There’s about .. 24 or 30 shortcuts, yeah (mostly shown in the rightclick menu). In practice I find these match the core actions I do (new task, new subtask, edit task, start/stop time tracking, add notes, mark as completed..).
The new window thing bugs me too (but probably for different reasons, as a designer I think it’s the correct choice and they should have just made it faster, probably by using GTK+ instead of Qt)
Sounds (and looks like) a Windows-only version of Task Coach, which is my favored tool.
I’m still unclear on whether tracking time this way does usefully improve my estimates of the amount of time I use on tasks. It does seem to increase my motivation to finish tasks (and then move on and finish another..), though.
I upvoted anandjeyahar for saying what I meant better than I did—it’s the density of concepts rather than the raw length of the text that’s an issue.
On reflection, how I approach the ‘maintain some failure’ criteria is to keep pushing my existing skills into new areas (so I can have a ‘win’ in terms of pushing my comfort zone even if my particular attempt at this new thing fails. I keep failure close so it doesn’t become so scary, as you mention, but I don’t utterly and uncategorically fail at any time)
I agree with your responses to the first and second problems. Not the third (there’s nothing good about using DSM diagnostic terms as a layperson speaking to laypeople. That stuff is for diagnosticians and needs to stay in its box. Nothing wrong with therapy, though).
My advice for the third is “Stop and meditate for 5-10 minutes”. If you don’t know how to meditate, learn. It’s both simple and challenging (meaning it is inherently good for building focus)
Too big! Seriously, this post contains too many elements to readily reply to in a coherent way.
So I’ll just address this:
I can’t read these two quotes side by side and not be confused.
To me, those two quotes are both fair, and the combination of them indicates the reason why you need to acquire a habit of thinking in a way that is both definite and positive: to keep fear in its right place, which is mostly NOT putting on the brakes.
and this:
But that’s not what ‘goal setting’ feels like to me. I feel increasingly awesome as I get closer towards a goal, and once it’s done, I keep feeling awesome when I think about how I did it.
Me too. But we need to acknowledge the many, many people for whom this is not the case; People who believe that there’s something basically wrong with themselves and use any failure as an opportunity to punish themselves. These people need to, as Bradbury says, change who they are, before they can experience goal setting / achievement as ‘awesome’; As long as they think of themselves as bad or inadequate, their evaluation of their achievements will continue to conform to that.
Process goals, or systems, are probably better than outcome goals. Specific and realistic goals are probably better than vague and ambitious ones. A lot of this may be because it’s easier to form habits and/or success spirals around well-specified behaviours that you can just do every day.
Not only do I agree with this wholeheartedly, I want to mention that most of my major creative progress is directly attributable to goal-setting behaviour.
One thing that’s implied, but not directly stated in your post is that it’s best to set goals that you will occasionally fail at (cf. Decius’ reply to cousin_it re: inconsistent reinforcement)
On reflection, ‘forgetting’ is the wrong word here.
We don’t default to being definite about anything, least of all our aims. Clear awareness has to be built and maintained, not merely uncovered.
Being wrong on the internet is vastly more impersonal than being wrong in person, as it were. The urge to correct is similar in both cases, but in the in-person case you can suffer clear consequences from others’ wrong beliefs (eg. if they are family). There’s some overlap with #3 -- consider the common case of the presumption that you are heterosexual and cisgender.
There are also people who say things they know are wrong in order to see what you’re made of, if you’re a pushover or not. Unlike the online equivalent (trolling), ignoring them is often not effective.
It seems pretty clear to me that not-correcting others can be a self-deceiving behaviour, at minimum.
As someone who was in that position, I dealt with it by saying ‘doesn’t matter for now’; until you have the habit of noticing positive things in your life, whether they compare favorably to alternatives is besides the point, and by the time you are beginning to acquire the habit, you also begin to calibrate your values better so you know better what exactly you want to label as good.
In short, just aiming for volume of truthful positive statements is enough to start with.
Would I change my values if I knew more? If yes, then I have the wrong values now? If no, but I want others to be happy as well, what then?
I find these particular questions quite hard to think about, so I’ll just mention these few thoughts:
There is a huge difference between wanting to win, and wanting others to lose. Not everyone will be on the same wavelength, but if they’re mostly on the first wavelength, it creates an atmosphere of friendly competition / self-betterment, whereas wanting others to lose looks like academia (bitter competition / self-aggrandizement). In the former, you can lose thoroughly and still get satisfaction out of your participation, so I don’t hesitate to say that updating in this direction promotes a better social environment for every individual. Perhaps this somewhat answers your third question.
There’s almost certainly value in limiting competition size. Losing with a thousand others placing ahead of you is much less motivating than losing with 50 others placing ahead of you. (it’s not clear to me what exactly you meant by ‘games’ here—the most general sense?). So if your
Many games can also be played with a focus on beating yourself rather than your competitors. Having the mental resolve to do this consistently is relatively rare, but AFAICS this is a strict win (both in satisfaction/motivation levels and quality of results) over merely beating your competitors. Updating in this direction should make you more friendly in competition, more effective, and less vulnerable to temporary setbacks. And also more able to continue improving even if you are ranked at the top.
