Thanks, this is a great post. I concur with a majority of the points raised.
Broadly, I indulge in four kinds of activities:
a) high effort- high short-term reward,
b) high effort—high long-term reward
c) low effort—high short-term reward
d) low-effort—high long-term reward.
The many individual tasks that constitute work fall into the second category. However, if I Practice hard enough at these individual tasks, I hope to push them into the low-effort high long-term reward category. This would leave me with additional Willpower Reserves that I would use to fund other high effort high long-term reward activities.
When it comes to Work tasks, I don’t believe I hate these tasks themselves; what I do hate is my inability to perform these tasks in an efficient, speedy manner without having to resort to reading blogs like LW ( a low effort, high short-term reward item) to entertain myself while taking breaks from Work.
Also, I did not initially come to LW looking for high long-term rewards: I came to read interesting things written by smart people. My time reading sequences made me treat LW partially as a low effort high-long term reward item, and I thank patrissimo for pointing out that the instrumental deficiencies of LW renders this likely a fallacy.
Thanks, this is a great post. I concur with a majority of the points raised.
Broadly, I indulge in four kinds of activities: a) high effort- high short-term reward, b) high effort—high long-term reward c) low effort—high short-term reward d) low-effort—high long-term reward.
The many individual tasks that constitute work fall into the second category. However, if I Practice hard enough at these individual tasks, I hope to push them into the low-effort high long-term reward category. This would leave me with additional Willpower Reserves that I would use to fund other high effort high long-term reward activities.
When it comes to Work tasks, I don’t believe I hate these tasks themselves; what I do hate is my inability to perform these tasks in an efficient, speedy manner without having to resort to reading blogs like LW ( a low effort, high short-term reward item) to entertain myself while taking breaks from Work.
Also, I did not initially come to LW looking for high long-term rewards: I came to read interesting things written by smart people. My time reading sequences made me treat LW partially as a low effort high-long term reward item, and I thank patrissimo for pointing out that the instrumental deficiencies of LW renders this likely a fallacy.