Most of my current completed and in progress projects relate to my personal life and mental health, rather than larger aims. However as I have been trying to take a systematic approach to them it seems within the scope of this post. It has also been an interesting exercise setting them out in this way.
Completed
Caffeine dependence removal
Having had a functional but dependent relationship to caffeine for several years I decided on medical advice to go off it. I did a near complete ‘detox’ for one month and since then have started reintroducing it slowly and at a lower level.
As expected, in the first few days I experienced headaches and extreme tiredness. However since then my general physical and mental health seems to have improved, in particular I have been sleeping far more easily. Previously I had regularly spent several hours in bed awake, and not realised the connection with my caffeine consumption. Now I am falling asleep more quickly as a norm.
Also, I now get a more beneficial effect from individual doses of caffeine, which I am taking irregularly. My plan is to limit my caffeine dose to a level that stops me becoming dependent on it, and only do so when I am awake early or need to work particularly hard, rather than the constant low level I had previously.
A word of caution as it is not strictly possible to separate these effects from other lifestyle changes, but I am reasonably confident of the causation (say 80%). If this was ideal testing conditions I would rotate month on month off and measure the effect, but as studies already exist with large control groups this seems unnecessary.
One interesting factor I have not tested for is how much of the perceived caffeine effect is environmental, ideally I would set up blind tests with decaf and caffeinated coffee, but that is impractical at the moment. Anyone had any similar experience?
Competitive Debating
I have just competed and achieved a good position at an international British parliamentary style debating tournament. [Apologies for vagueness, results are online so details would make it easy to guess my identity, though if you suspect you know me already feel free to PM me.]
This was a considerable improvement over my past results, and has been the product of both practice and abstract thought about technique. I also received excellent benefit from feedback which will aid future improvement, and had very enjoyable social interactions and made a number of useful future contacts. I have also been assisting teaching competitive debating to schoolchildren, which I have found surprisingly rewarding despite having disliked the idea of teaching in the past.
[Relatedly, I’ve been considering for a while doing a LW post on competitive debating and rationalism.]
Ongoing
Lifestyle changes to combat depression issues and raise general health
I have been taking SNRI’s for a while and they appear to be helping my general mental state. Overall my moods are good, however I am still less productive than I would like, and suffer from anxiety issues when attempting to do work I know to be important (see below).
I have also altered my thought patterns to avoid ruminating on past mistakes, which seems beneficial (though which way the causation runs here is difficult to say).
Regular exercise
I have been attempting to do a gym session at least every two days. Anecdotally it seems to be improving my mental health. I definitely notice a difference when I don’t go.
Also notable increase in strength over time, which is a positive self esteem factor. Not so sure about weight/fat loss as harder to separate from other things and haven’t been examining as closely.
Diet
Have been attempting to move my diet away from carbohydrates towards protein and vegetables. Preferably self cooked rather than bought or in ready meals. Also attempting to avoid sweets and other sugary snacks.
Diet change was based on reading advice on reddit’s r/fitness.
Pursuing relationships
Being in a mental state where I feel I can cope with it, and realising the desire for a long term relationship is a significant element in my utility function I have been actively seeking to form one.
I haven’t had any long term success as yet, however I have found that a degree of directness is very beneficial for both subjective stress and success. (e.g.. if you are wondering if someone likes you, ask.)
I am still having casual encounters as before, but ave come to realise they are not my main aim. A possible future change would be to actively avoid them, and see if that makes forming long term relationships easier. My current theory is that they are unconnected processes, but would be interested in comparable advice if anyone has it.
Academic work
I am currently in the process of writing an essay for my degree. This has been delayed several times due to my ongoing depression issues, which thankfully the academics in question have been very understanding about.
The subject is ‘expressivisim’ in meta-ethics. Roughly the view that moral language is not an expression of beliefs in the same way that saying ‘the sky is blue’ would be, but that it is more similar to an expression of something about the speakers attitude (similar to booo! or hoorah!).
I haven’t been making as much progress in this as I would like, this is in part due to the complexity of the subject matter and confusing literature. But mostly it has been due to my habitual procrastination and bad work habits, which are partially caused by and enhance my anxiety issues.
So my larger project is not just to deal with this, but to learn how to study well in the future and manage my anxiety to that end. Given that this is one of many academic assignments I have had to delay in the last few years this is a fairly major problem.
Current ideas are reducing procrastination as much as possible by avoiding temptations (such as posting on less wrong...), removing the ugh fields associated with working on essays and thinking about my psychological issues (thinking about why I’m anxious makes me anxious, which is counter productive) and more generally tackling tasks like this in a more strategic manner, learning to plan my work in advance etc..
Employment and career choice
Short term I want to get a job for the remainder of the summer break, though this should probably wait until I’ve completed my academic commitments. Ideally I want a relatively simple but tiring job like bar or restaurant work, my previous jobs while interesting have been similarly intellectually demanding to my academic work, and I suspect physical exertion and tiredness will be good for me psychologically.
In the long term I need to begin making decisions about what career I will take up after finishing my studies.
In the past I had been interested in research, but I find that I have had difficulty working and feeling motivated in solo situations, so I might prefer work as part of a team, which makes research seem less optimal. I have very little idea what would be an optimal career choice for me at this point, my current plan is to consult with the careers office and so on with the hope that their expertise will assist me.
