The easiest rationality skill that you currently fail at is probably the most important one for you now.
So if you are someone like me, the basic rationality checklist will feel pretty condescending. Something like:
Have you even noticed that you have a problem, or is it just a vague bad feeling that you are trying to ignore most of the time?
Have you spent at least five minutes by the clock trying to describe the problem and come up with some possible solutions?
Did you write down the results, or are you going to rediscover the same “original insights” every few months?
Did you make a specific falsifiable action plan with a specific deadline, or is it just a vague non-committal verbal declaration to “try doing better the next time”?
Did you notice that the deadline has passed and/or the plan failed, and are you going to do something about it?
Okay, the same plan has failed three times in a row, and that’s probably not a coincidence, but evidence of the plan being unrealistic. Are you going to reflect on that failure and revise the plan, or will you keep doing the same thing over and over again (perhaps with increasing time intervals, so that you can conveniently forget about the entire thing at some moment in the future)?
Have you tried asking a friend for help? Or even asking an LLM for advice?
Maybe you shouldn’t be trying to do so many things at the same time, but focus on one or two most important ones. Otherwise you will use temporary improvements in the less important topics as an excuse to procrastinate on the more important ones. (You can still write down the less important ones and return to them later.)
Yes, it is hard. Which is not the same as impossible. If it was easy, you would probably be doing that already (and complaining about something else being hard).
The easiest rationality skill that you currently fail at is probably the most important one for you now.
So if you are someone like me, the basic rationality checklist will feel pretty condescending. Something like:
Have you even noticed that you have a problem, or is it just a vague bad feeling that you are trying to ignore most of the time?
Have you spent at least five minutes by the clock trying to describe the problem and come up with some possible solutions?
Did you write down the results, or are you going to rediscover the same “original insights” every few months?
Did you make a specific falsifiable action plan with a specific deadline, or is it just a vague non-committal verbal declaration to “try doing better the next time”?
Did you notice that the deadline has passed and/or the plan failed, and are you going to do something about it?
Okay, the same plan has failed three times in a row, and that’s probably not a coincidence, but evidence of the plan being unrealistic. Are you going to reflect on that failure and revise the plan, or will you keep doing the same thing over and over again (perhaps with increasing time intervals, so that you can conveniently forget about the entire thing at some moment in the future)?
Have you tried asking a friend for help? Or even asking an LLM for advice?
Maybe you shouldn’t be trying to do so many things at the same time, but focus on one or two most important ones. Otherwise you will use temporary improvements in the less important topics as an excuse to procrastinate on the more important ones. (You can still write down the less important ones and return to them later.)
Yes, it is hard. Which is not the same as impossible. If it was easy, you would probably be doing that already (and complaining about something else being hard).