I agree that the phrasing as-is is a bit hyperbolic—sometimes the Try Harder button is useful, and it’s definitely a tool worth having in your toolkit. But I also think people majorly over-use it, and that this is unsustainable, high-cost and rarely works in the long-term. And so “stop planning to press it” feels too weakly phrased. At least for me, I rarely explicitly plan to use it, it’s just implicitly planned when I come up with a vague, fuzzy plan. And so an injunction to not plan around it doesn’t feel sufficient for fixing the problem
Maybe “Stop relying on the Try Harder button”? The main point I want to make is that, if you notice yourself using it on a regular basis, alarm bells should start going off in your mind. Something is going wrong with your life systems, this is important, and should be a priority to fix. And I think there are ways that removing it as an option at all can help you to develop much healthier habits.
While reading the post, I felt a weird sense that I already had a “don’t rely on the Try Harder button” meme in my head that I used, which wasn’t what this post was talking about.
I agree with Guy that “stop planning to press the try harder button” more closely captures what this post is saying. “Stop vaguely intending to press the try harder button without even having a plan” seems to most match the initial anecdote.
I agree that the phrasing as-is is a bit hyperbolic—sometimes the Try Harder button is useful, and it’s definitely a tool worth having in your toolkit. But I also think people majorly over-use it, and that this is unsustainable, high-cost and rarely works in the long-term. And so “stop planning to press it” feels too weakly phrased. At least for me, I rarely explicitly plan to use it, it’s just implicitly planned when I come up with a vague, fuzzy plan. And so an injunction to not plan around it doesn’t feel sufficient for fixing the problem
Maybe “Stop relying on the Try Harder button”? The main point I want to make is that, if you notice yourself using it on a regular basis, alarm bells should start going off in your mind. Something is going wrong with your life systems, this is important, and should be a priority to fix. And I think there are ways that removing it as an option at all can help you to develop much healthier habits.
While reading the post, I felt a weird sense that I already had a “don’t rely on the Try Harder button” meme in my head that I used, which wasn’t what this post was talking about.
I agree with Guy that “stop planning to press the try harder button” more closely captures what this post is saying. “Stop vaguely intending to press the try harder button without even having a plan” seems to most match the initial anecdote.