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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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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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).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
General Updates
I finally made my first project and am a fourth of the way through with boot.dev, though real stuff begins now, it's still some progress. I have a GitHub account with repos, things I made, something I never did for the longest time. India is facing a concerta shortage, and if I cannot get any, I will still keep up with my work. I can crank out 9 hours max on a good day, after which I can barely read a book or even pay any attention to anything at all. This is a lot higher than what I expected, though I feel bad saying anything nice about myself. The entire process is extremely satisfying, my head is in a much better place when I can experience a real sense of progress in the right direction. A hard day of work feels nice, at least when I am done with it at night.
March
March is my favorite month of the year. My family was extremely invested in my academic success, March was when your academic calendar ended, so we would get a 3-4 week break where we had literally zero work. After exams, all the kids would visit these gaming parlors with PCs hooked up via LANs to play Counter-Strike with each other. I would watch movies with my cousins who would come to visit us for Holi. We would play video games all night on my pc, check out bougie cafes, discuss anecdotes from high school. I still feel some of that with my cousins, but I am not in touch with anyone from high school or even uni for that matter.
My strongest emotion for a long time was nostalgia, always wanting to go back in time. In uni I missed high school, in high school I missed middle school, in middle school I missed being in 5th grade. This pattern of thinking was parasitic because even if those years were better, I cannot relive them again. With enough effort, I actively look forward to the time I am in now and have a belief that the near future is genuinely going to be better. My love for video games died almost completely, all the cafes feel stale.
So, do you guys have any thoughts on what it feels like to grow apart from the people of your past life? Are there some things you did with them once that you no longer can enjoy? Many report a falling out with video games or partying.
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Anyone want to talk about GLP-1s again?
I started taking them mid-December. I've lost about 11 pounds so far. I haven't increased to the full dose yet because it's having a moderate effect at this ramping dose. I started at 220 lbs and am hoping to get down to 185 lbs
When tested, at around 220 lbs, my VO2Max was about 50. I can run about a 25 minute 5k.
Playing with the calculators a bit, if I can drop to 185 and simply maintain my cardio capacity, I should end up with a VO2Max of 60. This would mean a sub-20 minute 5k should be achievable.
I'd be over the moon if I could pull that off.
To change gears a bit, I'm kind of embarrassed that I didn't understand until recently how much being overweight affected my running performance. It's so obvious in hindsight, if someone hands you a 35 pound dumbbell and says go try to run a 5k with it, it's obviously going to drag you down. No doctor, sports PT or coach has ever quite told me that though, probably because it's considered rude and most people can't reliably and significantly affect their weight.
I honestly think a lower dose would be better, especially since you aren't morbidly obese or anything. You avoid the excess skin and hollowed out face that comes with rapid weight loss. I know most people looking to shed weight target a pound a week, and you aren't too far off of that.
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Serious coaches and such also have to be careful because eating disorders are common among (elite) endurance athletes: "if losing 10 pounds made me faster before, let's try it again" only works a finite number of times. There is a point, which I would doubt you've hit so far, at which losing weight is actually detrimental or harmful to more general health (hugely increased injury risk).
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Are you not at all concerned about the possible neuropathy/blinding side effects?
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I need help deciding on some medium term (1-3 month) life goals. I'm a college freshman at (small American liberal arts college) and feel pretty listless right now. I grew up in a pretty rural environment and got in on the condition I spent the first semester studying abroad. I spent said semester in London, attending a joke college and having lots of type 1 fun. I met some great people, hostel-travelled through the Baltics, and lived it up in the city (read: tons of alcohol). While that semester didn't add intellectual development or employability, I do think I grew as a person let off some adolescent male steam.
This semester, the pendulum swung back the other direction and I find myself once again immersed in rural nothingness. The college "town" is so small it's classified as a hamlet. I don't really miss the high life that much and recognise that I'll be able to travel during the summers and once I graduate (and hopefully attend grad school abroad). There is now a sort of void in my life that living in the city filled. While I can still go "out" on Fridays to parties, it just doesn't feel the same, and the reality is I'm not built for the frat life. So I've found myself with a lot of time on my hands and not much to do with it. For the first half of the semester I've been playing video games in my free time but they suck up too much time and attention that I should be using to be productive.
