Rest in Motion

Previously discussed on 2017-04-03

  • The work that needs to be done is not a finite list of tasks, it is a never-ending stream
  • The goal is to move through the work, to do things
  • Inaction is boring - the ground state for most people is an active one, not a passive one
  • The actual reward state for most people isn’t one where you’re doing nothing, it’s one where you’re doing the things that you want to do, rather than things you have to do
  • Rest when you need to rest, not when you’ve run out of work to do (hint: you’ll never run out of work to do)
  • Instead of thinking of your work in terms of lists (which are finite), think about your work in terms of streams (which are not)
  • Divide your work up into streams (rest is a stream too) and consume tasks from each stream at the rate that you can do them
  • Do what needs doing at a sustainable pace

Shifting Guilt

  • Shifting guilt is a valuable skill to have, since it allows you to transform vague guilty feelings into more focused guilt that you can more easily deal with
  • All of the tools Nate has talked about shift guilt into a form where you’re guilty about being unable to act as you desire
  • This is intentional, because guilt about being unable to act as you desire is something that Nate knows how to deal with
  • Shifting guilt takes a 3-part strategy
    • Part 1: Refinement
      • Ask yourself what you “should” have been doing instead of the thing that caused you to feel guilty
      • Example: if you stayed out too late at a party, ask yourself what you should have been doing
      • Don’t settle for vague answers, such as “studying” – ask yourself, which book? Which chapter?
      • Oftentimes, when you attempt to refine guilt, you find that the guilty feeling goes away – it turns out that the thing you did was in fact the thing you wanted to do
        • Maybe you stayed late at the party because you needed the break
      • However, other times, the guilt gets sharper – you realize that you had the opportunity and the stamina to pursue a better alternative, but chose not to do so
      • This is good – the guilt is now more focused and specific and you can move on to part 2
    • Part 2: Internalization
      • Oftentimes, after you refine your vague guilty feeling, you’re left with an obligation
      • You think to yourself, “I should have stayed in and studied X instead of going out and partying.”
      • At this point, ask yourself whether you’re taking on this obligation of your own accord or whether it’s being imposed on you by someone else
      • Ask yourself whether it’s okay to drop the obligation entirely
      • If all you feel is relief at the thought of dropping the obligation, then maybe you should drop it
      • Often, however, there will be some part of you that insists that the obligation is important
      • Keep asking yourself why you want to take on this obligation until you have specific answers in terms of your own desires
      • Once you’ve framed your guilt in terms of intrinsic, rather than extrinsic desires, move on to step 3
    • Part 3: Realism
      • Ask yourself, “Is there something further that I could have done?”
      • Keep in mind that you are, in fact, mortal – your time, energy and resources aren’t limitless
      • Ask yourself whether you’re doing your work at the fastest sustainable pace
      • Oftentimes, it turns out that the thing you’re feeling guilty about is, in fact, harmless because it’s not preventing you from working at the fastest sustainable pace on the problems that you care about
      • Other times, however, you can identify a pattern of behavior that prevents you from acting in your long-term best interest
  • At the end of this three part strategy, you should be able to identify a pattern of behavior that is causing you to act against your values
  • We don’t want to feel guilty about individual behaviors, we do want to feel guilty about patterns of behavior
  • It’s much easier to address individual actions when they can be characterized as part of a pattern of behavior

Don’t Steer With Guilt

  • Guilt works using the same mechanism as threats
  • If you find yourself having to carry out your threats over and over again you should re-think your approach
  • Similarly, if you find yourself feeling guilty all the time, you should re-think your approach
  • Guilt is costly to deeply
    • Strongly demotivating
    • Can lead to failure spirals
  • The way that guilt-motivated people tend to operate is by working fervently to avoid guilt
  • However, that pace is often unsustainable, and the resulting guilt from not being able to maintain that unsustainable pace often leads to failure-spirals
  • This leads to a boom/bust cycle of productivity and failure that is overall less productive than working at a steady pace
  • If you regularly find yourself in a situation that you dislike, don’t use guilt to try to get yourself to avoid that situation in the future
  • Instead, treat the problem as a scientific problem, and try to solve it by trying different tactics, and keeping track of what works and what doesn’t
  • Look at patterns of behavior, and try to fix those, rather than attempting to avoid individual behaviors in isolation
  • Use individual failures as a sign to change tactics rather than feel bad about yourself

Update from the Suckerpunch

  • When you do something that you regret, you often feel a sensation like a sucker-punch, as the consequences of your decision become apparent
  • This sensation is also often accompanied by a sense of lingering regret that can last for days
  • It’s possible to keep the initial sharp pang of negative emotion, while dispensing with the lingering regret
  • Update as far as you can, as fast as you can, from the initial sucker-punch sensation, and then the lingering regret becomes unnecessary
  • It may be disconcerting for others to see you update and then move on without missing a beat, but the social cost is often worth it
  • The important thing to remember is that as long as you think you need guilt as a motivator, you won’t be able to replace it