Yes, new close friends would help. I’m working on that.
Needing to manually block specific websites is part of the problem; it would be useful if I could enable only a list of say, 12 websites and block all other access to the internet by default.
Jigsaw puzzles might be a good leisure activity, at least at home. At some point I will likely enjoy drawing/painting/sculpting in the context of a class, but I have tried doing all 3 ‘just for fun’, and I am only very rarely in the mood to indulge my creative artist when the end result resembles something done by a talented six-year-old.
People watching is what I do on the bus, while walking, while eating alone, etc. I enjoy it, but I get enough of it already.
Learning new parlor tricks is pretty much the epitome of high-energy for me. I hate the pressure of thinking that I’m supposed to impress people, and I hate the tedium of repeating the same task over and over until I get it not just right but robustly right, so that I know it’ll work fine in a performance.
I have not fairly re-evaluated my decision to not have a pet in several years. I live in a pet-free apartment right now, but I’ll think about it for real next time I move. Thank you!
I would very much like to practice mediation more, and usually experience it as low-energy, but I find that I cannot meditate while sleep-deprived, and that I have a hard time keeping a regular enough sleep schedule to catch up on sleep because I am playing games half the night several nights a month.
The protein-folder looks neat. The problem with diversifying my leisure portfolio is that it makes it more attractive...I experience some diminishing returns on just computer games and eventually wander off, but if I allow myself to read and watch TV and play games, then I can go 72 hrs without leaving my apartment, no sweat. I will think about how else I might be able to separately optimize.
I suffer from a similar problem of getting distracted at work. Thinking and learning more about luke’s procrastination post, specifically the hyperbolic discounting part made me understand why switching to mildly rewarding tasks was so attractive. Hyperbolic discounting means that a task who’s rewards are low overall but is slightly more pleasant right now can be intensely motivating.
RescueTime does do blocking of ‘everything with exceptions’. It categorizes websites (not sure how) and you say whether each category is distracting or not distracting. You could simply say everything is distracting but unblock the specific websites you do need to use. This is what I use at work. When I use it, it works. The trouble is making myself use it, I think maybe random reminders to use it might help here. Even when I don’t use the blocking part the productivity tracking is interesting and useful.
Another option is an XKCD-style 30 second delay before loading a page. This lowers the attractiveness of switching tasks by taking advantage of hyperbolic discounting and increasing the delay till reward which can drastically reduce your motivation to do those other things. The comments section links to a couple different extensions, and I you can find more by searching for “xkcd delay extension” or some such.
Does reading academic or semi-academic papers count as ‘low energy entertainment’? If it’s not quite interesting enough, you could try the gamification strategy of tasking yourself with highlighting the important parts. You could try to hooking up with someone researching some field in order to do a LW post and help them doing research.
Yes, new close friends would help. I’m working on that.
Needing to manually block specific websites is part of the problem; it would be useful if I could enable only a list of say, 12 websites and block all other access to the internet by default.
Jigsaw puzzles might be a good leisure activity, at least at home. At some point I will likely enjoy drawing/painting/sculpting in the context of a class, but I have tried doing all 3 ‘just for fun’, and I am only very rarely in the mood to indulge my creative artist when the end result resembles something done by a talented six-year-old.
People watching is what I do on the bus, while walking, while eating alone, etc. I enjoy it, but I get enough of it already.
Learning new parlor tricks is pretty much the epitome of high-energy for me. I hate the pressure of thinking that I’m supposed to impress people, and I hate the tedium of repeating the same task over and over until I get it not just right but robustly right, so that I know it’ll work fine in a performance.
I have not fairly re-evaluated my decision to not have a pet in several years. I live in a pet-free apartment right now, but I’ll think about it for real next time I move. Thank you!
I would very much like to practice mediation more, and usually experience it as low-energy, but I find that I cannot meditate while sleep-deprived, and that I have a hard time keeping a regular enough sleep schedule to catch up on sleep because I am playing games half the night several nights a month.
The protein-folder looks neat. The problem with diversifying my leisure portfolio is that it makes it more attractive...I experience some diminishing returns on just computer games and eventually wander off, but if I allow myself to read and watch TV and play games, then I can go 72 hrs without leaving my apartment, no sweat. I will think about how else I might be able to separately optimize.
I suffer from a similar problem of getting distracted at work. Thinking and learning more about luke’s procrastination post, specifically the hyperbolic discounting part made me understand why switching to mildly rewarding tasks was so attractive. Hyperbolic discounting means that a task who’s rewards are low overall but is slightly more pleasant right now can be intensely motivating.
RescueTime does do blocking of ‘everything with exceptions’. It categorizes websites (not sure how) and you say whether each category is distracting or not distracting. You could simply say everything is distracting but unblock the specific websites you do need to use. This is what I use at work. When I use it, it works. The trouble is making myself use it, I think maybe random reminders to use it might help here. Even when I don’t use the blocking part the productivity tracking is interesting and useful.
Another option is an XKCD-style 30 second delay before loading a page. This lowers the attractiveness of switching tasks by taking advantage of hyperbolic discounting and increasing the delay till reward which can drastically reduce your motivation to do those other things. The comments section links to a couple different extensions, and I you can find more by searching for “xkcd delay extension” or some such.
Does reading academic or semi-academic papers count as ‘low energy entertainment’? If it’s not quite interesting enough, you could try the gamification strategy of tasking yourself with highlighting the important parts. You could try to hooking up with someone researching some field in order to do a LW post and help them doing research.