The most ambitious I could be would be spending twenty-five hours a week getting better at and doing activism for my internship.
Wyatt S
Karma: 18
This is more reverse planning fallacy than planning fallacy, but I thought it was important to mention. I remember most of my incidents of planning fallacy, like college admissions, and making a posterboard for my student group, but can’t tell you exactly how bad they were.
One of my worst errors was when I thought my morning routine, which includes brushing my hair, shaving, brushing my teeth, applying deodorant, and using topical acne treatment. I thought this took somewhere around 20 minutes, but it was only about 6 for each of the individual tasks involved.
I didn’t so much find any specific thing in particular, as I found a sensation of excitement that had been missing from my life. I thought about people I could talk to, games I could play, shows I could watch. I am excited to do this again next Hammertime repeat.
The graph doesn’t entirely convince me. For one thing, some people I know met in a way that was online dating, but it was on a Discord server and not through any sort of specific app. I’d like to consider this possibility because I am physically repulsed by dating apps, and I haven’t found any people that I’d find interesting on there.
This is my first article, so I’d appreciate any feedback!
My Experience Using Gamification
This plan has been proposed before. It was called the Reber Plan, and was deemed infeasible by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, after testing of a physical model of the Bay Area. https://boomcalifornia.org/2015/04/14/the-man-who-helped-save-san-francisco-bay-by-trying-to-destroy-it/
A rationality technique I am experimenting with now is using exercise to boost my energy during the middle of the day. It turns out energy boosts are more useful for me mid-day, because in the morning I am already energized. This is something that I usually do through exercise, but adding caffeine might be useful as well.