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The Art of Not Thinking

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Re: The Art of Not Thinking

#141

Post by big_paps »

ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #36
darkerside wrote: post #13

If you are in a similar boat, it's likely that when you consider an upcoming dreaded task, there is at least a small part of you that admits the possibility that you will not do the task . And because there is, and because your brain realizes it, it expends mental energy trying to convince you not to do it. Once you are actually doing the task, or it's done, or you realize that you must start doing it immediately, yo…

I think this is all abysmal, dangerous advice. The author says to 'become a robot' and you're saying to 'lie to yourself'. It's all very anti-Zen. I think Alan Watts would say it leads to double-binds and discordant psychological feedback loops that will cause you suffering. Your brain isn't a separate part of you. And you should simply be mindful and fully aware of life, do what you want and enjoy doing, when you fe…

I dont think so. These monologs which hinder you from doing stuff by arguing with yourself are highly egoistic. So are the voices which try to convince the other voices ... The best thing is to just recognize them as narcistic white noise.

Re: The Art of Not Thinking

#142

Post by quotemstr »

mortenjorck wrote: post #30
darkerside wrote: post #13

If you are in a similar boat, it's likely that when you consider an upcoming dreaded task, there is at least a small part of you that admits the possibility that you will not do the task . And because there is, and because your brain realizes it, it expends mental energy trying to convince you not to do it. Once you are actually doing the task, or it's done, or you realize that you must start doing it immediately, yo…

> A trick I've learned is to lie to yourself. Say you're excited to do it, that you can't wait, and that you enjoy it. Your brain is easily convinced if you're willing to let it be. The technique I finally learned was to attempt to cultivate an enjoyment of the task I didn’t want to do. But I wonder if what you’re suggesting isn't really just a different way of looking at the same thing. You might be “lying to yourse…

> The technique I finally learned was to attempt to cultivate an enjoyment of the task I didn’t want to do

There's a fantastic idiom in English to express this idea: "to make virtue out of necessity".

Re: The Art of Not Thinking

#143

Post by agumonkey »

javier10e6 wrote: post #88
agumonkey wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of lying I'd use the make it fun. Find any reason to make that task enjoyable, flip it around, organize it differently. At work (temporary gig): - manual labour == free workout. Whenever I have to crouch for a file.. I do it in a slow and perfect squat. I grab the file and stay down to strecth, then I go up swift .. I'm happy to have that file because I gained something. Other task like archive defragmenting…

Your comment reminded Principal Skinner in The Simpsons telling Bart to make a game of sharpening a stack of pencils: "Count the number of pencils you sharpened in one hour and try to beat your record"

I can't tell you how much better I feel doing this rather than behaving like other people in the workplace. Every hour is a drag to them, they're apathetic, ranting all day, talking to colleagues they don't even like. Tell me which one is better if you made an obligation of sharpening pencils. Also anything you do fast and clean becomes a skill. Most of life is a chore quick, cleaning, maintaining.. the faster you can do something perfectly the more time for good stuff.

Re: The Art of Not Thinking

#144

Post by ooobit2 »

Kuinox wrote: post #97
Scarblac wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it isn't even a lie. When procrastinating I sometimes have to stop, remind myself that I _enjoy_ programming and figuring out the best way to solve some problem, _this is actually fun_. And then my brain realizes that that's actually true, it's being silly by procrastinating, and I get to work. It's strange that it's necessary, but it is.

Well, this, but the last step doesnt happen.

I've learned in life, both by doing and not doing, that effort is the only metric for success you can control.

As far as how you set your expectations, I'd like to propose an experiment: Draw a Punnett square, where X is each possible choice you can make with your time relevant to one variable (work/don't work) and Y is each possible result of the subject of your choice for X (meet deadline/don't meet deadline). You can imagine easily what a p.sq. of these four possible combined outcomes looks like. The point isn't that some of the intersections are impossible (ex. don't work/meet deadline). The point is to notice your ideal outcome (don't work/meet deadline) is: a) impossible, or if not impossible, then b) unlikely, given each intersection has the same general probability of occurrence. In a nutshell, stop expecting the impossible and the improbable. By investing yourself fully in just one of the possible outcomes represented in a p.sq., you will both fail to accept a reasonably good but unfavorable outcome and fail to persist when your ideal outcome appears unachievable.

