alexvermeer

Karma: 493

alexvermeer 8 Feb 2012 21:42 UTC
53 points
on: My Algorithm for Beating Procrastination
Good stuff! My algorithm is essentially identical. I also made a poster that summarizes the key advice/methods for defeating procrastination. It’s my version of Step 2, 3 and 4, but visually displayed. I put it up on my wall so I don’t have to rely on my memory of the equation or the various anti-procrastination methods. I circle or note the things that tend to work well and focus on using those. When I notice I’m procrastinating, the solution is usually staring me right in the face.

In case anyone else finds it useful, here is the graphic I made from the advice in Steel’s The Procrastination Equation and Luke’s How to Beat Procrastination. Any suggestions of things to add/modify/remove are welcome. Update: the graphic (plus a pdf version) is explained in more detail here.
What links here?
- alexvermeer's comment on What are you working on? February 2012 by David_Gerard (26 Feb 2012 2:48 UTC; 0 points)

alexvermeer 12 Mar 2015 7:25 UTC
30 points
in reply to: EGI’s comment on: HPMOR Wrap Parties: Resources, Information and Discussion
(Habryka here. My account still appears to be broken)

I want to outline my thinking a bit, about why I decided to organize all of this with so much reliance on Facebook:

The attendance at these events heavily relies on networking effects and reducing trivial inconveniences. I did consider organizing it on LessWrong, but it’s just less integrated into most peoples life as Facebook is. This was the easiest way for people to invite their friends, get notified of new parties, spread information and, most importantly, get interested in the event if you so far haven’t been completely hooked on the book.

This is the last obvious big opportunity to get more people to read the book. Sending people to LessWrong, a website they’ve never been to and often only tangentially heard off, to then send an email to the current organizer, not really knowing who else of their friends will be there, if any, and then add that event manually in their own calendar, just seemed like a path that too many people would not bother to go.

I don’t like Facebook. I don’t like their stance on privacy, and I don’t like the social pressure that drives everyone to sign up for it. But I think the stakes on this are high, and the potential positive impact on the world is large. And I think the number of people who are shied away from this because of its reliance on Facebook is smaller than the number of people who would not otherwise come.

This is the reason why I made all information available outside of Facebook and spent multiple hours copying details from the Facebook events into the spreadsheet. Because I want to make sure that if someone doesn’t have Facebook, and wants to attend, that they will be able to. But the need to reduce trivial inconveniences for that category is a lot lower, as I think most would be willing to jump through a lot of hoops to be able to attend these.

I don’t think the decision was completely clear, but I did make the decision consciously and tried my best at weighing the benefits and drawbacks. I am interested in anyone’s thoughts on this.

alexvermeer 13 Mar 2015 16:46 UTC
19 points
on: Rationality: From AI to Zombies
Just a reminder that mistakes/problems/errors can be sent to errata@intelligence.org and we’ll try fix them!

alexvermeer 16 Jun 2013 20:32 UTC
17 points
on: Rationality Quotes June 2013

The recognition of confusion is itself a form of clarity.

T.K.V. Desikachar

alexvermeer 13 Mar 2015 16:40 UTC
16 points
0
in reply to: kotrfa’s comment on: Rationality: From AI to Zombies
From Amazon, 30% goes to Amazon and 70% goes to MIRI.

From e-junkie (the pay-what-you-want option): 100% goes to MIRI, minus PayPal transaction fees (a few %).

alexvermeer 3 Jul 2015 17:06 UTC
12 points
in reply to: tanagrabeast’s comment on: MIRI needs an Office Manager (aka Force Multiplier)
Then you should definitely apply!

The salary range is “competitive” given the job and the bay area. It depends a lot of past experience and job performance. You should be able to afford to live in Berkeley, especially if you’re a dual-income family.

To echo what ciphergoth said, if you’re the right candidate, we would definitely make it work.

alexvermeer 13 Mar 2015 16:40 UTC
9 points
in reply to: Tenoke’s comment on: Rationality: From AI to Zombies
Approximately 600,000 words!

alexvermeer 2 Jan 2014 15:03 UTC
8 points
in reply to: BenLowell’s comment on: One Year of Pomodoros
How do you not get fatigued with recording things?

I’m actually a bit surprised that I was able to maintain my recording for over a year. Some reasons why I think I was successful in hindsight:
1. Since I made the tracking app myself, I was excited to use it for the first little bit.
2. I intentionally made my tracking app such that I could see my daily, weekly, and category totals, all at once for a given week, which is important for me since my primarily unit of productivity measurement/planning is the week.
3. I came to realize that tracking all of the categories was key to the whole thing working. By tracking e.g. miscellaneous stuff (which seems pretty pointless at times), you’re given a constant reminder that you are “covering all your bases.”
4. After tracking pomodoros for several months, not tracking pomodoros made it feel like I wasn’t being productive.
5. Once I passed a critical threshold, I was motivated by the thought of having an entire year’s worth of data.
What are your recommendations for amount of structure before you incorporate pomodoros? Is there any structural/organizational stuff you should have set up before you do them?

