I like the metaphor. I agree that pressing the Try-Harder-Button is not going to help. But I want to offer the readers another way out too.
You write (and I agree):
Imagine it’s 2 weeks from now, and you never got round to doing the task. Are you surprised that this happened? Often my intuitions are well-calibrated when I phrase the question like this—on some level I know that I procrastinate on things and forget them all the time.
Following one or more of the points on your list is a way to avoid the surprise. But there is another one, and you might want to have it in your toolkit: Accept that things will slip. Yes, really. Some things will not get done, and that is OK. At least it can be OK for you. If it happens, you will not be surprised and not feel guilt.
You should use this if your problem is more that you really have more things on your plate than you can manage. Clearly it is difficult to be well-calibrated on it. It is a good tool to have though.
Thanks! Very strongly agreed, and I consider this the flip side of the point I was making in this post. I see being effective as breaking down into two parts: Having realistic and well-calibrated standards for how much you can get done, and being effective at executing on what you can do.
I like the metaphor. I agree that pressing the Try-Harder-Button is not going to help. But I want to offer the readers another way out too.
You write (and I agree):
Following one or more of the points on your list is a way to avoid the surprise. But there is another one, and you might want to have it in your toolkit: Accept that things will slip. Yes, really. Some things will not get done, and that is OK. At least it can be OK for you. If it happens, you will not be surprised and not feel guilt.
You should use this if your problem is more that you really have more things on your plate than you can manage. Clearly it is difficult to be well-calibrated on it. It is a good tool to have though.
Thanks! Very strongly agreed, and I consider this the flip side of the point I was making in this post. I see being effective as breaking down into two parts: Having realistic and well-calibrated standards for how much you can get done, and being effective at executing on what you can do.