Ideally, whatever goal(s) I set should be achievable in the next 1-3 months, approximately the end of the semester. This is to keep them self-contained, as I plan to spend summer grinding my ass off taking community college courses at home.
Here's a few goals I'm considering, roughly categorized:
Health-I'm 5'10" 150lbs and pretty lean enough that I have abs for the first time in my life. While this is nice, I don't really have much muscle mass or real strength (November-January were a brutal cut). Anything health related has a triple benefit in that it makes me healthier, helps me pull baddies, and makes me feel good.
Career-This is unfortunately a segment of life I'm really lacking in. Right now, I want to be a research biologist, although this might change. My last real work experience was at a frozen yogurt shop in junior year of high school. The only relevant work I've done is a pretty cool biotech class senior year where I learned some simple lab techniques (PCR, SDS-PAGE, cell culture) and the second semester was a small research project (Does Fe16 and ampicillin work synergistically against E. coli? We still don't know!). What I could do in the next three months is kinda ephemeral but could have some solid rewards. It's important to note that I'm at a small liberal arts college so the professors generally do support interested students. Crap I will do but have not done is update my LinkedIn and write a proper resume.
Social-My dad is borderline autistic and I'm an only child, it's only natural that my social skills are stunted. While I can be socially active when around people I know and like, in unfamiliar group settings I can really quickly shut down. Right now, approaching a group of people I don't know unless I'm borderline blackout drunk is damn near impossible for me. Maybe I'm coping but I'm not actually super upset at the status quo because I do have friends and I enjoy their company and don't feel like I need other people. At the same time, starting a semester behind is a bit isolating and it would be nice to get to know the rest of the school.
I'd really appreciate feedback on these goals, is there anything I should add/change/remove? I can't do all of these, what would you guys recommend prioritising? Do you have any alternate suggestions or questions? Right now, I think I'm going for Dean's List and running, and will probably cave to the girl. Joining a club sport would be a great add-on but I don't know if it's doable time wise. Just writing this has been great for mentally mapping out my priorities.
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I recently bought an indoor air quality monitor after seeing some posts on Twitter about drowsiness and such being caused by high CO2 levels in living spaces.
I've discovered a few things:
I think one "fun" idea to check if CO2 levels actually harm me is taking random, blinded samples of my drowsiness/mood/etc levels and overlaying them on the CO2-time plot.
Years ago, I bought a CO2 monitor after reading something about indoor air quality (maybe gwern? I don't remember). Even just cracking the window makes a huge difference in the CO2 level. Sometimes I notice a difference in my drowsiness/motivation, sometimes I don't.
What I really need is some kind of magic vent over the window that lets the air freely circulate but keeps the warmth inside.
Slate Star Codex articles: 1 2 (archives: 1 2)
Yeah, that would have been it! Though I was not one of the 129 in the survey.
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Heat recovery ventilation, baby. Being able to do it easily is the biggest advantage of a ducted air conditioning system imo.
TL;Dr the incoming and outgoing air passes through a crossflow heat exchanger that cools down the hot air and warms up the cold air (it works both ways, naturally).
The good size ones can recover/reject 80% of the heat.
Downsides: grease and moisture suspended in warm air will condense inside the core as the air cools. Smog and such from outside will do the same in summer when the heat flow swaps. Good pre-filtering is essential, which means high capacity ducting and fans correctly specced for the load. A surprisingly complicated design challenge for a custom job.
Ducting is needed to get the intake and exhaust airflow to come together at the heat exchanger. This can be simple if you get creative (aka use an attic or crawlspace).
They're not very good for small heat gradients, obviously. If it's usually 45 outside and 65 inside, the system cost will be higher than just heating cold fresh air with a gas boiler or heat pump.
Worse, if your house has a lot of solar heat gain in summer, and your inside air is hotter than outside, the heat exchanger will actively make your AC's job harder by keeping the heat in! This can be a big deal in sunny but mild coastal climates.
You can probably tell I've been designing a diy one for a cabin build lol. But I'm probably better off with vented air and a radiant heating system instead.
As I typed that, I wondered if someone here would have a solution I'd never heard of, and you came through almost immediately!