Will everyone be just as good as everyone else? Will everyone be smart as the latest patch, everyone strong as the latest hardware?
I think if you look at the wild variety of Linux distributions, that effectively answers these questions, assuming you believe that open-sourcing this stuff will be mandatory (I think it must be, in order to avoid social chaos and oppression, but I don’t know if it will be). Perfection is highly subjective/contextual, and even transhumanists have limited resources to allocate.
There’s also a pretty strong argument to be made that once we can ‘reallocate’ resources like intelligence, physical/visual attributes, health factors, that attractiveness / fitness will become ever more subjective, Basically arising from the same fact, that resources are still limited and ‘perfection’ is highly subject to context.
Is your projected self unhappy because this individuation of what is attractive/fit/winning effectively divides society up into hundreds of thousands of sub-sub-sub-subcultures, and we presumably become more blase about differences but simultaneously more clique-ish / narrowly focused / echo-chamber-ish?
Now I want to read some fiction discussing these topics :)
Yes, I had forgotten that introverts have a stronger focus on habits/routines, and so they could form intent without necessarily thinking it good in the particular instance. As someone who mostly struggles to cultivate habits, I was thinking as if intent necessarily indicates that you’ve decided applying it in this instance to be good already. So I guess I was surprised by the comparison between absolute and relative value.
Anyway I take your point about diminishing returns. I’m aware I tend to behave far too sanguine to properly consider the effect of diminishing returns, and just pick whatever seems to help me charge ahead; or to put it another way, if I don’t have an imperative it seems like I have nothing.
At least I’m aware that these effects will diminish through clear thinking.
Thanks for your patience.
On the contrary, I accounted for the costs. That was the point of the final paragraph—that they have costs. If they’re important actions to take, it makes sense that they have costs. If they’re important, it makes sense that you accept those costs as necessary. [1]
If they’re not, of course, then no such acceptance, nor any action, is required. But as long as you agree (really agree, not just agree because it’s not that far off the truth, or to be nice), you will make the sacrifice. The only alternative is that they’re not actually that important to you right now, and you just believe that they are.
[1] For example, as an extrovert, reflection (particularly self-reflection) drains me, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less important for people universally to regularly, systematically reflect, just because it has that cost to me and many others. In some real sense the drainingness is much magnified by my lack of skills in the area. I don’t get to say it’s too hard just because it is hard. I can only win if I do it in spite of, or even BECAUSE it’s hard.
For an introvert, forcing oneself to behave in a more extroverted way as a matter of policy, rather than in select instances, is liable to produce significantly negative long term emotional trends.
I’m aware of that. Since it’s not what I’m suggesting, and as far as I can see, not what anyone else is suggesting, why is that at all relevant?
If they were routinely forming the intent to approach even though it drained them, THAT would reflect a policy of forcing themselves to behave in an extroverted way. Merely making yourself carry through on an already-formed intent rather than waving it away with a sheaf of vague excuses? That’s just good mental hygiene.
OT: It seems like a good idea for extroverts to have a planned curriculum of introverted skills to develop, and vice versa for introverts. Personally I’m keenly aware that my lack in some introverted areas like reflection and planning means I’m missing out on some dimensions of life. AFAICS we need to have the -whole- skillset, not just half of it, to really live life well, and for the bits we are not naturally talented in, they take thought and planned action to achieve, hence my focus on intent.
If you suggested that given the value of socialization, people should spend more time stopping strangers in the street to hold conversations with them
To be clear, I didn’t intend to suggest this at all. I was responding to the situation where you want to approach but then you think vaguely that their feelings may be disturbed by this. I’m not suggesting introverts stop strangers in the streets to talk to them, just that if people (introverted or extraverted) have already formed the intent to approach a person then they shouldn’t allow it to be derailed by vague concerns fueled by anecdotal ‘data’. I’m just trying to say “Trying to connect is ordinary, don’t accept the proposition that it’s not.”
On another note, if feelings don’t have much worth in decisions, what does? What else would you want any kind of success for?
It’s fine to enjoy good feelings—and they are often the result of living well—but unless you are extraordinarily grounded/anchored to reality, you can’t trust them as any kind of benchmark for your current or future situation. By the time your goals arrive, you’ve changed (and your feelings may well have too).
A possible exception is the feeling of discomfort, as long as you take a challenging interpretation : “I need to go there”, instead of the usual “I mustn’t go there!” interpretation. Comfort zone expansion, you probably get the idea.
In general I guess what I’m trying to point at is, any given immediate feeling is usually untrustworthy and essentially useless to pursue. Reproducible emotional trends (for example, feeling better about life when you go for a walk or run, which is well documented) and other types of mental trends (flow?, habits of thinking you have or want to have) are a much more sound basis for decisions and planning. You still have to deal with your feelings on a moment-to-moment level, but it’s smart to treat them like children that you have to parent rather than reliable peers.
