I had a strong urge to skip bugs when casually doing this exercise last month. The following thoughts came up:
This one isn’t actually an easy bug, move it to level 2 or 3
This one can’t be fixed without a change to my habits, which almost by definition can’t be done in a single 5 minute session
I could fix this with a purchase but the price of the item is higher than the benefit of the having the bug gone (i.e, I would not pay $150 for this bug to go away, but I would still consider this a bug)
Writing this out helped me figure out some potential antidotes for this round. Here’s what I told myself:
Who cares. Do them in order. Try it for 5 minutes (you’ll be surprised how wrong your simulation is)
Even if you can’t find the answer, brainstorming for 5 minutes might get you closer
If the bug is too abstract, breaking it up into more concrete pieces is a good use of 5 minutes
Bugs fixed this time
Need new underwear and socks: googled, read some quick reviews, and ordered. Very satisfying, took 10 minutes
Can’t find a nail file: texted family group chat and was lead to one within 30 seconds. Felt kinda magical, took 1.5 minutes total
Don’t know my greek letters: Downloaded an anki deck of them after reading a few reviews of different options. 3 minutes total (this isn’t solved per se, but it will now take care of itself)
Bugs worked on but not fixed
I don’t watch the movies on my “to watch” list—I’ll scroll through Netflix trying to find the perfect one, give up, and watch nothing
I ended up brainstorming 8 possible fixes and reflecting on this. It’s an unassumingly tricky bug.
Brainstorming for 5 minutes made me think about how I spend my free time; a not-small percentage goes to me neither enjoying myself nor being productive (watching YouTube videos I don’t like, flitting from headline to headline, etc).
(IIRC) there’s a part in Infinite Jest where a character’s phone rings at the same time the doorbell rings and he gets so perfectly stuck between the two possible actions that he gets (psychologically) torn apart and paralyzed, unable to take either action, plunged into a valley of misery, made worse by the fact that he’s aware of the self-imposed nature of his paralysis
I often feel like this when I get stuck while picking between doing something productive or (harmlessly) hedonic—at the minimum I could be enjoying myself. The worst case is being stuck in between with a vague panicky-yet-tired feeling I get, doing something neither productive, enjoyable, or necessary
This thought made the brainstorm worth it and I’ll likely revisit it
Redness around nose:
I’ve tried to fix this with a face-cream recommended from Reddit before, but didn’t really see any fix. This bug has a slight hopeless vibe to it, but I did the 5 minute timer anyway
Researched again and found that I might’ve been using the cream wrong. Though in another thread many people expressed frustration with their inability to fix it even after seeing a dermatologist.
I decided that I will try the new face-cream technique for 3 days. If it doesn’t get better from that I’ll delete this bug. I’m the king of my list and that is how I will it
I read this sequence almost a year ago. It helped me figure some things out, but I felt like I didn’t get enough reps in—some days I just read the posts and simulated myself doing something instead of actually doing it.
Here’s my plan/experiment this time:
I made it a goal for the past 30 days to read each post in the sequence and reflect, experiment a bit and not hold myself to too high of a standard (basically what I did last year)
Now I’m going to dedicate a portion of my day to really trying the exercises and techniques in each post—doing rather than just simulating. If one technique seems especially fecund, I might spend two days on it
I will post a comment for each day, introspecting and explaining my experiences as openly as possible. (For many reasons: tie me to the mast, social CoZE, etc.)
I came up with 170 bugs this time.
Weirdest bug fix: Switching from wired headphones (while sleeping) to wireless ones.
I need to listen to a podcast in order to fall asleep (a bug in itself), but I shared (pre-covid) a bed with my girlfriend and didn’t want to annoy her with the audio.
I was procrastinating sleeping because I’d get sucked into my phone while picking a podcast, which would often lead me to wake up late for work stressed out and tired.
Since my headphones were wired I’d have to sleep with my phone in my bed, which lead me to stare at it first thing in the morning and use it my entire commute.
Getting wireless headphones enabled me to play a podcast, put my phone in my backpack across the room, and go to sleep with the podcast still playing.
This bug is now obsolete as I moved out of the city during the pandemic, but I’m hoping to be able to fix a few more like this in the next month.
I made an account just for this, having lurked LW for the past year or so—apologies if I break any rules, please let me know.