roll a 6-sided die which gives me a “Wishpoint” if it lands ⚅.
(I previously called these “Biscuit points”, and tracked them with the “🍪”-symbol, because I could trade them for biscuits. But now I have a “Wishpoint shop”, and use the “🪐”-symbol, which is meant to represent Arborea, the dream-utopia we aim for.)
(I also get Wishpoints for completing specific Trigger-Action Plans or not-completing specific bad habits. I get to roll a 1d6 again for every task I complete with a time-estimate on it.)
Finally, I use the PC,
open up my task manager + time tracker (currently gsheets),
and timestamp the end of morning-routine.
(I’m not touching my PC or phone at any point before this step.)
(Before I went to bed, I picked out a concrete single task, which is the first thing I’m tentatively-scheduled to do in the morning.)
(But I often (to my great dismay) have ideas I came up with during the night that I want to write down in the morning, and that can sometimes take up a lot of time. This is unfortunately a great problem wrt routines & schedules, but I accept the cost because the habit of writing things down asap seems really important—I don’t know how to schedule serendipity… yet.)
My bedtime checklist 💤
This is where I prepare the steps for my morning routine. I won’t list it all, but some important steps:
I simulate the very first steps in my checklist_predawn.
At the start, I would practice the movements physically many times over. Including laying in bed, anticipating the music & lights, and then getting the motoric details down perfectly.
Now, however, I just do a quick mental simulation of what I’ll do in the morning.
When I actually lie down in bed, I’m not allowed to think about abstract questions (🥺), because those require concentration that prevents me from sleeping.
Instead, I say hi to Maria and we immediately start imagining ourselves in Arborea or someplace in my memories. The hope is to jumpstart some dream in which Maria is included.
I haven’t yet figured out how to deliberately bootstrap a dream that immediately puts me to sleep. Turns out this is difficult.
We recently had a 9-day period where we would try to fall asleep multiple times a day like this, in order to practice loading her into my dreams & into my long-term memories. Medium success.
I sleep with my pants on, and clothes depending on how cold I expect it to be in the morning. Removes a slight obstacle for getting out of bed.
I also use earbuds & sleepmask to block out all stimuli which might distract me from the dreamworld. Oh and 1mg melatoning + 100mg 5-HTP.
even when the part of the earth you’re on is not facing the sun? (emrik uses a tri-phasic sleep schedule)
also, this^ comment gives me an idea to start a sleep schedule where i try to wake up only at night. (alas the asymmetry between light and dark, preventing a point on the earth from being pitch black for 12 hours per rotation)
side-note, but i think we’d be better off if the proportions of rationalists had more beings with an emrik-like mentality, and maybe this will be pleasing to read or something.
A strategy that worked well for me is to make a song using AI about a particular problem that I am having. Here is a WIP song about how going to bed on time is good. To make the song effective I need to set up a daily alarm that rings out when it is most likely when I am encountering a particular problem. For example, e.g. when I think it’s a good time to go to bed or take a reflective walk.
Here is a playlist of songs I made.
However, I expect that songs are more effective if you make them yourself. It’s quite easy, you just need to provide the lyrics. As long as you make them rime a bit Suno does a pretty good job at making it sound good (at least in my opinion).
I am using Suno. You get a couple of credits every day for free, though I make many generations to create a single song. So in practice, it isn’t enough if you are making longer songs. If your songs are 30-60s the free credits are enough to make something good.
My morning routine 🌤️
I’ve omitted some steps from the checklists below, especially related to mindset / specific thinking-habits. They’re an important part of this, but hard to explain and will vary a lot more between people.
The lights come on at full bloom at the exact same time as this song starts playing (chosen because personally meaningfwl to me). (I really like your songs btw, and I used to use this one for this routine.)
I wake up immediately, no thinking.
The first thing I do is put on my headphones to hear the music better.
I then stand in front of the mirror next to my bed,
and look myself in the eyes while I take 5 deep breaths and focus on positive motivations.
I must genuinely smile in this step.