It's temperate enough here that I'm probably usually in too small of a heat gradient, but I appreciate the new rabbit hole to go down.
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It's me again the guy who posted here three weeks ago about investing his small and modest trust fund into the stock market. Yup.
https://www.themotte.org/post/1695/friday-fun-thread-for-february-21/300977?context=8#context
I bought at the literal peak and feel like shit.
I'm angry at Donald Trump, myself, but most of all at the market for not pricing in Trump's clearly telegraphed idiotic decisions.
I picked the absolute worst date to start investing in the last three years and am experiencing no small amount of self-pity. Others at least get to have a few months of being in the green. I had one fucking day.
I put 16,000€ into the S&P 500, 500€ into Nvidia, 1,500€ into tech ETFs, and 500€—I shit you not—into an S&P 500 10x leveraged option trade I did for entertainment. Lost it all, of course.
Overall, I'm down 2000€ (~15%) right now.
I have no income stream to buy the dip with, as I'm still a student. I never had more than 2000€ in my bank account before this. I wanted to be really dilligent about not spending this money.
Woe is me. I know the market will recover, this is just a blip on my journey, all that bullshit. Still, it feels awful knowing I could have just waited one week. All that time researching Bogleheads stuff, and now I'm left wondering if I got in right at the end of the gravy train.
I still believe in my reasons for investing (I'm convinced AI will lead to an extra 1 percentage point of growth year over year).
But goddamn. My whole family was against me doing this (the money was in gold before), and ah man, it's all so fucking unfair.
(Yes, I'm a whiny upper-middle-class student who doesn't have a job, but hey, hedonic adaptation and all that. My problems are just as real as those of you who are less tall and handsome.)
Well I put $450k into the market at the same time. Proceeds from a real estate sale. I'm only down 6% but....
Hopefully that puts it in perspective. I'm frustrated at the same people you are, it'll end up in the wash!
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Don't worry about it.
https://www.hartfordfunds.com/practice-management/client-conversations/managing-volatility/timing-the-market-is-impossible.html
Ok, that's bullshit AI blogspam. "Best days" don't matter, trends do, and it doesn't do anything to support its claim.
I doubt it's AI given that the earliest snapshot on IA of this page is from August 2022 and chatgpt released in November of that year.
I doubt it's bullshit given that other people have done similar analyses and found that the best days of trading have outsized effects on long term returns, even if the exact effect size varies depending on the parameters of the analysis.
But if you have analysis to the contrary I'd be interested in seeing it.
And his results are very different than theirs, you'll notice.
Yes, his result is that you lose about a third of your returns rather than 50%. It's not clear if the original post assumed monthly investments or one lump sum at the beginning, which is why I said the exact number depends on the parameters of the analysis.
Would you really not have said that the original article is bullshit if it said you lose merely a third of gains if you miss out on the ten best trading days? No matter how you slice it, it seems clear that "best days don't matter" isn't true.
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Don't worry about it. I first started my 401k in 2006. A year later I saw a shit ton of it poof and vanish in the 2007 financial crisis. It might have been $6000-10,000. That shit hurt. I panic sold the bottom, left it in some inflation protection fund for too many years, and missed out completely on the recovery. Learning this lesson is best when you are young, so by the time you are middle aged and have real assets, you have developed diamond hands.
Now I have a seven figure portfolio. I'm down almost six figures. I honestly don't give a fuck.
Let the S&P 500 and the tech ETF ride. In 20 years you'll be alright. Don't sweat the $1000 you put into relatively riskier plays, so long as the 10x leveraged option can't wipe out the rest. Leverage can be scary like that.
You're a student, and provided your degree is of any actual use, you'll have your entire adult life with an income to keep contributing to a portfolio. There will be more bull markets, there will be more dips. Investing is a marathon, not a sprint.
I was going to ask how the Nvidia ride was for you last month, since I know you stayed heavily into it.
How often do you reallocate? I've always been jealous of people with most of their money in 401ks and IRAs, because dealing with cap gains is a nightmare for my money with no tax protection.
I've just let it ride. Im still up over 20x. I may rebalance at some point this year and divert some into my S&P fund, but paying the 15% cap gains tax doesn't seem worth it at the moment. I may harvest some losses off Intel with it though.
