The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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I build reward systems to try to get myself to be productive. These generally involve working set amounts of time on a few different tasks, dieting, and rewarding myself with things like going out to eat or watching a movie. It's very stressful to start a system, and in one sense "stressful" to keep it going and work hard rather than spending all my time reading and playing videogames, but overall I'd say I'm much happier while in a system and being very productive.
Systems generally last a week or two, followed by a few days to a week of malaise before I start a new system. I'm on to number 90 since I started counting them. Each system is honestly very useful in the sense that I learn more about how my own brain works. Only recently (in the last 3ish systems) have I learned that an enormous failure mode for me is to "break" the system in seemingly positive ways, either by deciding not to hold to the system's rewards or do more work than the system requires. I feel stressed, decide to do 8 hours of work rather than 6, and then end up doing no work at all.
I'm smart enough (1600 on SAT), but anything more than a year out feels fake so I'm stuck in a reasonably good white-collar job rather than anything more impressive. And I have no college degree so if I ever lose that job, it's bad news for me. I'd like to live up to some fraction of my potential. Adderall helps a lot but is scary--it can help me work way harder, but days when I don't want to work it also helps me game for way longer and waste more time before getting bored. It's a motivation multiplier, but right now my motivation is negative.
So, how to defeat akrasia? How does one lengthen their time horizons and truly spend time better? I have a reasonably good expectation that these systems will eventually work out when I understand myself better but I'd rather not wait 10 years for system 1000 to find one that really works long-term.
Having a nice, comfortable, good white collar job seems like a good place to figure out what, beyond work, you really want in life and how to get it.
For sure. As far as I can tell I'm the only thing standing in my own way, so the only question is how to get more work done.
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I think I recommend that you stop trying to goad yourself with rewards. If the only reason you’re doing something is a reward, it’s only going to work so long as the rewards are worth the pain. And of course the other part is that you’re setting yourself up to see the task as an unpleasant thing to be suffered through so you can get to the reward.
Try just scheduling the task and removing any obstacles to doing that task at that time. If you’re exercising, for example, schedule that, and just … exercise. Make sure it’s a kind of exercise you like, or listen to music while doing it, but do it, and stop when the session is over. Put the gym clothes on a chair in the bedroom and keep the weights there and so on to make it easy to just start doing it automatically. And sooner or later, you’ll just automatically do it. You’ll get to the point where working out at 3pm on MWF is just something you do.
Another thing to try is get a group of people and just start doing things together. If you’re working on programming than a group learning to program will be muc( better than just doing it alone.
I don't directly reward myself for the reasons you've outlined. There's virtually no conceivable reward that is actually "worth" getting started with work in the morning. Generally the system is mostly its own reward--if I follow it then I get to exercise in the evening, for example, because I've gotten enough work done over the day. Normally I never feel like hiking because I feel like I lack the time, but with a system it becomes possible because I know I've gotten a reasonable amount of work done by the time I go.
So, the rewards aren't just direct "10 points for 1 hour of work," it's more "keep in mind that if you keep the system you get to go on hikes every day or two" which is much more motivating.
Scheduling is good, and actually my top priority right now. I think keeping a steady work and sleep schedule would solve most of my problems. The only obstacle keeping me from it is work--if I haven't gotten enough work done then I really don't want to commit to doing anything else that requires attention or effort. If I could just get my work done consistently I'm sure everything else would fall into place.
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I think for many people, this is the one clear advantage the structured environment of university/community college has: it takes the long-time-horizon task of "get a degree" and breaks it down into many medium-time-horizon tasks ("this semester, I need to pass those two courses") and short-time-horizon tasks ("this week, I need to hand in these exercises"), and it introduces an element of accountability that these tasks get done within a certain time frame (failing a class).
So if "living up to your potential" means getting a more impressive job and a college degree, start by finding a degree that interests you and find out what its course requirements are. Then work towards getting an associate's degree that shares many of those classes. You can probably do the first few classes online, at night, and not pay much money for them. If that works out, you transfer the credits to a 4 year college and get a bachelor's.
If you're in an industry that works around certifications, you can also start getting a couple of those. Basically same principle, but you might get your company to pay for them and find it easier to work it in around your job.
That's a good point about college which I hadn't considered.
I work in programming so certifications are definitely a thing, might be a good idea to take a day and turn my long-term goal of becoming a cracked programmer into a series of medium-term goals.
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