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"make a spreadsheet", "listen to this podcast/audiobook", "INBOX ZERO", "check out this cool new app" (which turns out to be fundamentally the same as the last
by beaker52 8y ago
"make a spreadsheet", "listen to this podcast/audiobook", "INBOX ZERO", "check out this cool new app" (which turns out to be fundamentally the same as the last app)
I feel like everything I've seen on this topic in the past 10 years is the same stuff over and over.
I used to be young and spriteful, and I'd to get giddy at the prospect of "the new way" to form habits and improve whatever it was I wanted to in my life, but now I'm just a jaded old man with the same problems. I've made some token improvements here and there but I'm willing to wager that if you pick up this spreadsheet today you won't be using it a year and a half from now.
It really surprises me that no real ground has been broken on this subject in recent years. We seem to be obsessed with the topic but it's a constant problem with a fairly stagnant set of solutions.
- julienreszka 8y agoTurns out planning isn't useful in any way until you assess current situation clearly. Turns out assessing current situation isn't easy at all. There is no single clear and easy fix to this.
- rzzzt 8y agoPlanning isn't useful if you do not intend to take action based on it.
- Void_ 8y agoI call it the meta-habit of habit tracking. And from all the tricks, this one is the closest to life-changing. I did it for a few years, then stopped, and I can tell you my life was better when I was actively working on my habits. Now I'm going to get back to it before it's too late.
- alfor 8y agoThe problem, is that's not how our mind work. Our brain keep the habits that are rewarding period. If you use your willpower you will get tired of them and you will find a way to stop. I am trying https://www.selfauthoring.com/ https://www.selfauthoring.com/ from Jordan Peterson. In this case, it's not about habits, but by writing about your worsts and best parts and thinking about how your life can be better or worst relative to what you do with them. You make the reward/punishment apparent and you let your mind do build the habits for you.
- sridca 8y agoI would take anything Mr. Peterson produces with a pinch of salt, as his advice and theories stem from the assumption that one can't change human nature.
- tvanantwerp 8y agoI've never engaged with anything by Jordan Peterson, but that assumption sounds perfectly reasonable. Taking human nature to mean "the way people tend to respond to stimuli as a result of evolution", then I don't see that changing in a short time scale like a single lifetime.
- sridca 8y agoIt can[1] but most people including Peterson himself do not care. He alludes to this in his book's introduction. [1] http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/sundry/floggedmisconceptions/FFM05a.htm http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/sundry/floggedmisconceptions...
- sridca 8y agoThis is not to say that his advice is useless. I think it can be useful from certain contexts in life. But for any ultimate achievement in what is humanly possible one needs to look beyond what he professes to be possible.
- opp20 8y agoIt will change when techies and psychologists and sociologists deeply collaborate. Right now its just a bunch of half baked experiments based on half baked understanding of human psychology.