Regarding references, you’re right, I should track those down. I should have put them in the original post, actually. The main resource is the book The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa (John Yates), but many of the one-off claims you cited were from old Less Wrong posts. For example, the mention of akrasia being a less-than-clear term came from Less Wrong.
Regarding Lukeprog’s post, I think the approach of manipulating terms of the Motivation Equation (1) doesn’t address all potential reasons why you may find yourself resistant to doing a thing, (2) is a very abstract set of tactics that requires a large amount of thought and analysis that you won’t feel like doing if you find that you have a haze of resistance around the task, and (3) the remedies in that post don’t actually work, though they seem like they should.
Regarding (1), How to Beat Procrastination will not help you if your problem is aversion. If some component of you has icky feelings about it, you can tweak Expectancy, Value, Impulsiveness and Delay all you want, and you’re still going to be hugely resistant to starting the task, and if you do start it without addressing the aversion, you’re going to do so with a lot of cognitive overhead dedicated to keeping the aversion at bay. You’re probably going to be in a terrible mood the whole time.
In contrast, if you face the aversion directly, you may find that your Motivation Equation terms are all just fine, and the obstacle to starting is removed.
Regarding (2), does anybody every actually … do what Lukeprog suggests? Successfully? If so, for how many tasks in a week? At some point, the task of doing the Motivation Equation Analysis is such a chore that you have to do a Motivation Equation Analysis on it.
Regarding (3), back when Lukeprog wrote that, I actually tried those tactics, and indeed found that I could put forth great effort to construct the most carefully crafted SMART goals humanly possible and still find that things weren’t getting done. I tried analyzing the terms of my Motivation Equations and found that I couldn’t materially budge the parameters. Maybe other people are different. What helps me is a framework in which I can readily and simply diagnose what’s happening, in the moment, and apply a simple remedy.
Regarding references, you’re right, I should track those down. I should have put them in the original post, actually. The main resource is the book The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa (John Yates), but many of the one-off claims you cited were from old Less Wrong posts. For example, the mention of akrasia being a less-than-clear term came from Less Wrong.
Regarding Lukeprog’s post, I think the approach of manipulating terms of the Motivation Equation (1) doesn’t address all potential reasons why you may find yourself resistant to doing a thing, (2) is a very abstract set of tactics that requires a large amount of thought and analysis that you won’t feel like doing if you find that you have a haze of resistance around the task, and (3) the remedies in that post don’t actually work, though they seem like they should.
Regarding (1), How to Beat Procrastination will not help you if your problem is aversion. If some component of you has icky feelings about it, you can tweak Expectancy, Value, Impulsiveness and Delay all you want, and you’re still going to be hugely resistant to starting the task, and if you do start it without addressing the aversion, you’re going to do so with a lot of cognitive overhead dedicated to keeping the aversion at bay. You’re probably going to be in a terrible mood the whole time.
In contrast, if you face the aversion directly, you may find that your Motivation Equation terms are all just fine, and the obstacle to starting is removed.
Regarding (2), does anybody every actually … do what Lukeprog suggests? Successfully? If so, for how many tasks in a week? At some point, the task of doing the Motivation Equation Analysis is such a chore that you have to do a Motivation Equation Analysis on it.
Regarding (3), back when Lukeprog wrote that, I actually tried those tactics, and indeed found that I could put forth great effort to construct the most carefully crafted SMART goals humanly possible and still find that things weren’t getting done. I tried analyzing the terms of my Motivation Equations and found that I couldn’t materially budge the parameters. Maybe other people are different. What helps me is a framework in which I can readily and simply diagnose what’s happening, in the moment, and apply a simple remedy.