I spent years trying to come up with a mental strategy that would reliably generate willpower, all to no avail.
I have had some limited success with the Decision Theorist method. Noticing that my decision process (in this example, regarding whether to go to bed yet) is basically the same computation at 10pm, 1am, 3am, etc. I calculate the limit of this behavior (e.g. computation not meaningfully altered until the birds outside start chirping, or the sun comes up, or I get so tired it makes me nauseous), notice my local choice is using a false option: not [stay up 5 more minutes] versus [sleep now], but rather [stay up until the sun comes up] versus [sleep now]. Having noticed the true form of my options, the correct choice becomes easy to act upon.
Of course, I’m posting this at 6am local time. My results have been inconsistent. This plan typically fails when I don’t notice myself deciding, or don’t remember to do that “what’s the limit” calculation.
Thanks for the tip on Dextroamphetamine. Hopefully I’ll act on it.
I started from the same place as:
I have had some limited success with the Decision Theorist method. Noticing that my decision process (in this example, regarding whether to go to bed yet) is basically the same computation at 10pm, 1am, 3am, etc. I calculate the limit of this behavior (e.g. computation not meaningfully altered until the birds outside start chirping, or the sun comes up, or I get so tired it makes me nauseous), notice my local choice is using a false option: not [stay up 5 more minutes] versus [sleep now], but rather [stay up until the sun comes up] versus [sleep now]. Having noticed the true form of my options, the correct choice becomes easy to act upon.
Of course, I’m posting this at 6am local time. My results have been inconsistent. This plan typically fails when I don’t notice myself deciding, or don’t remember to do that “what’s the limit” calculation.
Thanks for the tip on Dextroamphetamine. Hopefully I’ll act on it.