Just think, if you'd only put $1000 into Intel in 2000, you'd have almost $300 now!
At least when something drops like this you get to say things like "Intel's up 16% this week!"
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You can't time the market, you should come up with a strategy of investing X of your income every Y months and completely ignore the stock numbers. As for right now, don't panic sell.
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At least you don’t go all-in on Bingus-Token.
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You might be overallocated into tech without realizing it.
For example you may be convinced that you have 500€ in Nvidia, but you really have about 1,400€ in it because it makes up 6% of the S&P 500 right now.
I want to be "overallocated" in tech as I see that sector benefiting most from Ai advances. I'm fully that the snp is already very tech-heavy.
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Hey it's me the guy who encouraged you to use leverage.
You mention Bogleheads so I'm sure you know holding is the best move. Do not sell. Your family's advice was garbage and mine is good: do not sell. The S&P 500 is a good investment, though I personally prefer VTI!
Some are claiming this was the fifth-fastest selloff since 1950! Wow! Lick your wounds. What happened to you was marvelously unlucky. Keep in mind that all we've done is return to price levels last seen in September, a mere 6 months ago. I put a slightly smaller amount of money aside in its own account when I was your age and have never touched it, and it's been magical watching it grow.
I do still believe you should learn to trade derivatives with a responsible portion of your wealth.
Definitely not planning to sell. Sadly, my play money got burnt up by the sudden downturn, I wanted to use it to learn and do slightly riskier things. Cant afford that any more.
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Two thoughts. One, every time you invest you should always (always!) have at least a rough timeline in mind. If your timeline is >3 years, great! You're still, historically speaking, probably going to be fine. If it was less, this is a valuable life lesson about stock volatility many have not learned and you might gain some lifelong net-benefit, even literally. Carefully evaluate your timeline and beware of panic selling depending on said timeline.
Two, sometimes it is emotionally easier to "structure" investments (and their sale as well). Although in theory, it is best to invest it all at once and sell it all at once, as soon and as late as possible respectively - this is due to the tendency of the market to go up - in practice as you have learned it can be difficult and full of self-doubt or recrimination. "Structuring" in this context means that you stagger any and all entries and exits into the stock market, effectively 'averaging' the price points. This means, maybe you have 30k to invest, you put in 10k one month, wait a month, 10k the next, wait a month, 10k the next, or something like that. This way, you can at least emotionally free yourself from trying to "time" the market, since the timing effects are diluted (they don't go away entirely, but it's a lot easier to stay convinced that your entry or exit was deliberate and rational). This also means your gains are averaged too, might be good or bad. Like I said, I personally consider it an emotional-management technique, but emotions are a valid and real factor in investing. You can always park the to-be-invested money in a high yield savings account temporarily while you wait.
My timeline is 7 years. I specifically did lump sum investing because it's clearly the best. I trust myself not to sell, which I was right on. I underestimated the emotional pain of it, though, I guess structured investing would have helped against that.
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This ammount of money will seem like so little to you in just a few years you'll laugh at the thought that 2,000 pounds mattered at all.
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It'll bounce. I bought a batch late 2021 that spent all of 2022 25% down, and didn't break even until the end of 2023. We're not even close to that yet.
Nvidia's up almost 7% today alone, and is basically flat on 6 mth.
Throwing everything in all at once always runs the risk of hitting a local peak. Sometimes the tells aren't reliable either: the surge of redditors and streamers talking about playing the market last year made me pull out early and miss a lot of recent gains.
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Addendum:
I still appreciate the interesting anecdotes about your trading/investing experiences from last post!
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You know it's inevitable, but it still sucks to be reminded that your parents are only human, and aging people at that.
I just found out my dad had to be hospitalized last night because of atrial fibrillation. My family had kept me in the dark, mostly because it was the wee-hours of the morning in Scotland when he'd had to go the ER, and I presume they didn't want me to fret while at work. I understand, but I'm still angry. I feel like I have a right to know, even if there's nothing much I can do.
Dad's fine. They rate-controlled him with beta blockers, and when that wasn't enough, amiodarone. He's probably going home tomorrow.
