Some things are way more important than others. If you are currently doing something really stupid in your life, fixing it is more important than learning a list of 1000 cognitive biases and rationality techniques.
It is much better to have 5 techniques that work for you and use them regularly, than to memorize a list of 1000 techniques and actually never use them.
Make logs. (And make them simple.) For example, if your goal is to exercise regularly, put a circle in your calendar whenever you exercise, or something like that. This gives you quick feedback whether you are actually doing things, or just lying to yourself.
Think about how you reward or punish yourself. (Read the book Don’t Shoot the Dog.) Punishment, including self-punishment, is almost always the wrong approach. Why? Because you indirectly punish yourself for noticing the problem, and for trying to overcome it, which is the opposite of what you would want to do. Partial successes are a reason to celebrate! (Ancient wisdom says: “All you need is love positive reinforcement.”)
Your body has a huge impact on your mind. Getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, getting enough sunlight, seeing your friends… are powerful (indirect) rationality techniques.
Interesting comment. You know, the weird thing is that I knew all of that long before I started implementing it (that is, quite recently). And it’s not even surprising that for the longest time I knew that avoiding bad situations, making logs, making a deliberate effort to stay healthy, and avoiding self-punishment were important, but that I hardly ever did any of it. I don’t think I quite grok fully why our brains work like that.
And now, I’m actually a little concerned that I may have taken up negative reinforcement and other such bad habits in a way where it’ll be hard to uproot them. I guess if there is good advice on that, I could probably use it.
It’s as if our brains are made of rubber—you can flex your brain a little, but it soon reverts to its original shape. The question is how to make a change permanent.
Create habits—but this is a “chicken and egg” problem.
Make changes in your environment—add/remove/move objects, add reminders.
Set up external reminders—friends, calendar, alarm clock.
For logging, I made a simple calendar in Excel (one paper—six months, a small rectangle for each day), printed it and put on a magnetic board. On the top I write the topic, e.g. “exercise”, and every day I exercise, I circle that number using a pen. The point is, I can make such calendar in 5 minutes… otherwise I would procrastinate with making the calendar.
Furthermore, I keep my weights under my working desk, so whenever I look at them, it is a reminder that I want to use them. I also made a playlist for exercising. So when I am at my computer (with the calendar in my peripheral vision) and the thought crosses my mind “actually, I should exercise”, I just need to start the playlist and pick up the weights; it only takes a few seconds.
And now, I’m actually a little concerned that I may have taken up negative reinforcement and other such bad habits in a way where it’ll be hard to uproot them.
Being nice to yourself can be surprisingly hard for many people. Myself included.
A part of that is various bullshit beliefs that we have accumulated. Such as “but if you stop being hard on yourself, you will never achieve anything”. It may sound so obviously correct, even when the reality is the exact opposite—you are not doing anything useful, because instead of dreaming and planning and doing you spend your time unproductively beating up yourself.
Uhm, it’s difficult to put it in words. There is a right place for everything; even for being angry at yourself. Sometimes you need to stop doing stupid shit immediately, and a blast of anger could be a way to achieve exactly that. But if you do it more than once in a week, you should use some other mental tool instead. Observe. Never be angry while observing; that ruins the data.
Similarly, I am tempted to write “work smarter, not harder”. But this also isn’t true: working hard is useful; you just need to make sure that you did the smart things first. Work hard in the situations when working hard is efficient, not when you should be doing something smarter instead. Willpower is a scarce resource (even more if you have ADHD), so first make sure you did the easy things.
I think visualization helps (although I often forget to do it myself). Remind yourself why you are doing something. Just relax for one minute, and imagine the glorious outcome you are trying to achieve; imagine already being there, how would it feel. Then, starting the work may get easier.
You probably just need to start trying something, observing how it works, and updating your strategy. And maybe sharing advice with some people at ACX meetup, though I would expect that most of them are not interested in that, and only came to chat.
For me, the best resources were Don’t Shoot the Dog and maybe Games People Play; I would strongly recommend them both.
A great obstacle to improvement is the status instinct. Sometimes the right actions are unimpressive (e.g. doing the dirty work), and the wrong actions are impressive (e.g. sharing insights or debating philosophically). People are afraid to admit weakness and ask for help/advice, because that makes them less impressive. (Then again, sometimes the instinct is right; some people will just feel superior to you when you admit a weakness, and will not provide any useful help.) People avoid hard work, because if you are cool, the impressive results are supposed to come “naturally”. (In fact, many impressive results are a result of hard work done in the past. And “natural” often means well-trained.) Everyone wants to be an expert, no one wants to be a beginner, but you cannot have the former without the latter. People avoid improvement, because it may upset the existing social balance. (You never know whose fragile ego in your proximity is supported by “at least, you aren’t better either”. Your self-improvement may kick this down, and the person may take revenge; this can come as a huge surprise.) Even being hard on yourself is probably about this, because it seems “fair” that if you want to be great, you should suffer for your audacity. But in fact there is no law of physics that requires that.
