As part of the Athena Rationality Project, we’ve recently launched two new prototype apps that may be of interest to LWers
Virtual Akrasia Coach
The first is a Virtual Akrasia Coach, which comes out of a few months of studying various interventions for Akrasia, then testing the resulting ~25 habits/skills through internet based lessons to refine them. We then took the resulting flowchart for dealing with Akrasia, and created a “Virtual Coach” that can walk you through a work session, ensuring your work is focused, productive and enjoyable.
Right now about 10% of people find it useful to use in every session, 10% of people find it useful to use when they’re procrastinating, and 10% of people find it useful to use when they’re practicing the anti-akrasia habits. The rest don’t find it useful, or think it would be useful but don’t tend to use it.
I know many of you may be wondering how the idea of 25 skills fits in with the Internal Conflict model of akrasia. One way to frame the skills is that for people with chronic akrasia, we’ve found that they tend to have certain patterns that lead to internal conflict—For instance, one side thinks it would be good to work on something, but another side doesn’t like uncertainty. You can solve this by internal double crux, or you can have a habit to always know your next action so there’s no uncertainty. By using this and the other 24 tools you can prevent a good portion of internal conflict from showing up in the first place.
Habit Installer/Uninstaller App
The habit installer/uninstaller app is an attempt to create a better process for creating TAPs, and using a modified Murphyjitsu process to create setbacks for those taps.
Here’s how it works.
When you think of a new TAP to install, add it to your habit Queue..
When the TAP reaches the top of the Habit Queue, it gives you a “Conditioning Session”—these are a set of audio sessions that take you through processes to strengthen habits, such as visualization, memory re-consolidation, and mental contrasting.
The app will check in with you about how frequently you’ve been executing the TAP, using a spaced repetition schedule, giving you more conditioning sessions when you’re likely to fail at your habit, starting frequently then less and less frequently as you master the habit.
When the habit is 10% mastered, you’ll be walked through a murphyjitsu process, coming up with new habits and actions that can prevent you from failing to install this habit.
Any new habits you create using the Murphyjitsu process are added to the habit queue, making the process fractal.
When a habit is 100% mastered, you no longer receive conditioning sessions or checkins, allowing you room to install more TAPs.
The app is definitely in prototype form, and quite ugly and hacky, but I’ve personally find it quite useful for creating new habits.
As an experiment for this particular app based on learning from our previous Akrasia Coach prototype, we’re charging a small ($2.99) fee for trying the prototype. The fee is basically to get more committed users, and will of course be refunded if at any point you decide the app is not for you or too early stage.
As part of the Athena Rationality Project, we’ve recently launched two new prototype apps that may be of interest to LWers
Virtual Akrasia Coach
The first is a Virtual Akrasia Coach, which comes out of a few months of studying various interventions for Akrasia, then testing the resulting ~25 habits/skills through internet based lessons to refine them. We then took the resulting flowchart for dealing with Akrasia, and created a “Virtual Coach” that can walk you through a work session, ensuring your work is focused, productive and enjoyable.
Right now about 10% of people find it useful to use in every session, 10% of people find it useful to use when they’re procrastinating, and 10% of people find it useful to use when they’re practicing the anti-akrasia habits. The rest don’t find it useful, or think it would be useful but don’t tend to use it.
I know many of you may be wondering how the idea of 25 skills fits in with the Internal Conflict model of akrasia. One way to frame the skills is that for people with chronic akrasia, we’ve found that they tend to have certain patterns that lead to internal conflict—For instance, one side thinks it would be good to work on something, but another side doesn’t like uncertainty. You can solve this by internal double crux, or you can have a habit to always know your next action so there’s no uncertainty. By using this and the other 24 tools you can prevent a good portion of internal conflict from showing up in the first place.
Habit Installer/Uninstaller App
The habit installer/uninstaller app is an attempt to create a better process for creating TAPs, and using a modified Murphyjitsu process to create setbacks for those taps.
Here’s how it works.
When you think of a new TAP to install, add it to your habit Queue..
When the TAP reaches the top of the Habit Queue, it gives you a “Conditioning Session”—these are a set of audio sessions that take you through processes to strengthen habits, such as visualization, memory re-consolidation, and mental contrasting.
The app will check in with you about how frequently you’ve been executing the TAP, using a spaced repetition schedule, giving you more conditioning sessions when you’re likely to fail at your habit, starting frequently then less and less frequently as you master the habit.
When the habit is 10% mastered, you’ll be walked through a murphyjitsu process, coming up with new habits and actions that can prevent you from failing to install this habit.
Any new habits you create using the Murphyjitsu process are added to the habit queue, making the process fractal.
When a habit is 100% mastered, you no longer receive conditioning sessions or checkins, allowing you room to install more TAPs.
The app is definitely in prototype form, and quite ugly and hacky, but I’ve personally find it quite useful for creating new habits.
As an experiment for this particular app based on learning from our previous Akrasia Coach prototype, we’re charging a small ($2.99) fee for trying the prototype. The fee is basically to get more committed users, and will of course be refunded if at any point you decide the app is not for you or too early stage.
If you’re interested in that, the link to test it out is here.
Note that we’ve been getting reports of the confirmation emails ending up in spam, so be sure to check your spam folder once you sign up.
Anyways, feel free to try both of those out, and if you have any questions, I’ll do my best to answer.