After reading this, it seems blindingly obvious: why should you wait for one of your plans to fail before trying another one of them?
This past summer, I was running a study on study on humans that I had to finish before the end of the summer. I had in mind two methods for finding participants; one would be better and more impressive and also much less likely to work, while the other would be easier but less impressive.
For a few weeks, I tried really hard to get the first method to work. I sent over 30 emails and used personal connections to try to collect data. But it didn’t work. So I did the thing that I thought to be “rational” at the time. I gave up and I sent my website out to some people who I thought would be very likely to do it. Sure enough, they did.
At the time, I thought I was being super-duper rational for allowing my first method to fail (not deluding myself that it would work and thus not collecting any data) and then quickly switching to the other method.
However, after reading this post, I realize that I still made a big mistake! I should have sent it out to as many people as possible all at once. This would have been a bit more work since I would have to deal with more people and they would use a slightly different structure, but I was not time constrained. I was subject constrained.
I’m going to instill this pattern in my mind and will use it when I do something that I think has a decent chance of failing (as my first method did).
You’re welcome, and thank you for the example! As you point out, whether you’re constrained on time often matters for how many plans you can attempt.
I do hope you give yourself some points for noticing the first method wasn’t working and switching. That’s better than winding up with no data. I’d encourage thinking of this as an opportunity to get even more points.
Thank you for this post!
After reading this, it seems blindingly obvious: why should you wait for one of your plans to fail before trying another one of them?
This past summer, I was running a study on study on humans that I had to finish before the end of the summer. I had in mind two methods for finding participants; one would be better and more impressive and also much less likely to work, while the other would be easier but less impressive.
For a few weeks, I tried really hard to get the first method to work. I sent over 30 emails and used personal connections to try to collect data. But it didn’t work. So I did the thing that I thought to be “rational” at the time. I gave up and I sent my website out to some people who I thought would be very likely to do it. Sure enough, they did.
At the time, I thought I was being super-duper rational for allowing my first method to fail (not deluding myself that it would work and thus not collecting any data) and then quickly switching to the other method.
However, after reading this post, I realize that I still made a big mistake! I should have sent it out to as many people as possible all at once. This would have been a bit more work since I would have to deal with more people and they would use a slightly different structure, but I was not time constrained. I was subject constrained.
I’m going to instill this pattern in my mind and will use it when I do something that I think has a decent chance of failing (as my first method did).
You’re welcome, and thank you for the example! As you point out, whether you’re constrained on time often matters for how many plans you can attempt.
I do hope you give yourself some points for noticing the first method wasn’t working and switching. That’s better than winding up with no data. I’d encourage thinking of this as an opportunity to get even more points.