Having multiple problems is where the reinforcement learning (the natural way of human brain) is quite unhelpful—you fix one of them, only to get feedback “well, life still sucks”. Not motivating.
Social feedback… depends. If people value “X” intrinsically, telling them “I fixed my problems with X” will get you social reward, even if your problems with “Y” and “Z” remain. But people with no specific preference for “X” will probably give you some non-encouraging feedback, like “dude, but look at Y and Z, your life still sucks, stop obsessing about X so much!”
(By the way, is there such a thing as a Pareto-in-hindsight fallacy? Goes like this: -- You had problems: X, Y, Z. You focused on X, and you fixed it; while Y and Z remain. In hindsight, this “proves” that X was the least serious problem. Therefore, you are an idiot for having focused on that problem first. You were supposed to address the most important problem first! -- But in a parallel Everett branch where you focused on Y or Z and solved that first, this is used as a “proof” that actually X was the most important one, and you were supposed to address X first.)
A possible practical conclusion: Make an impartial decision whether to tackle problem X, Y, or Z first. Only after you decided to do X first, and did some progress on X, find people who intrinsically value “X” more than Y or Z… then go to them, tell them about your progress on X, and get some nice social feedback. (Later, after you did some progress on Y, find people who value “Y” and tell them about that part.)
And generally, where System 1 fails, use System 2. Make a big visual chart of your problems. Then scratch those you have fixed. As long as you trust your chart (well, this contains some obvious risks), solving partial aspects will feel good, even if your life didn’t improve yet.
Having multiple problems is where the reinforcement learning (the natural way of human brain) is quite unhelpful—you fix one of them, only to get feedback “well, life still sucks”. Not motivating.
Social feedback… depends. If people value “X” intrinsically, telling them “I fixed my problems with X” will get you social reward, even if your problems with “Y” and “Z” remain. But people with no specific preference for “X” will probably give you some non-encouraging feedback, like “dude, but look at Y and Z, your life still sucks, stop obsessing about X so much!”
(By the way, is there such a thing as a Pareto-in-hindsight fallacy? Goes like this: -- You had problems: X, Y, Z. You focused on X, and you fixed it; while Y and Z remain. In hindsight, this “proves” that X was the least serious problem. Therefore, you are an idiot for having focused on that problem first. You were supposed to address the most important problem first! -- But in a parallel Everett branch where you focused on Y or Z and solved that first, this is used as a “proof” that actually X was the most important one, and you were supposed to address X first.)
A possible practical conclusion: Make an impartial decision whether to tackle problem X, Y, or Z first. Only after you decided to do X first, and did some progress on X, find people who intrinsically value “X” more than Y or Z… then go to them, tell them about your progress on X, and get some nice social feedback. (Later, after you did some progress on Y, find people who value “Y” and tell them about that part.)
And generally, where System 1 fails, use System 2. Make a big visual chart of your problems. Then scratch those you have fixed. As long as you trust your chart (well, this contains some obvious risks), solving partial aspects will feel good, even if your life didn’t improve yet.