Still, there was a brief period between when my mom and brother called me to give me the news and when he picked up the phone on his end. I couldn't help but shiver with fear that something had happened, and that he couldn't take the call. It turned out he was taking a shit.
I was half a mind to demand that they loop me in next time they talk to a cardiologist, but I know that won't really help, and since he's in the same hospital I used to work at (I need to ask and see if it's same ward), I know he's being seen by competent doctors with world-class facilities at hand. I still can't help poring over UK guidelines and wondering about the rationale behind their divergence from protocol.
Despite being a doctor himself, he hasn't been the best about getting regular checkups. That'll have to change, now that he's got both AF and a very obscure cardiac issue that I'd never heard of, which was thought to be only found in the Japanese until quite recently (Apical cardiac myopathy).
I tell myself he'll be fine, that he knows when to seek help. I'll buy him an Apple Watch solely for the automatic ECG tracking.
Sigh. I've been taking my parents for granted, and this was a reminder that they can't. I should get cracking on giving them grandkids they can hold and carry without throwing their backs.
Personally, I'm shocked that your dad is only human. I doubt it even!
Jokes aside, be well and best to you and yours.
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It's tough. I got lucky with my dad in that his first heart attack was so early I didn't take it too seriously and over time it's just kind of like, ok yeah he could drop any moment.
I'm less ready for my mom showing signs of decline.
My condolences. I hope she stays healthy long enough for medical science to make a significant difference or even prevent deterioration. Heart attacks are a case where people forget that it wasn't all that long ago when there was nothing to do but load patients up with painkillers and hope they pulled through.
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I know it's sobering, but try to look on the bright side: some people don't have the realization you had until it's too late, and their loved ones are gone. Whereas you realized in time to carpe that diem, and enjoy the time with them while you have it.
I do intend to spend as much time as I can with them, but being on separate continents makes that an uphill struggle. I try to visit as often as I can.
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Climbing the Hill of Experiments
A better anything can be achieved with simple tests at low costs.
Background
People often settle for "good enough" and "if it ain't broke don't fix it" in their personal lives, opting not to make any effort to improve said things because either:
But how is one to tell how much better something can get or if it's already optimal? The only answer is to experiment. Most people have significant room for pareto improvements in their lives. The impact and availability of said improvements varies from low to high depending on the cost one is willing to incur and how much has already been attempted or implemented.
Costs, or Lack Thereof
Experimentation is often associated with major costs. Setting up experiments and collecting and analyzing data takes a lot of time. Thinking of all the controls and confounders takes a mental toll. Purchasing supplements or technology costs money. These are all in addition to the corresponding opportunity costs. "If experiment X doesn't pan out, I could've been doing Y all along, which I know brings me value" is a fair, common criticism against potential tests.
But experiments do not need to be so costly. Erring on the side of lower cost is key to ensuring experiments keep running; too high of a cost in any area (time, effort, money) will make experiments less likely to happen in the future. Design of experiments (DOE) has its place for areas that have high potential returns, while a simple "do X for Y" (e.g., take magnesium before bed for 30 days) and see how you feel has its place for lower returns or lower interest. The latter type is where I think a majority of benefits lie because they are more likely to be performed, there is a greater number available to test, and they are straightforward to implement.
These simple experiments are akin to hill climbing, defined by Wikipedia as:
The beauty and strength lie in the fact that the solution doesn't have to be arbitrary—it can be reasonable and informed, expediting the search time for the best solution and increasing the rate of improvements across the board. Further, improvements to multiple problems can be pursued at any given time without major interference with one another. This is one reason advice, especially pieces of such that are reliably backed, is so valuable: it is easy to implement, easy to verify the effectiveness, and can be backed out of quickly. Quick feedback loops lead to quick improvements and quick improvements lead to more testing.
I suspect the cost type that is most important to someone is the one they have the least of (e.g., if someone has lots of money and energy, but little time, they're time poor). This should be recognized, accepted, and accounted for when planning experiments. In other words, figure out your type of poorness, accept it, then find ways to avoid said cost in experiments and leverage the rich types.
A few notes on individual cost types:
Time
Time can be saved by outsourcing both physical and mental labor. Trying to see the effect of a clean house on happiness? Pay someone to do it. Trying to analyze data? Get an LLM to help with it.
