After joining the military, where executive function on demand is sort of the meta-goal of most training exercises, i found that having a set wardrobe actually saves a great deal of mental effort. You just don’t realize how much time you spend worrying about clothes until you have a book which literally has all the answers and can’t be deviated from. I know that this was also a thing that Steve Jobs did- one ‘uniform’ for life. President Obama apparently does it as well. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/10/05/steve-jobs-always-dressed-exactly-the-same-heres-who-else-does/
There are a number of other things i’ve learned for this which are maybe worth writing up as a separate post. Not sure if that’s within the purview of LW though.
I agree, though it’s always been interesting to me how the tiniest details of clothing become much clearer signals when eveybody’s almost the same. Other military practices that I think conserve your energy for what’s important:
-Daily, routinized exercise. Done in a way that very few people are deciding what comes next.
-Maximum use of daylight hours
-Minimized high-risk projects outside of workplace (paternalistic health care, insurance, and in many cases, housing and continuing education.)
It’s plausible to me that a much higher proportion of peeps than is generally realized operate substantially better on different sleep schedules to what a 9-5 job forces, in which case enforced maximal (or at least, greater) use of daylight hours is possibly taking place on a societal (global?) level, though not as strongly as in militaries.
This is plausible to me, too. I’ve had very productive friends with very different rhythms.
But I suspect far more people believe they operate best staying up late and sleeping late than actually do. There’s a reason day shifts frequently outperform night shifts given the same equipment. And we know a lot of people suffer health-wise on night shift.
I don’t think one forced sleep schedule outperforming another is strong evidence that forced schedules are better than natural schedules.
Edit: Also, depending on geography, time of year and commute a 9-5 job may force one to get up some time before dawn and/or stay up some time after dark.
I’m going the opposite way: Paying more attention to non-formulaic outfits, after years of {{varying only within one or two very circumscribed formulas, or even wearing one of exactly the same few set outfits for months—or more—at a time}}. So far it’s interesting figuring things out, but it’s increasing wardrobe load, and if I continue expanding my collection, it could become substantially more expensive than what I was doing before.
The dialectic outside view suggests I’ll end up settling down a bit and going back to a more repetitive approach, but with a greater number of variables (e.g. introducing variables for level of formality, weather, audience, tone-fancied-on-given-day, etc.) and items from which to choose.
After joining the military, where executive function on demand is sort of the meta-goal of most training exercises, i found that having a set wardrobe actually saves a great deal of mental effort. You just don’t realize how much time you spend worrying about clothes until you have a book which literally has all the answers and can’t be deviated from. I know that this was also a thing that Steve Jobs did- one ‘uniform’ for life. President Obama apparently does it as well. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/10/05/steve-jobs-always-dressed-exactly-the-same-heres-who-else-does/
There are a number of other things i’ve learned for this which are maybe worth writing up as a separate post. Not sure if that’s within the purview of LW though.
I agree, though it’s always been interesting to me how the tiniest details of clothing become much clearer signals when eveybody’s almost the same. Other military practices that I think conserve your energy for what’s important:
-Daily, routinized exercise. Done in a way that very few people are deciding what comes next.
-Maximum use of daylight hours
-Minimized high-risk projects outside of workplace (paternalistic health care, insurance, and in many cases, housing and continuing education.)
It’s plausible to me that a much higher proportion of peeps than is generally realized operate substantially better on different sleep schedules to what a 9-5 job forces, in which case enforced maximal (or at least, greater) use of daylight hours is possibly taking place on a societal (global?) level, though not as strongly as in militaries.
This is plausible to me, too. I’ve had very productive friends with very different rhythms.
But I suspect far more people believe they operate best staying up late and sleeping late than actually do. There’s a reason day shifts frequently outperform night shifts given the same equipment. And we know a lot of people suffer health-wise on night shift.
I don’t think one forced sleep schedule outperforming another is strong evidence that forced schedules are better than natural schedules.
Edit: Also, depending on geography, time of year and commute a 9-5 job may force one to get up some time before dawn and/or stay up some time after dark.
I also intuit that most people do best on a non-forced sleep schedule; I don’t think that many people know how to have a unforced schedule.
I’d be interested to see this in Discussion.
I’m going the opposite way: Paying more attention to non-formulaic outfits, after years of {{varying only within one or two very circumscribed formulas, or even wearing one of exactly the same few set outfits for months—or more—at a time}}. So far it’s interesting figuring things out, but it’s increasing wardrobe load, and if I continue expanding my collection, it could become substantially more expensive than what I was doing before.
The dialectic outside view suggests I’ll end up settling down a bit and going back to a more repetitive approach, but with a greater number of variables (e.g. introducing variables for level of formality, weather, audience, tone-fancied-on-given-day, etc.) and items from which to choose.
As requested.
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/il7/military_rationalities_and_irrationalities/
Awesome!