You need basically zero structure to start using pomodoros; just a task and some time to work on it. (I say this especially because I’m really bad for wanting my system to be “perfect” before I use it.) I treaded the pomodoro waters for several months before delving in to tracking everything. My organization system, in short, is having a +/-5 year plan, a current year plan, and current quarter plan, and current month plan, and then specific tasks/projects for the current week (which I roughly estimate in pomodoros, or at least aim to hit a certain total for the week).

alexvermeer 7 Feb 2012 14:14 UTC
8 points
on: “Ask for help on your project” open thread
As mentioned here, I’ve spent some time figuring out what specific things I can do to procrastinate less. I turned what advice I found in Piers Steel’s The Procrastination Equation into a ‘flowchart’ that I printed and posted directly above my computer monitor. The instant I notice I’m procrastinating, I look at it, find a specific thing to do, do it, and get back on track. It’s been working really well for me.

If anyone is interested, I’d love to get some feedback from others who try out the poster, whether it’s helpful, whether it makes sense, what could be changed, etc. The picture is available here.

alexvermeer 8 Feb 2012 22:32 UTC
7 points
in reply to: lukeprog’s comment on: My Algorithm for Beating Procrastination
Thanks! I suppose that makes sense given we’ve both read The Procrastination Equation. You pretty much wrote the post I had just started writing. :)

alexvermeer 2 Jan 2014 14:48 UTC
6 points
in reply to: Risto_Saarelma’s comment on: One Year of Pomodoros
Thanks for the encouragement. :-)

alexvermeer 12 Jul 2012 19:47 UTC
6 points
on: The Quick Bayes Table
I made an Anki deck from this table, with the following card layouts:
- dB <-> percent
- percent <-> odds
- dB <-> odds
You can find it here: Quick-Bayes-Table.anki.

Note: I rounded some of the values even further, for simplicity.

alexvermeer 14 Dec 2013 0:01 UTC
5 points
in reply to: TheTerribleTrivium’s comment on: Karma awards for proofreaders of the Less Wrong Sequences ebook
Basically all of them, with some modifications (e.g. a significantly reduced QM sequence), and with some reorganizing to improve flow.

alexvermeer 13 Dec 2013 23:58 UTC
5 points
in reply to: passive_fist’s comment on: Karma awards for proofreaders of the Less Wrong Sequences ebook
It will probably be available as pay-what-you-want, similar to the Facing the Intelligence Explosion ebook.

alexvermeer 8 Dec 2013 0:20 UTC
5 points
on: Kurzban et al. on opportunity cost models of mental fatigue and resource-based models of willpower
This is exciting and interesting stuff. A good one-sentence summary from the paper:

In sum, many experiences, particularly the more or less unpleasant sensations discussed here (e.g., effort, boredom, fatigue), can be profitably thought of as resulting from (1) monitoring mechanisms that tally opportunity costs, which (2) cause an aversive state that corresponds in magnitude to the cost computed, which (3) enters into decision-making, acting as a kind of “vote,” influencing the decision ultimately taken.

I’m trying to get my head around ways I could use this to sustain better and longer levels of focus, reduce boredom, etc. Two questions come to mind, that as far as I can tell have not been investigated in detail yet, and to which I don’t have answers:
1. What, exactly, are the sorts of things my brain decides are more important than what I’m currently doing? Is it things like “I’m not signaling the right things to the people around me”, “need food”, etc.?
2. What are good ways to “reset” my internal monitoring mechanisms and thus return to a non-aversive state? I presume the answer is some kind of reward or positive feedback?
Basically, is it possible to trick this internal cost-benefit analysis into being focused for long periods of time?

alexvermeer 3 Jul 2013 16:19 UTC
5 points
on: What are you working on? July 2013
Writing up a “One Year of Pomodoros” post. I’m just three weeks shy a year of tracking every planned and completed pomodoro, for a grand-total of almost 5,000.

alexvermeer 16 May 2012 16:48 UTC
5 points
on: Meditation, insight, and rationality. (Part 2 of 3)
Is meditating for 60mins once better than, say, 4x15mins spread throughout the day?

alexvermeer 10 Feb 2012 19:41 UTC
5 points
on: Knowing About Biases Can Hurt People
The link to the paper is dead. I found a copy here: Taber & Lodge (2006).

alexvermeer 8 Feb 2012 22:42 UTC
5 points
on: My Algorithm for Beating Procrastination

Each of these skills must be learned and practiced first before you can use them.

This is so important! Those who are serious about decreasing their procrastination—and who have enough motivation to bootstrap the process—should only work on a few skills at a time. As Luke mentions, mental contrasting was quick and easy, but goal setting is still a challenge. Trying to do everything at once will likely fail.

Personally, I’ve been focusing on clear goal-setting, making those goals visible, and cutting out distractions while working. Now, the moment I notice my procrastination, I can do these automatically. Next is probably recognizing my own successes and doing some mental contrasting.

alexvermeer 26 Dec 2011 21:47 UTC
5 points
in reply to: KPier’s comment on: Summary of “The Straw Vulcan”
Absolutely. The original example was explicit “male looks for female”, but no reason for the summary to keep that. Fixed, and thanks.