I decided I’d share the list of questions I try to ask myself every morning and evening. I usually spend about thirty seconds on each question, just thinking about them, though I sometimes write my answers down if I have a particularly good insight. I find they keep me pretty well-calibrated to my best self. Some are idiosyncratic, but hopefully these will be generally applicable.
A. Today, this week, this month:
What am I excited about?
What goals do I have?
What questions do I want to answer?
What specific ways do I want to be better?
B. Yesterday, last week, last month:
What did I accomplish that am I proud of?
In what instances did I behave in a way I am proud of?
What did I do wrong? How will I do better?
What do I want to remember? What adventures did I have?
C. Generally: 9: If I’m not doing exactly what I want to be doing, why?
I am an economics major at Yale and would be very skeptical of a game theory course that deviated too far from the theory of winning at multi-party interactions (game theory) and dealt extensively with the theory of winning in general (rationality). Such a class would almost certainly seem too preachy or too close to the genre of self-help. You, as a professor of the field, would obviously know better than me what areas of rationality or general strategy are traditionally included in the field of game theory—but I would be very surprised if most of the above links, the bulk of which deal with the optimization of one’s time, one’s goals, or one’s beliefs, would fit well into most Game Theory courses.
This is not to say that I necessarily oppose the practice of using a course title to mislead students about its contents—rather, I am afraid that exhortations of rationality will fall flat on students who came to learn about Nash Equilibria and think you’re trying to tell them how to best live their lives using methods and models beyond the scope of the course.