Experiments also don't need to take an hour of planning, an hour of executing, and another hour of analysis to see if it actually worked. (Sure, the scientist in you may be loudly protesting about placebos and the need for controls in certain experiments, but sometimes just feeling better or doing better is enough for it to be considered effective.)
Effort
Effort, while often intertwined with time, is still distinct: some tasks can be short and tedious, long and mundane, or somewhere between the two. Again, effort can be reduced or almost altogether eliminated by outsourcing labor with a focus on making tasks easy and simple.
Effort is often inversely related to enjoyment, so experiments that are more fun will feel less effortful than if they were soul-sucking.
Money
Running cost-benefit analyses is helpful to determine if the experiment is worth running. Items that didn't work out can be sold on public marketplaces to recoup some of the cost. Ask others if they're willing to subsidize the cost in exchange for well-organized and well-planned results.
Diminishing Returns
Diminishing returns exist across all cost types, whether it's putting in more time, more effort, or more money. Try to recognize when returns plateau and move to the next experiment when/if that happens.
Getting Started
Step 1: Brainstorming
First, a list of potential experiments should be made from the following methods:
Step 2: Prioritization
Second, prioritize experiments based on expected return over time, or area under the enjoyment-time curve. The formula I use to think about this is:
priority = success-probability × value-per-time ÷ how-long-it-takes-to-implement
where the scales are 0-1 for success-probability, 0-10 for value-per-time, and 0-10 for how-long-it-takes-to-implement.
For example, magnesium supplementation may be 0.8 × 5 × 1 = 4 and consistent bedtime is 0.9 × 10 × 1/5 = 1.8. In other words, don't delay the magnesium until after the consistent bedtimes, but rather take care of the magnesium now while still starting the bedtime.
Probabilities can be estimated from literature (preferable), other n=1 experimenters or trusted figures (a bit less preferable), or raw (least preferable). Value per time is entirely subjective, but should be easily approximated. Implementation time depends on the depth of DOE—something like controversial supplementation may take longer to prove its value while increasing lighting brightness inside the home may have an immediate, noticeable effect.
Step 3: Planning
Third, plan exactly how to implement the experiment. Like estimating probabilities, literature or articles/blogs/podcasts/word-of-mouth can be good starting points for both design and execution.
Planning should include the following:
Step 4: Performing
Fourth, do it. Purchase the products, set up the effectiveness tracker, define the quitting point, and follow the procedure.
Examples
Here's a non-exhaustive, vaguely-categorized list of as many experiments as I could think of in a few hours. Again, some of these are simple one-time behavior modifications that may reap surprising benefits, while others are long-term systems that must be maintained. (I reserve the right to not update regularly, but will try to as new ones come to light.)
Takeaways
Doing something sub-optimal is often better than delaying or never doing the optimal.
There is almost always room to improve something at a low cost.
Speed matters. Get experiments done quickly so the "cost of doing something new will seem lower in your mind [and] you'll be inclined to do more".
See Also
This appears to be another post from your blog. Which, hey, drum up that blog. But I'd prefer at least an occasional human interaction beyond text written for an extremely wide audience in mind.
I intentionally omitted any link and references to it because a) I didn't want to come across as shilling it, and b) I too (strongly) prefer some amount of engagement besides just "hey read my post okay bye"; i's annoying and spammy when people link their blog and don't engage. I figured people would find this idea at least slightly interesting, regardless of where else it was posted, and I would be happy to interact if someone were to respond (see this very reply!).
The "extremely wide audience" part I disagree with. I think this is probably more closely related to SSC-esque people than others (hence the posting here) because of the analytical approach I suggest instead of just shotgunning any and all potential improvements. Decisions (in regards to the essay) can have major opportunity costs if they're pursued too hastily without proper checking. I'd say few people consider said opportunity costs unless the costs are very high.
Regarding the Uganda post on the last Friday Fun thread, I just didn't have anything to say back to the two people who responded directly to me.
I'm not a mod, and am just mouthing off. I appreciate your replying. I assume anything written in blog format akin to shouting from a mountaintop to whoever will listen, as opposed to typing something in this place--in many ways a closed, if not locked, room. You are certainly correct, however, that you may have a specific audience in mind when you write.
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