Having read Quiet Power, I certainly appreciate the recommendation, as it is a fascinating book. It has helped somewhat elaborate my model of introversion/extraversion. I especially liked the chapter comparing Western and Eastern social norms and their consequences.
What it hasn’t done is told me anything surprising about introverts—all the new information fits quite well into my existing model, which I derived mainly from Dorothy Rowe’s books and conversation with a particular introvert.
So, either I have failed to realize the significance of something I read, or my model is not actually misaligned in the way you thought. Could you be specific about what problem you saw?
(on reflection, I think my whole stance on this subject is orthogonal to the idea of temperament. My perception is that most of the thread starting at my original comment can be boiled down to RalfAndreasson and SaidAchmiz asserting “Don’t try to expand your social horizons in this particular way, because it invokes strong negative reactions in me”, and my responding “No, DO try. You may need it and there are others that need it, and trying is better than not trying in general. Individual emotional reactions, whether yours or others, shouldn’t get a look in as rationales for doing or not doing things.”.
No doubt I’ve idealized the clarity of my message there, but the point is this isn’t about marginalizing introverts, it’s about not committing the error of treating feelings as any kind of strong evidence, and about the general strength of choosing to try as a policy. Introverts try to arrange things so they can take time to reflect, extroverts try to meet people and do exciting things. Those are both fine and ordinary. If these intents happen to conflict, that’s for the individuals involved to resolve, not social norms.
Even though that might satisfy introverts’ dislike of conflict somewhat, AFAICS there is no way to implement ‘don’t disturb my feelings’ into social norms without being oppressive—political correctness being an excellent example of this. Feelings may seem significant or even overwhelming, but I’ll stand by the statement that they don’t have much worth in decisions.)
Eh, I rambled. Hopefully that clarified something in someone’s mind, at least ;)
I agree that approaching strangers is more frowned upon, say, in Japan. Perhaps ‘rest of the western world’ would have been a better choice of words.
You have the totally wrong sense of what I meant by ordinary. Try fitting what you said into the definition “both normal and healthy”; it doesn’t.
A person can be poorly psychologically calibrated for their environment without being defective and in need of change.
Defectiveness is really a subject that I’d prefer to keep out of any equation which is talking about people. Anyway, as far as I can see ‘in need of change’ holds true as long as said reaction impacts on your ability to live an effective and satisfying life. Personally my impression is that any major repression of emotions leads to personal problems (of the ‘excessively cold / unable or unwilling to relate’ kind).
They’re also less likely to agree that their lives would be improved by doing it more frequently with strangers.
People are disinclined to agree with a number of propositions that seem to hold true, particularly regarding social interactions and universal human faults. Mere disagreement doesn’t really constitute any evidence against those propositions.
I do understand, though, that introverts general preference for planned, controlled actions and everything fitting together as far as possible, would lead to disliking interaction with strangers, But as far as I can see, extroverts and introverts both need to try and balance themselves by taking on the virtues demonstrated by their opposites. I don’t regard introversion and extraversion as value neutral, rather, I regard them both as lopsided.
Quiet Power
Sure, I’ll read that IFF you read The Successful Self. It’s certainly true that I find introverts frustrating—sometimes it seems like the world is divided into those who get it but can’t relate to me (Introverts) and those who can relate to me but don’t get it (Extraverts)*.
* (for most given values of ‘it’)
I remember discussing today how ‘constant improvement’—a classic introvert value—is an everyday concept in Japan. So, yes. I do think that there’s a general self-selection effect regardless of culture, where introverts don’t get as much of a say in social norms precisely because they are usually less involved in socializing, but that’s just speculative currently.
I can see what you mean, but I’m afraid that the furthest I can go in agreement is to say that few if any people do do that (or have any idea how)*. We’re certainty poverty-stricken WRT tools for taking responsibility for our own thoughts and emotions. I would argue though that that does not change what responsibilities we do have.
* BTW in a strict sense I don’t think it’s actually that important how you feel in response to an event, as long as you respond appropriately, just that it’s useful to treat “experiencing disproportionate emotions” as a flag that one of your habits of thinking is disjuncted from reality.
Haha, that makes sense.
… Only on LessWrong :)
tl;dr: “CAN” is about a person’s ability or capability. This helps them to take responsibility “CAN’T” is about what you(or society) can prevent them from doing. This helps them evade responsibility.
BTW, there is a Bob. Bob is society in the voting case and .. well, if you think about it, also society in the exercise case (but ‘the part of you that values wellbeing over comfort’ would also qualify there).
It sounds as if you think either that an instrumentally rational person will not disclose beliefs that have social cost, or that they will change their social situation so that their group doesn’t assign social cost to those beliefs. The former is insufficient if you value improving the rationality of people you know; The latter is extremely slow and highly susceptible to external influences.
To me your claim just defines ‘instrumentally rational’ so narrowly that there would be no instrumentally rational people in existence. I don’t find that useful.