Re: The Art of Not Thinking

#145

Post by kilroy_jones »

lightveil wrote: post #47
ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is all abysmal, dangerous advice. The author says to 'become a robot' and you're saying to 'lie to yourself'. It's all very anti-Zen. I think Alan Watts would say it leads to double-binds and discordant psychological feedback loops that will cause you suffering. Your brain isn't a separate part of you. And you should simply be mindful and fully aware of life, do what you want and enjoy doing, when you fe…

My problem with this is the fact that, as it turns out, what I enjoy doing is browsing Reddit/Youtube/Netflix etc. to the exclusion of everything else. The internet has provided me with sufficient distractions-and they are immediately enjoyable enough-that longterm enjoyment/skill-building just doesn't provide me the sense of 'I want to do this' that other shortterm, immediately rewarding activities do.

Have you tried questioning this? Do you really enjoy those things to the exclusion of other activities? I've found that while I think I enjoy them, they leave me feeling unsatisfied when I've stopped. Yet the things I enjoy which take more effort provide a higher quality enjoyment that persists after its done.

Re: The Art of Not Thinking

#146

Post by dualogy »

nuclearnice1 wrote: post #87
ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is all abysmal, dangerous advice. The author says to 'become a robot' and you're saying to 'lie to yourself'. It's all very anti-Zen. I think Alan Watts would say it leads to double-binds and discordant psychological feedback loops that will cause you suffering. Your brain isn't a separate part of you. And you should simply be mindful and fully aware of life, do what you want and enjoy doing, when you fe…

Your comment rang very true to me. Thank you for posting it. What would you recommend to read more about the Alan Watts topics you reference?

Practically anything he wrote or lectured sooner or later zeroes in on this very topic.

The rather-neat core notion is that if you try to use your brain to fool your brain, "improve" your brain, plead with your brain, or "understand the brain", you're chasing ghosts, shouting at the wind, snake chasing its tail, tooth biting itself, etc. There's something to that.. if only as an occasional sane reminder to ease up on oneself because however much you listen to or serve the "lazy / procrastinating" or the "virtuous / ambitious" or any other fragments of the mysterious inside machinery, whichever side "you" serve is never satisfied, infinitely greedy and keeps demanding more..

Re: The Art of Not Thinking

#148

Post by FiberBundle »

darkerside wrote: post #13

If you are in a similar boat, it's likely that when you consider an upcoming dreaded task, there is at least a small part of you that admits the possibility that you will not do the task . And because there is, and because your brain realizes it, it expends mental energy trying to convince you not to do it. Once you are actually doing the task, or it's done, or you realize that you must start doing it immediately, yo…

I never understand this line of reasoning. What do you think is it that comes up with a thought like 'be excited about this task'. When you say that your brain is easily convinced by this you imply that there exists something besides your brain that comes up with thoughts, which makes absolutely no sense at all. It's more likely that your brain just decides a priori to do the task and then comes up with the thought that justifies doing the task.

Re: The Art of Not Thinking

#149

Post by muzani »

d--b wrote: post #6

Something also that I noted is that it is somewhat easier to do the task you don't want to do when you're tired / sleep deprived - mostly because effectively, my brain is too tired to argue against doing the thing.

This works, which is why many code and study late at night. But it has the side effect of trying to do things with the inefficiency of a tired brain, plus being too tired to resist other temptations.

Re: The Art of Not Thinking

#150

Post by VladimirGolovin »

atdixon wrote: post #73

Similarly I tried to get myself to exercise for years and years. I must have discovered the same approach as this author. I stopped any kind of thinking about it and focused on observing myself drive to the gym, get in the pool, do the strokes, etc. If my verbal ("thinking") centers of my brain needed to say something I would only let them describe what I was doing ("You are driving to the gym", "you are putting your…

> I think her post fails in the last section "Do the easiest part first". This is too much thinking, reasoning and I think will backfire. She should delete this section.

I respectfully disagree. This approach absolutely works for me. I usually start a big difficult task by removing trivial inconveniences (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/reitXJgJXFzKpdKyd/beware-tri...)

For example, when I'm about to write a spec, I first do the easy trivial stuff, such as creating and naming the document. Or, when I write a difficult email, I write a rough version of it in a blunt caveman language.

I'd keep this section intact.

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