Something really interesting just happened to me. I was kind of depressed and could not bring myself to do anything really. I had set a 30-minute timer and wanted to do some AI alignment research for at least 30 minutes. But I could not do anything. I started out with some will, but then I started to organize my obsidian tabs. That seemed sort of required before starting.
Then I did this for 10 minutes, my will gradually decreased. Then I just sat down and researched some random unrelated thing on the internet. I managed to stop myself, and just sat there staring into nothingness. Then I decided if I couldn’t do any work I guess I could eat something, maybe that would help to feel better.
I went into the kitchen. Then I thought “Alright I think I could probably do at least 1 minute of thinking about AI alignment. I looked at the clock and remembered the position of the second hand. Then I started to somewhat lethargically think about stuff. After 20 seconds I had an idea, after 40 seconds I was so excited that I had a strong urge to just sit down and write about what I thought about. I was really motivated! I also stopped feeling fatigued.
WTF? In hindsight, this is a pattern that I run into all the time. I think have an idea and then get really excited about it. It’s not the case that I had a super duper out-of-distribution, for me, good idea. It’s the kind of idea that I expect I can generate on demand in at most a couple of minutes, pretty consistently. So I probably can just cause this situation whenever I want!
It’s crazy that I observe this pattern only now because it has been there for probably all my life. Definitely for the last 10 years. Now even better, the idea that I had was not random. It was exactly on the topic that I wanted to generate an idea on. I think I am pretty good at focusing on idea generation.
It seems like I very often fail to activate my motivation in this straightforward way, because I think I need to do some other stuff first, like sort my obsidian taps. Would I just start to do the actual thing I want to do, I would succeed.
So this clearly implies a strategy. I call this “1, 2, 3, and 60”. It’s simple, just pick a topic, and then make yourself think about the topic. Don’t think vaguely about the topic. Don’t focus on recalling facts. The goal is to generate an idea. No setup is required. You don’t need to go to a whiteboard or open your laptop. Just start thinking.
Something really interesting just happened to me. I was kind of depressed and could not bring myself to do anything really. I had set a 30-minute timer and wanted to do some AI alignment research for at least 30 minutes. But I could not do anything. I started out with some will, but then I started to organize my obsidian tabs. That seemed sort of required before starting.
Then I did this for 10 minutes, my will gradually decreased. Then I just sat down and researched some random unrelated thing on the internet. I managed to stop myself, and just sat there staring into nothingness. Then I decided if I couldn’t do any work I guess I could eat something, maybe that would help to feel better.
I went into the kitchen. Then I thought “Alright I think I could probably do at least 1 minute of thinking about AI alignment. I looked at the clock and remembered the position of the second hand. Then I started to somewhat lethargically think about stuff. After 20 seconds I had an idea, after 40 seconds I was so excited that I had a strong urge to just sit down and write about what I thought about. I was really motivated! I also stopped feeling fatigued.
WTF? In hindsight, this is a pattern that I run into all the time. I think have an idea and then get really excited about it. It’s not the case that I had a super duper out-of-distribution, for me, good idea. It’s the kind of idea that I expect I can generate on demand in at most a couple of minutes, pretty consistently. So I probably can just cause this situation whenever I want!
It’s crazy that I observe this pattern only now because it has been there for probably all my life. Definitely for the last 10 years. Now even better, the idea that I had was not random. It was exactly on the topic that I wanted to generate an idea on. I think I am pretty good at focusing on idea generation.
It seems like I very often fail to activate my motivation in this straightforward way, because I think I need to do some other stuff first, like sort my obsidian taps. Would I just start to do the actual thing I want to do, I would succeed.
So this clearly implies a strategy. I call this “1, 2, 3, and 60”. It’s simple, just pick a topic, and then make yourself think about the topic. Don’t think vaguely about the topic. Don’t focus on recalling facts. The goal is to generate an idea. No setup is required. You don’t need to go to a whiteboard or open your laptop. Just start thinking.