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Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

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Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#41

Post by echelon »

I do not find this to be the case at all.

My friends and coworkers are aware of my work on a particular ML task and are cheering me on. Every major hurdle and obstacle I've encountered is met with support and an unending eagerness to try my product.

I am so ready to get this out the door and I'm spending all of my free time on it. It's going to be huge.

This has been a year long project that is the offshoot of another project that led me down this more exciting path. My investment is only getting more and more intense now that I've found the correct problem domain gradient to explore.

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#42

Post by rootusrootus »

I remember reading about this years ago (maybe this very article). Announcing your plans seems to give you some of the satisfaction of having accomplished them, without actually doing anything. So ... I don't tell anyone if I'm planning a workout change, diet change, side project, etc, unless I figure I'll need the peer pressure more than my internal motivation.

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#43

Post by feanaro »

GCA10 wrote: post #31

This article treats all types of announcements as being equal. Not so! A hazy announcement like "I'll be doing more to fight climate change" may indeed be empty virtue signaling that leads to nothing. But what about a more precise announcement like: "I'll be writing a book on Topic X, which I plan to publish 15 months from now, and I'll be completing one chapter on the 25th of every month until then"? Now we've got i…

> But what about a more precise announcement like: "I'll be writing a book on Topic X, which I plan to publish 15 months from now, and I'll be completing one chapter on the 25th of every month until then"? Now we've got intermediate deadlines, and deliverables, and at least the first stirrings of a coherent plan.

As a data point, if I did this, it would probably make me much less likely to work on it and very anxious about the whole thing.

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#44

Post by [deleted] »

drakonka wrote: post #17

I watched a TED talk about this years ago and recognized myself and my habits. I've since stopped announcing plans until I have a certain amount of concrete progress. Sometimes I still misjudge, and lose motivation. For me this applies for both small and big things. Eg say I make plans to go to the gym tomorrow. If I tell someone I'm going to go to the gym, I am less likely to actually do it. If I keep my mouth shut…

[deleted]

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#45

Post by BeetleB »

gadders wrote: post #38
burtonator wrote: post #32

There's another counter to this. If you announce your plans but put a penalty on it for non-accomplishment it acts as a commitment device. You should read about commitment devices in general but the idea is they FORCE you to do something you know you're probably not going to do. A good example is to tell your friend you're going to run a marathon and if you don't you'll give her $1000.

You can go to a website like https://www.stickk.com/ and set up your commitment contract there.

Or Beeminder:

https://www.beeminder.com

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#46

Post by friendlybus »

I think the keyword in this article is intentions. Those should remain private, but anything else about your work can be discussed and managed and is frequently better to do so.

The modern concept of a self is a difficult thing. I don't fully understand it. It seems to include a willingness to isolate and exile part of yourself. The boundary between what's internal and external is the basis of a whole category of research, but the modern pop-psychology idea is just to run with it as if we could know.

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#47

Post by yebyen »

BeetleB wrote: post #45
gadders wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can go to a website like https://www.stickk.com/ and set up your commitment contract there.

Or Beeminder: https://www.beeminder.com

Here's the Beeminder twitter account, earlier this month giving a link to their response to this exact question:

https://twitter.com/bmndr/status/1169303739657682944

(tl;dr: they don't agree that announcing your goals makes you less likely to accomplish them. Which should not be surprising, to anyone who has already heard of Beeminder.)

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#48

Post by peterxpark »

While in general, I agree with not announcing plans until they're finished, I do have two counterpoints

1) A year ago, I announced to in-person friends and on FB eliminating certain foods from my diet. Afterwards, it was easy because I could always remember I publicly announced it. Last year, it was chicken. This year, I added pork, soda, and processed meats. Haven't touched them since.

2) If it's very tangible and concrete then I find it works well. I announced writing daily for 30 days on my blog and successfully did it.

But yeah, general plans like I'm going to start a business or workout more usually fizzle out after the initial excitement.

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#49

Post by yebyen »

wool_gather wrote: post #35
burtonator wrote: post #32

There's another counter to this. If you announce your plans but put a penalty on it for non-accomplishment it acts as a commitment device. You should read about commitment devices in general but the idea is they FORCE you to do something you know you're probably not going to do. A good example is to tell your friend you're going to run a marathon and if you don't you'll give her $1000.

The way you phrased that kind of makes it sound like just another commitment to be avoided. Wouldn't you need to do something more like "give your friend $1000 in escrow and tell her she should only give it back to you if you run the marathon"?

This depends how trustworthy you are in general, and is definitely an interesting question.

Would Gandhi take a pill which made him 1% less likely to not commit any murders, if it meant receiving a million dollars with no other strings attached?

The answer seems to be, "he would use a Schelling Fence" if that was an option.

https://blog.beeminder.com/schelling/

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SdkAesHBt4tsivEKe/gandhi-mur...

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#50

Post by all2 »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #30
JohnFen wrote: post #24

I'm exactly opposite of that. If I announce plans, that adds an additional cost (embarrassment) to failing to accomplish them, which makes it less likely that I'll procrastinate or abandon the effort.

A lot of people don't seem to be bothered by that.

I am. But the cost of embarrassing myself isn't something I consider up front.

I'm working on taking the long view, but it is hard.

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