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Fooling myself to work

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Re: Fooling myself to work

#71

Post by marchdown »

jirinovotny wrote: post #61
Stormbringer wrote: post #60

To do lists are great. Having your subconscious solve the hard puzzles for you is great at the time... but I wonder whether that has a flow on effect to insomnia. You want your brain to be thinking, working, but sleeping is supposed to be rest time... Perhaps there are short term vs long term trade offs. I've been experimenting with caffeine. So far I'm getting some surprising results. Amongst hackers the common view…

The brain is working anyway, when you sleep. This just directs it a bit. When you whip a horse, it runs faster too. Caffeine is like whipping your heart. IMHO the long-term consequences of caffeine consumption do not outweigh the short-term gains. Also, green tea (sencha anyone?) is healthier. I also think that if you lack energy, you should rather "debug" your lifestyle.

I love me some sencha! >Green tea is helathier. Could you perhaps link to any reasearch backing up that claim? Anecdotal evidence is fine, too.

Re: Fooling myself to work

#72

Post by FaceKicker »

justlearning wrote: post #46
pw wrote: post #43

Did anyone else realize that English must be the author's second language? Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm just always amazed by the little clues that are behind by otherwise proficient non-native speakers.

".. always amazed by the little clues that are behind by otherwise proficient non-native speakers." could you elaborate?

I'll go through the article, posting some very nitpicky corrections until I get bored. These will all be arguable and my "corrected" versions are of course non-unique and probably themselves very imperfect. Personally I initially scanned the article so fast that I didn't really notice any of the phrasing oddities...

> If we want to achieve any kind of bigger success

This sounds awkward to me. Perhaps "In order to be successful" would work better?

> because I have some tricks how to fool myself into work

s/tricks how to fool myself into work/tricks for fooling myself into working/

> When it seems that I really do not feel like working

This one isn't that bad, but it's sort of strange; the kind of thing I'd imagine someone with an accent would say. I'd take out the "it seems that" and change the "do not" to "don't" (I think the "really" in combination with the "do not" is awkward).

> I even do not enjoy the food that much this way, as my mind is shattered by 5 different things.

s/I even do not enjoy/I don't even enjoy/ Also, "shattered" is an odd word to use. I guess I'd say something like "my focus is split among 5 different things" or something like that.

Anyway, I'm tired of this now. As I said, very nitpicky. Not to mention, native English speakers phrase things awkwardly all the time.

Re: Fooling myself to work

#73

Post by farout »

farout wrote: post #40
dreeves wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That last one is similar to my litmus test for Akrasia [ http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Akrasia ]: 1. How certain are you that you *want* to do it? 2. How certain are you that you *can* do it? 3. How certain are you that you *will* do it? If your answers are "absolutely", "definitely", and "given historical evidence, not entirely" then this is classic akrasia. I think the only solution in that case is some form of self-bi…

Very interesting. Here is a nice synopsis of a case studied in the Influencer book about the Carter Center helping to rid Guinea worm infections in several African countries: http://www.joshhunt.com/mail215.htm I have problem accepting your conclusion from your blog:To make the long-term consequences of failing at your goal immediate, you need a bright and painful line. I think it more complex than that, which you al…

Read PG's article. Ok.

The smoking issue was interesting. In the book, Lady Drinking Tea, which explores how modern statistics came to be (BTW excellent read - fun), RA Fisher, the father of modern statistics, argued that lung cancer and smoking were correlated and you can NOT determine causation based on that.

For 60 years this smoker attacked everyone who disagreed. He was brilliant but still an asshole. He died from lung cancer, apropos. Soon after smoking was targeted again as a cause for lung cancer and many lives were saved since Fisher was no longer there attacking them.

Re: Fooling myself to work

#74

Post by pw »

ecaradec wrote: post #66
biot wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've found particularly for German speakers is the use of phrases like "since 2 years". A native speaker would say "since 2 years ago ", fixing the reference to a definite point in time rather than a duration alone.

I'd love a service that would fix such mistakes in my blog posts to make them look more native; something like an online mum that would fix the turn of phrase I use. I'm french, and this is typically the kind of mistakes I do all the time as well.

While I don't want to go too far down the road of being your online mum (:P), I'd be happy to give your blog posts a once-over. Just email me your drafts (address in profile).

Re: Fooling myself to work

#76

Post by miked »

farout wrote: post #73
farout wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting. Here is a nice synopsis of a case studied in the Influencer book about the Carter Center helping to rid Guinea worm infections in several African countries: http://www.joshhunt.com/mail215.htm I have problem accepting your conclusion from your blog:To make the long-term consequences of failing at your goal immediate, you need a bright and painful line. I think it more complex than that, which you al…

Read PG's article. Ok. The smoking issue was interesting. In the book, Lady Drinking Tea, which explores how modern statistics came to be (BTW excellent read - fun), RA Fisher, the father of modern statistics, argued that lung cancer and smoking were correlated and you can NOT determine causation based on that. For 60 years this smoker attacked everyone who disagreed. He was brilliant but still an asshole. He died fr…

He died from lung cancer, apropos.

He died from colon cancer.

http://www.bookrags.com/highbeam/r-a-fishers-life-and-death-...

Re: Fooling myself to work

#77

Post by jirinovotny »

FaceKicker wrote: post #72
justlearning wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

".. always amazed by the little clues that are behind by otherwise proficient non-native speakers." could you elaborate?

I'll go through the article, posting some very nitpicky corrections until I get bored. These will all be arguable and my "corrected" versions are of course non-unique and probably themselves very imperfect. Personally I initially scanned the article so fast that I didn't really notice any of the phrasing oddities... > If we want to achieve any kind of bigger success This sounds awkward to me. Perhaps "In order to be…

Awesome! Thanks for the "kick in the face" :) Fixed as suggested.

Re: Fooling myself to work

#78

Post by farout »

miked wrote: post #76
farout wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read PG's article. Ok. The smoking issue was interesting. In the book, Lady Drinking Tea, which explores how modern statistics came to be (BTW excellent read - fun), RA Fisher, the father of modern statistics, argued that lung cancer and smoking were correlated and you can NOT determine causation based on that. For 60 years this smoker attacked everyone who disagreed. He was brilliant but still an asshole. He died fr…

He died from lung cancer, apropos. He died from colon cancer. http://www.bookrags.com/highbeam/r-a-fishers-life-and-death-...

You are right. My bad. Memory going. Should have confirmed.

Re: Fooling myself to work

#80

Post by becomevocal »

dreyfiz wrote: post #64

Maybe someone will see this late comment: Do The Work, by Steven Pressfield, is free on Amazon for Kindle (you could read it on your computer or smartphone, too) for now, so grab it! His War of Art changed my life. Understanding the nature of Resistance is incredibly important. http://www.amazon.com/Do-the-Work-ebook/dp/B004PGO25O

Awesome book man. Thanks for the heads up!
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