I am starting a project to take more deliberate control of my life:
At the macro level, I want to clarify my medium-to-long-term goals (of the “what do I want to accomplish in the next couple years?” variety).
At the micro level, I want to prioritize tasks and opportunities so that I can spend my time on the best ones.
At the pico level, I want to improve my memory for decisions and goals and reduce akrasia.
I have no idea how to proceed on the macro piece. Does anyone have any good ideas or know of any good resources for it?
The micro piece seems pretty straightforward; it’s just a matter of doing it.
For the pico piece, when I try to improve in this regard, especially on the memory part, I tend to run into an infinite regress of “I need to do X” --> “I need to write down X so that I remember to do it” --> I need to remember to write down when I need to do something” … Does anyone have any suggestions on how to prevent that?
The problems with defining long-term goals may be personality-specific. I mean the cure is probably different if your problem is that you often change your mood, or if your problem is that you think about things other people want from you instead of what makes you happy. So when you have problem clarifying your goals, go meta and ask why.
My problem was that my mood changes quickly, and my opinions sometimes move like a leaf in a strong wind; and I forget my conclusions made in the previous moods. And whatever I think may be strongly influenced by what happened to me during the previous hour; which is not a good mindset to start planning my life. -- The solution: I took a piece of paper, wrote my long-term goals, and turned it upside down, so I couldn’t read it. Later, I did it again. And again. And again. And finally I looked at all the papers to see which topics are often repeated. Actually I was surprised, because the papers were more consistent than I thought; sometimes I wrote the same things repeatedly, not remembering I wrote them previously. This is how I made my list.
For inspiration, you can look at things other people do, and decide what seems good for you. Important thing is to look at what they do, not just what they have. Because the answer to: “Would you like to have billion dollars?” could be positive, and yet the answer to: “Would you like to lose your family and friends and spend 16 hours 7 days in a week running your business?” could be negative. Consider things within their contexts.
Another inspiration is to look at your previous selves: Which things in the past made you happy and proud? Could you do more of that, possibly on a higher level or a larger scale? If you like writing stories, would you like to write a novel? If you like programming, would you like to create your own software project? If you like travelling, how about a trip around the whole planet? If you like playing a musical instrument, could you find more people and start a music band?
I am starting a project to take more deliberate control of my life:
At the macro level, I want to clarify my medium-to-long-term goals (of the “what do I want to accomplish in the next couple years?” variety).
At the micro level, I want to prioritize tasks and opportunities so that I can spend my time on the best ones.
At the pico level, I want to improve my memory for decisions and goals and reduce akrasia.
I have no idea how to proceed on the macro piece. Does anyone have any good ideas or know of any good resources for it?
The micro piece seems pretty straightforward; it’s just a matter of doing it.
For the pico piece, when I try to improve in this regard, especially on the memory part, I tend to run into an infinite regress of “I need to do X” --> “I need to write down X so that I remember to do it” --> I need to remember to write down when I need to do something” … Does anyone have any suggestions on how to prevent that?
The problems with defining long-term goals may be personality-specific. I mean the cure is probably different if your problem is that you often change your mood, or if your problem is that you think about things other people want from you instead of what makes you happy. So when you have problem clarifying your goals, go meta and ask why.
My problem was that my mood changes quickly, and my opinions sometimes move like a leaf in a strong wind; and I forget my conclusions made in the previous moods. And whatever I think may be strongly influenced by what happened to me during the previous hour; which is not a good mindset to start planning my life. -- The solution: I took a piece of paper, wrote my long-term goals, and turned it upside down, so I couldn’t read it. Later, I did it again. And again. And again. And finally I looked at all the papers to see which topics are often repeated. Actually I was surprised, because the papers were more consistent than I thought; sometimes I wrote the same things repeatedly, not remembering I wrote them previously. This is how I made my list.
For inspiration, you can look at things other people do, and decide what seems good for you. Important thing is to look at what they do, not just what they have. Because the answer to: “Would you like to have billion dollars?” could be positive, and yet the answer to: “Would you like to lose your family and friends and spend 16 hours 7 days in a week running your business?” could be negative. Consider things within their contexts.
Another inspiration is to look at your previous selves: Which things in the past made you happy and proud? Could you do more of that, possibly on a higher level or a larger scale? If you like writing stories, would you like to write a novel? If you like programming, would you like to create your own software project? If you like travelling, how about a trip around the whole planet? If you like playing a musical instrument, could you find more people and start a music band?