I think we do a lot by feel instead of by quantifying results.
Mainly because correlating results to actions is hard and it’s not obvious how to do it. Actions are habitual; feedback on success is sporadic. How do you know whether your habits are helping or hurting you?
It took me years to realize that lack of sleep affected my intelligence, mood, and ability to concentrate. It hadn’t occurred to me to perform the experiment—sleep a lot one night and see how it feels the next day.
I guess my take-away lesson is that it’s worthwhile to test out life changes—do something different once and see the result.
Or, alternately, that gathering data is an essential thing that we reliably fail to do.
In my first year of financial independence, the best thing I did for myself was just record, each day, how much I spent and what I spent it on. Despite living on a grad student’s budget for 5 years, I never ended up strapped for cash, didn’t have to skip out on fun times for lack of funds, and even had enough left to start saving.
Ditto for my akrasia remedy from last year (points system during the workday: 1 point per minute for productive mathematical work, 1⁄2 point per minute for listening to math talks or working on teaching, and −1 point per minute for wasting time online, with a goal of +180 every day); the most essential part, I now think, was that I kept track of how I was actually spending my time.
I think we do a lot by feel instead of by quantifying results.
Mainly because correlating results to actions is hard and it’s not obvious how to do it. Actions are habitual; feedback on success is sporadic. How do you know whether your habits are helping or hurting you?
It took me years to realize that lack of sleep affected my intelligence, mood, and ability to concentrate. It hadn’t occurred to me to perform the experiment—sleep a lot one night and see how it feels the next day.
I guess my take-away lesson is that it’s worthwhile to test out life changes—do something different once and see the result.
Or, alternately, that gathering data is an essential thing that we reliably fail to do.
In my first year of financial independence, the best thing I did for myself was just record, each day, how much I spent and what I spent it on. Despite living on a grad student’s budget for 5 years, I never ended up strapped for cash, didn’t have to skip out on fun times for lack of funds, and even had enough left to start saving.
Ditto for my akrasia remedy from last year (points system during the workday: 1 point per minute for productive mathematical work, 1⁄2 point per minute for listening to math talks or working on teaching, and −1 point per minute for wasting time online, with a goal of +180 every day); the most essential part, I now think, was that I kept track of how I was actually spending my time.