Late to the debate, so just a few notes:
Some things are way more important than others. If you are currently doing something really stupid in your life, fixing it is more important than learning a list of 1000 cognitive biases and rationality techniques.
It is much better to have 5 techniques that work for you and use them regularly, than to memorize a list of 1000 techniques and actually never use them.
Make logs. (And make them simple.) For example, if your goal is to exercise regularly, put a circle in your calendar whenever you exercise, or something like that. This gives you quick feedback whether you are actually doing things, or just lying to yourself.
Think about how you reward or punish yourself. (Read the book Don’t Shoot the Dog.) Punishment, including self-punishment, is almost always the wrong approach. Why? Because you indirectly punish yourself for noticing the problem, and for trying to overcome it, which is the opposite of what you would want to do. Partial successes are a reason to celebrate! (Ancient wisdom says: “All you need is
lovepositive reinforcement.”)Your body has a huge impact on your mind. Getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, getting enough sunlight, seeing your friends… are powerful (indirect) rationality techniques.
Interesting comment. You know, the weird thing is that I knew all of that long before I started implementing it (that is, quite recently). And it’s not even surprising that for the longest time I knew that avoiding bad situations, making logs, making a deliberate effort to stay healthy, and avoiding self-punishment were important, but that I hardly ever did any of it. I don’t think I quite grok fully why our brains work like that.
And now, I’m actually a little concerned that I may have taken up negative reinforcement and other such bad habits in a way where it’ll be hard to uproot them. I guess if there is good advice on that, I could probably use it.
It’s as if our brains are made of rubber—you can flex your brain a little, but it soon reverts to its original shape. The question is how to make a change permanent.
Create habits—but this is a “chicken and egg” problem.
Make changes in your environment—add/remove/move objects, add reminders.
Set up external reminders—friends, calendar, alarm clock.
For logging, I made a simple calendar in Excel (one paper—six months, a small rectangle for each day), printed it and put on a magnetic board. On the top I write the topic, e.g. “exercise”, and every day I exercise, I circle that number using a pen. The point is, I can make such calendar in 5 minutes… otherwise I would procrastinate with making the calendar.
Furthermore, I keep my weights under my working desk, so whenever I look at them, it is a reminder that I want to use them. I also made a playlist for exercising. So when I am at my computer (with the calendar in my peripheral vision) and the thought crosses my mind “actually, I should exercise”, I just need to start the playlist and pick up the weights; it only takes a few seconds.
Being nice to yourself can be surprisingly hard for many people. Myself included.
A part of that is various bullshit beliefs that we have accumulated. Such as “but if you stop being hard on yourself, you will never achieve anything”. It may sound so obviously correct, even when the reality is the exact opposite—you are not doing anything useful, because instead of dreaming and planning and doing you spend your time unproductively beating up yourself.
Uhm, it’s difficult to put it in words. There is a right place for everything; even for being angry at yourself. Sometimes you need to stop doing stupid shit immediately, and a blast of anger could be a way to achieve exactly that. But if you do it more than once in a week, you should use some other mental tool instead. Observe. Never be angry while observing; that ruins the data.
Similarly, I am tempted to write “work smarter, not harder”. But this also isn’t true: working hard is useful; you just need to make sure that you did the smart things first. Work hard in the situations when working hard is efficient, not when you should be doing something smarter instead. Willpower is a scarce resource (even more if you have ADHD), so first make sure you did the easy things.
I think visualization helps (although I often forget to do it myself). Remind yourself why you are doing something. Just relax for one minute, and imagine the glorious outcome you are trying to achieve; imagine already being there, how would it feel. Then, starting the work may get easier.
You probably just need to start trying something, observing how it works, and updating your strategy. And maybe sharing advice with some people at ACX meetup, though I would expect that most of them are not interested in that, and only came to chat.
For me, the best resources were Don’t Shoot the Dog and maybe Games People Play; I would strongly recommend them both.
A great obstacle to improvement is the status instinct. Sometimes the right actions are unimpressive (e.g. doing the dirty work), and the wrong actions are impressive (e.g. sharing insights or debating philosophically). People are afraid to admit weakness and ask for help/advice, because that makes them less impressive. (Then again, sometimes the instinct is right; some people will just feel superior to you when you admit a weakness, and will not provide any useful help.) People avoid hard work, because if you are cool, the impressive results are supposed to come “naturally”. (In fact, many impressive results are a result of hard work done in the past. And “natural” often means well-trained.) Everyone wants to be an expert, no one wants to be a beginner, but you cannot have the former without the latter. People avoid improvement, because it may upset the existing social balance. (You never know whose fragile ego in your proximity is supported by “at least, you aren’t better either”. Your self-improvement may kick this down, and the person may take revenge; this can come as a huge surprise.) Even being hard on yourself is probably about this, because it seems “fair” that if you want to be great, you should suffer for your audacity. But in fact there is no law of physics that requires that.