I haven’t run through the exercise that it suggests, but I’ve borrowed an idea that seems in line with the framework in this post. Internally, I call it a brain debugger.
Basically, from time to time I ask myself what am I thinking and what was I thinking before. To better illustrate what I mean in the context of this post, here’s an example:
trying to solve problem at work
trying to solve problem at work
BREAK: I’m thinking about a problem at work. I was thinking about it before.
trying to solve a problem at work
getting upset at coworker for last week’s meeting
BREAK: I’m thinking about how upset I am at my coworker. I was thinking about solving a problem at work. WAT? How did I get here? Coworker X isn’t even here. Wait, I’m in an imaginary situation. Coworker X isn’t here. Why am I arguing with them? Let’s go back to work problem
In other words, it’s helping me catch myself when my brain is getting stuck in a goodharting loop.
(This doesn’t solve the underlying problems, but it does to help with reflection)
I’m reminded of a post from not too long ago: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bbB4pvAQdpGrgGvXH/tuning-your-cognitive-strategies
I haven’t run through the exercise that it suggests, but I’ve borrowed an idea that seems in line with the framework in this post. Internally, I call it a brain debugger.
Basically, from time to time I ask myself what am I thinking and what was I thinking before. To better illustrate what I mean in the context of this post, here’s an example:
trying to solve problem at work
trying to solve problem at work
BREAK: I’m thinking about a problem at work. I was thinking about it before.
trying to solve a problem at work
getting upset at coworker for last week’s meeting
BREAK: I’m thinking about how upset I am at my coworker. I was thinking about solving a problem at work. WAT? How did I get here? Coworker X isn’t even here. Wait, I’m in an imaginary situation. Coworker X isn’t here. Why am I arguing with them? Let’s go back to work problem
In other words, it’s helping me catch myself when my brain is getting stuck in a goodharting loop.
(This doesn’t solve the underlying problems, but it does to help with reflection)