I have read this advice somewhere, that people like to focus on developing their strongest skills (because thinking about their strongest skills makes them feel good), but to be successful they have to focus on fixing their weakest skills (but they often avoid it because it feels bad).
Specifically applied to me, no matter how good I am at programming, if I spend all my time procrastinating online, I will never make a computer game. Therefore, to make a computer game, my #1 task is fixing my procrastination habits, not improving my programming skills. My skills are probably good enough as they are, and they will further improve by doing, and I can read some articles and books later if necessary. -- My brain is trying to focus my attention towards learning, because learning is pleasant; it gives me the feeling that I know more. I love learning. But I could learn infinitely without getting anything done. Also, if I don’t do anything, maybe I am not fully understanding what I learned, or maybe I keep forgetting it soon. -- The important part is noticing that my brain recommends me to focus on learning, but the winning move is to focus on stopping procrastination. Because it’s the procrastination, not the lack of learning, that really stops me now.
This week I started a diet, to reduce my weight and become more healthy. There was a really convenient solution available. There is a company that makes the food and brings it to me home every day. They claim the food contains all the necessary nutrients and not much calories. The important part is that you have to eat regularly, 5 times a day, with 2-3-hour intervals between meals. I have subscribed for two months to test it, one week is already over. I am pleasantly surprised that the food usually tastes great, and that despite eating less than usually, I never actually felt hungry. (To declare a success, I must wait those two months and measure how much my weight has actually changed.) The only downside is the cost of the food, but my idea is that after those two months, I will continue eating the same way, but preparing the meals myself. To overcome another trivial inconvenience, I keep the plastic boxes from the food, so it will be easy to estimate the portion size. Also the boxes have good shape and size so that many of them can fit in the freezer.
As another weakness, I have noticed that I don’t reflect on my actions regularly. I don’t make enough plans to change myself. May seem contradictory to this comment, but this comment reflects only my latest weeks. I was aware of having internet procrastination problems for years, and I didn’t fix that even one year after the CFAR Rationality Minicamp! (I had a plan, the plan didn’t work well, I was kinda aware of that, but I did nothing about it.) It was actually the one-year-later questionnaire that woke me up to realize that I haven’t fulfilled my 10 goals I stated after the minicamp (actually, I forgot nearly half of them), and that I have lost momentum. Now, one month after that realization, I have reduced my web procrastination to 25%, and it actually wasn’t that hard. Why haven’t I done that sooner? What other potentially useful and easy improvements am I ignoring? Then I realized I didn’t make plan for any regular reflection on my goals, so naturally I wasn’t reflecting much. Okay, it is late evening now, I will do that tomorrow.
I have successfully developed a habit of making reports every day about what I did. Just a few yes-or-no categories. And I kept doing this for more than a year (which is more than anything I tried before). This didn’t improve me automatically in every measured dimension (as I kinda naively expected), but at least I have the data, so I can look and see what is okay and what is wrong. -- For example, it tells me that today was completely wrong; the only good thing was not eating anything with sugar. I could have exercised for 5 minutes. I could have walked outside for 20 minutes. I could have posted an already prepared article on my blog, as I originally planned to. But I didn’t do anything of this, and just spent my whole day online. (Which is an improvement from spending most of my week online.) Well, it won’t happen tomorrow, hopefully. This kind of logging draws my attention to what I am doing, and what I am not doing. (Like, my previous days this week were more productive.)
I guess I should write an article on my blog about what changed (and what didn’t) during my one year after the Rationality Minicamp. The good thing: I already have the necessary data; I just have to process it.
I have read this advice somewhere, that people like to focus on developing their strongest skills (because thinking about their strongest skills makes them feel good), but to be successful they have to focus on fixing their weakest skills (but they often avoid it because it feels bad).
Specifically applied to me, no matter how good I am at programming, if I spend all my time procrastinating online, I will never make a computer game. Therefore, to make a computer game, my #1 task is fixing my procrastination habits, not improving my programming skills. My skills are probably good enough as they are, and they will further improve by doing, and I can read some articles and books later if necessary. -- My brain is trying to focus my attention towards learning, because learning is pleasant; it gives me the feeling that I know more. I love learning. But I could learn infinitely without getting anything done. Also, if I don’t do anything, maybe I am not fully understanding what I learned, or maybe I keep forgetting it soon. -- The important part is noticing that my brain recommends me to focus on learning, but the winning move is to focus on stopping procrastination. Because it’s the procrastination, not the lack of learning, that really stops me now.
This week I started a diet, to reduce my weight and become more healthy. There was a really convenient solution available. There is a company that makes the food and brings it to me home every day. They claim the food contains all the necessary nutrients and not much calories. The important part is that you have to eat regularly, 5 times a day, with 2-3-hour intervals between meals. I have subscribed for two months to test it, one week is already over. I am pleasantly surprised that the food usually tastes great, and that despite eating less than usually, I never actually felt hungry. (To declare a success, I must wait those two months and measure how much my weight has actually changed.) The only downside is the cost of the food, but my idea is that after those two months, I will continue eating the same way, but preparing the meals myself. To overcome another trivial inconvenience, I keep the plastic boxes from the food, so it will be easy to estimate the portion size. Also the boxes have good shape and size so that many of them can fit in the freezer.
As another weakness, I have noticed that I don’t reflect on my actions regularly. I don’t make enough plans to change myself. May seem contradictory to this comment, but this comment reflects only my latest weeks. I was aware of having internet procrastination problems for years, and I didn’t fix that even one year after the CFAR Rationality Minicamp! (I had a plan, the plan didn’t work well, I was kinda aware of that, but I did nothing about it.) It was actually the one-year-later questionnaire that woke me up to realize that I haven’t fulfilled my 10 goals I stated after the minicamp (actually, I forgot nearly half of them), and that I have lost momentum. Now, one month after that realization, I have reduced my web procrastination to 25%, and it actually wasn’t that hard. Why haven’t I done that sooner? What other potentially useful and easy improvements am I ignoring? Then I realized I didn’t make plan for any regular reflection on my goals, so naturally I wasn’t reflecting much. Okay, it is late evening now, I will do that tomorrow.
I have successfully developed a habit of making reports every day about what I did. Just a few yes-or-no categories. And I kept doing this for more than a year (which is more than anything I tried before). This didn’t improve me automatically in every measured dimension (as I kinda naively expected), but at least I have the data, so I can look and see what is okay and what is wrong. -- For example, it tells me that today was completely wrong; the only good thing was not eating anything with sugar. I could have exercised for 5 minutes. I could have walked outside for 20 minutes. I could have posted an already prepared article on my blog, as I originally planned to. But I didn’t do anything of this, and just spent my whole day online. (Which is an improvement from spending most of my week online.) Well, it won’t happen tomorrow, hopefully. This kind of logging draws my attention to what I am doing, and what I am not doing. (Like, my previous days this week were more productive.)
I guess I should write an article on my blog about what changed (and what didn’t) during my one year after the Rationality Minicamp. The good thing: I already have the necessary data; I just have to process it.