(The smile is not always inspired by unconditional joy, however. Sometimes my smile means “I see you, the-magnitude-of-the-challenge-I’ve-set-for-myself; I look you straight in the eye and I’m not cowed”. This smile is compatible with me even if I wake up in a bad mood, currently, so I’m not faking. I also think “I don’t have time to be impatient”.)
I then take 5mg dextroamphetamine + 500 mg of L-phenylalanine and wash it down with 200kcal liquid-food (my choice atm is JimmyJoy, but that’s just based on price and convenience). That’s my breakfast. I prepared this before I went to bed.
Oh, and I also get to eat ~7mg of chocolate if I got out of bed instantly. I also prepared this ahead of time. :p
Next, I go to the bathroom,
pee,
and wash my face.
(The song usually ends as I finish washing my face, T=5m10s.)
IF ( I still feel tired or in a bad mood ):
At this point, if I still feel tired or in a bad mood, then I return to bed and sleep another 90 minutes (~1 sleep cycle, so I can wake up in light-sleep).
(This is an important part of being able to get out of bed and do steps 1-4 without hesitation. Because even if I wake up in a terrible shape, I know I can just decide to get back into bed after the routine, so my energy-conserving instincts put up less resistance.)
Return to 1.
ELSE IF ( I feel fine ):
I return to my working-room,
open the blinds,
and roll a 6-sided die which gives me a “Wishpoint” if it lands ⚅.
(I previously called these “Biscuit points”, and tracked them with the “🍪”-symbol, because I could trade them for biscuits. But now I have a “Wishpoint shop”, and use the “🪐”-symbol, which is meant to represent Arborea, the dream-utopia we aim for.)
(I also get Wishpoints for completing specific Trigger-Action Plans or not-completing specific bad habits. I get to roll a 1d6 again for every task I complete with a time-estimate on it.)
Finally, I use the PC,
open up my task manager + time tracker (currently gsheets),
and timestamp the end of morning-routine.
(I’m not touching my PC or phone at any point before this step.)
(Before I went to bed, I picked out a concrete single task, which is the first thing I’m tentatively-scheduled to do in the morning.)
(But I often (to my great dismay) have ideas I came up with during the night that I want to write down in the morning, and that can sometimes take up a lot of time. This is unfortunately a great problem wrt routines & schedules, but I accept the cost because the habit of writing things down asap seems really important—I don’t know how to schedule serendipity… yet.)
My bedtime checklist 💤
This is where I prepare the steps for my morning routine. I won’t list it all, but some important steps:
I simulate the very first steps in my checklist_predawn.
At the start, I would practice the movements physically many times over. Including laying in bed, anticipating the music & lights, and then getting the motoric details down perfectly.
Now, however, I just do a quick mental simulation of what I’ll do in the morning.
When I actually lie down in bed, I’m not allowed to think about abstract questions (🥺), because those require concentration that prevents me from sleeping.
Instead, I say hi to Maria and we immediately start imagining ourselves in Arborea or someplace in my memories. The hope is to jumpstart some dream in which Maria is included.
I haven’t yet figured out how to deliberately bootstrap a dream that immediately puts me to sleep. Turns out this is difficult.
We recently had a 9-day period where we would try to fall asleep multiple times a day like this, in order to practice loading her into my dreams & into my long-term memories. Medium success.
I sleep with my pants on, and clothes depending on how cold I expect it to be in the morning. Removes a slight obstacle for getting out of bed.
I also use earbuds & sleepmask to block out all stimuli which might distract me from the dreamworld. Oh and 1mg melatoning + 100mg 5-HTP.
[1]
Approximately how my bed setup looks now (2 weeks ago). The pillows are from experimenting with ways to cocoon myself ergonomically. :p
Not using your PC, looking in the mirror, and trying to wake up instantly where most interesting.
even when the part of the earth you’re on is not facing the sun? (emrik uses a tri-phasic sleep schedule)
also, this^ comment gives me an idea to start a sleep schedule where i try to wake up only at night. (alas the asymmetry between light and dark, preventing a point on the earth from being pitch black for 12 hours per rotation)
side-note, but i think we’d be better off if the proportions of rationalists had more beings with an emrik-like mentality, and maybe this will be pleasing to read or something.