I’d be uncertain about joining an anti-akrasia group because I’d want to make sure I’d be influenced by some people who were much better at managing their time than I am (the equivalent of people who’ve been sober for twenty years.) A group of current horrible procrastinators wouldn’t necessarily be a good influence.
What I do find myself wanting is a blog or a forum where all the “hacks” for self-improvement are in one place, and where the LessWrong ethic reigns (claims aren’t put forward without evidence, emotionally laden language is rare.) Paul Graham has some essays on time management, for instance, but they’re heavy on the guilt trips and light on the useful tips for the currently unsuccessful—a good style for him and his fans, perhaps, but not my preference.
I like LessWrong’s own posts, but the thing is we duplicate a lot. My post was on my own experience, and other people have posted on their own experience, and many such posts have fallen down the memory hole. I’m not sure how we could reorganize this more neatly.
A separate blog just for akrasiacs is an obvious possibility but I’m not sure I want to divide communities and attention that much. A group diary would be a nice format if we did this, where each person described what progress he/she made each day, and, if relevant, imported stats from goal-tracking software or spreadsheets.
One other thing (which is more private) that we can borrow from AA is the idea of a “lifeline”—someone you have to tell if you aren’t meeting your goals, someone who can talk you into getting back on track. But I think that’s best suited for people who know each other well in person.
A group of current horrible procrastinators wouldn’t necessarily be a good influence.
The intent of the group is to rationally evaluate anti-akrasia techniques. We wouldn’t need to be anti-akrasia role models for one another. If you don’t want to waste time testing uncertain methods, you’re perfectly free to wait until others report that a methods works for them before trying it. Just publish what methods work for you so others can try them, too. With data from different people, we might be able to identify why a method only works for some people, etc.
A separate blog just for akrasiacs is an obvious possibility but I’m not sure I want to divide communities and attention that much.
I’d love to stay on LW, but I fear that e.g. frequent posts in the Discussion section with a common tag would still be offtopic and we would be requested to move offsite.
I doubt that “akrasia” has a huge amount of construct validity. When I’ve gotten better at stuff it has generally been from domain optimizations that make sense in context, or by getting better at management processes like engaging in realistic goal setting and doing simple time motion studies on myself. I’m in reasonable agreement with PJ’s article on this subject, except I think he wrote that before research came out suggesting that “willpower” was an actively harmful way to frame problems of motivation (like “thinking oneself to be intrinsically smart” is unhelpful).
I find the “Anti-Akrasia Alliance” to sound something like “Novice Programmers Against Software With High Bugginess” who propose that they will fight “bugginess” directly, rather than through the application of a series of small fixes to each new program that they write… with a realistic expectation of numerous bugs until any given program has been debugged.
In any case, I expect that an “Anti-Akrasia Alliance” would, if it succeeded at all, almost necessarily be on topic for the cultivation of theoretically-driven epistemically-sound personal efficacy. Perhaps something analogous to “test driven development” would bubble up? In any case, I would neither vote the content down nor request that people move somewhere else.
If I could make a suggestion, it might be good to use the wiki to store written intervention protocols that include before and after data collection and reporting back to a protocol’s manager. Collect targeted volunteers in periodic discussion threads, have the volunteers try out the protocols, update on the evidence, talk about results, tweak or abandon the protocols. Repeat!
The general process outline could be used for other research with positive externalities that some people in the community are interested in, like intelligence amplification research and sleep management :-)
I’d be uncertain about joining an anti-akrasia group because I’d want to make sure I’d be influenced by some people who were much better at managing their time than I am (the equivalent of people who’ve been sober for twenty years.) A group of current horrible procrastinators wouldn’t necessarily be a good influence.
What I do find myself wanting is a blog or a forum where all the “hacks” for self-improvement are in one place, and where the LessWrong ethic reigns (claims aren’t put forward without evidence, emotionally laden language is rare.) Paul Graham has some essays on time management, for instance, but they’re heavy on the guilt trips and light on the useful tips for the currently unsuccessful—a good style for him and his fans, perhaps, but not my preference.
I like LessWrong’s own posts, but the thing is we duplicate a lot. My post was on my own experience, and other people have posted on their own experience, and many such posts have fallen down the memory hole. I’m not sure how we could reorganize this more neatly.
A separate blog just for akrasiacs is an obvious possibility but I’m not sure I want to divide communities and attention that much. A group diary would be a nice format if we did this, where each person described what progress he/she made each day, and, if relevant, imported stats from goal-tracking software or spreadsheets.
One other thing (which is more private) that we can borrow from AA is the idea of a “lifeline”—someone you have to tell if you aren’t meeting your goals, someone who can talk you into getting back on track. But I think that’s best suited for people who know each other well in person.
I agree with your suggestions.
Regarding this:
The intent of the group is to rationally evaluate anti-akrasia techniques. We wouldn’t need to be anti-akrasia role models for one another. If you don’t want to waste time testing uncertain methods, you’re perfectly free to wait until others report that a methods works for them before trying it. Just publish what methods work for you so others can try them, too. With data from different people, we might be able to identify why a method only works for some people, etc.
I’d love to stay on LW, but I fear that e.g. frequent posts in the Discussion section with a common tag would still be offtopic and we would be requested to move offsite.
I doubt that “akrasia” has a huge amount of construct validity. When I’ve gotten better at stuff it has generally been from domain optimizations that make sense in context, or by getting better at management processes like engaging in realistic goal setting and doing simple time motion studies on myself. I’m in reasonable agreement with PJ’s article on this subject, except I think he wrote that before research came out suggesting that “willpower” was an actively harmful way to frame problems of motivation (like “thinking oneself to be intrinsically smart” is unhelpful).
I find the “Anti-Akrasia Alliance” to sound something like “Novice Programmers Against Software With High Bugginess” who propose that they will fight “bugginess” directly, rather than through the application of a series of small fixes to each new program that they write… with a realistic expectation of numerous bugs until any given program has been debugged.
In any case, I expect that an “Anti-Akrasia Alliance” would, if it succeeded at all, almost necessarily be on topic for the cultivation of theoretically-driven epistemically-sound personal efficacy. Perhaps something analogous to “test driven development” would bubble up? In any case, I would neither vote the content down nor request that people move somewhere else.
If I could make a suggestion, it might be good to use the wiki to store written intervention protocols that include before and after data collection and reporting back to a protocol’s manager. Collect targeted volunteers in periodic discussion threads, have the volunteers try out the protocols, update on the evidence, talk about results, tweak or abandon the protocols. Repeat!
The general process outline could be used for other research with positive externalities that some people in the community are interested in, like intelligence amplification research and sleep management :-)