Most of my current completed and in progress projects relate to my personal life and mental health, rather than larger aims. However as I have been trying to take a systematic approach to them it seems within the scope of this post. It has also been an interesting exercise setting them out in this way.
Completed
Caffeine dependence removal
Having had a functional but dependent relationship to caffeine for several years I decided on medical advice to go off it. I did a near complete ‘detox’ for one month and since then have started reintroducing it slowly and at a lower level. As expected, in the first few days I experienced headaches and extreme tiredness. However since then my general physical and mental health seems to have improved, in particular I have been sleeping far more easily. Previously I had regularly spent several hours in bed awake, and not realised the connection with my caffeine consumption. Now I am falling asleep more quickly as a norm. Also, I now get a more beneficial effect from individual doses of caffeine, which I am taking irregularly. My plan is to limit my caffeine dose to a level that stops me becoming dependent on it, and only do so when I am awake early or need to work particularly hard, rather than the constant low level I had previously. A word of caution as it is not strictly possible to separate these effects from other lifestyle changes, but I am reasonably confident of the causation (say 80%). If this was ideal testing conditions I would rotate month on month off and measure the effect, but as studies already exist with large control groups this seems unnecessary.
One interesting factor I have not tested for is how much of the perceived caffeine effect is environmental, ideally I would set up blind tests with decaf and caffeinated coffee, but that is impractical at the moment. Anyone had any similar experience?
Competitive Debating
I have just competed and achieved a good position at an international British parliamentary style debating tournament. [Apologies for vagueness, results are online so details would make it easy to guess my identity, though if you suspect you know me already feel free to PM me.] This was a considerable improvement over my past results, and has been the product of both practice and abstract thought about technique. I also received excellent benefit from feedback which will aid future improvement, and had very enjoyable social interactions and made a number of useful future contacts.
I have also been assisting teaching competitive debating to schoolchildren, which I have found surprisingly rewarding despite having disliked the idea of teaching in the past. [Relatedly, I’ve been considering for a while doing a LW post on competitive debating and rationalism.]
Ongoing
Lifestyle changes to combat depression issues and raise general health
I have been taking SNRI’s for a while and they appear to be helping my general mental state. Overall my moods are good, however I am still less productive than I would like, and suffer from anxiety issues when attempting to do work I know to be important (see below). I have also altered my thought patterns to avoid ruminating on past mistakes, which seems beneficial (though which way the causation runs here is difficult to say).
Regular exercise
I have been attempting to do a gym session at least every two days. Anecdotally it seems to be improving my mental health. I definitely notice a difference when I don’t go. Also notable increase in strength over time, which is a positive self esteem factor. Not so sure about weight/fat loss as harder to separate from other things and haven’t been examining as closely.
Diet
Have been attempting to move my diet away from carbohydrates towards protein and vegetables. Preferably self cooked rather than bought or in ready meals. Also attempting to avoid sweets and other sugary snacks. Diet change was based on reading advice on reddit’s r/fitness.
Pursuing relationships
Being in a mental state where I feel I can cope with it, and realising the desire for a long term relationship is a significant element in my utility function I have been actively seeking to form one. I haven’t had any long term success as yet, however I have found that a degree of directness is very beneficial for both subjective stress and success. (e.g.. if you are wondering if someone likes you, ask.) I am still having casual encounters as before, but ave come to realise they are not my main aim. A possible future change would be to actively avoid them, and see if that makes forming long term relationships easier. My current theory is that they are unconnected processes, but would be interested in comparable advice if anyone has it.
Academic work
I am currently in the process of writing an essay for my degree. This has been delayed several times due to my ongoing depression issues, which thankfully the academics in question have been very understanding about. The subject is ‘expressivisim’ in meta-ethics. Roughly the view that moral language is not an expression of beliefs in the same way that saying ‘the sky is blue’ would be, but that it is more similar to an expression of something about the speakers attitude (similar to booo! or hoorah!). I haven’t been making as much progress in this as I would like, this is in part due to the complexity of the subject matter and confusing literature. But mostly it has been due to my habitual procrastination and bad work habits, which are partially caused by and enhance my anxiety issues.
So my larger project is not just to deal with this, but to learn how to study well in the future and manage my anxiety to that end. Given that this is one of many academic assignments I have had to delay in the last few years this is a fairly major problem. Current ideas are reducing procrastination as much as possible by avoiding temptations (such as posting on less wrong...), removing the ugh fields associated with working on essays and thinking about my psychological issues (thinking about why I’m anxious makes me anxious, which is counter productive) and more generally tackling tasks like this in a more strategic manner, learning to plan my work in advance etc..
Employment and career choice
Short term I want to get a job for the remainder of the summer break, though this should probably wait until I’ve completed my academic commitments. Ideally I want a relatively simple but tiring job like bar or restaurant work, my previous jobs while interesting have been similarly intellectually demanding to my academic work, and I suspect physical exertion and tiredness will be good for me psychologically.
In the long term I need to begin making decisions about what career I will take up after finishing my studies. In the past I had been interested in research, but I find that I have had difficulty working and feeling motivated in solo situations, so I might prefer work as part of a team, which makes research seem less optimal. I have very little idea what would be an optimal career choice for me at this point, my current plan is to consult with the careers office and so on with the hope that their expertise will assist me.