Group Rationality Diary, Oct. 6-18, 2015

For the annals of "Today I Learned About Myself":

I just noticed a pattern in every job I've had. I get upset and bored at my job when there's no one left in the office that I can learn from. Every time I reached that moment, my gut urged me to switch jobs. I connected the dots and discovered that pattern because I'm feeling that again.

I ripped off the concept of the 5-Minute Journal and made an Autohotkey script which populates a text file with a blank template that looks basically like this:

date

---

inspiring quote

---

I am grateful for:

Three amazing things happened recently:

Notes on recent meditation:

Top Items from To-Do App:

Top priorities for the day:

What would make today great?

What could have made today better?

---

Daily affirmations:

Every morning I open Evernote and execute the script so this text automatically appears. I have found it surprisingly helpful to provide distinct sections for picking the top tasks for my preferred to-do app Nozbe, and then separately listing my top priorities for the day. Sometimes what you want to get done that day has nothing to do with the items on your to-do list, and that can lead to a feeling of stuckness. Separating the two lists allows me to see what past-me thought was important while accommodating what present-me actually wants to do.

Three days ago, I created a "Temple of Errors" (borrowed from stock investor Chris Davis' Temple of Shame: a temple for things that made him lose money).

In a feat of laziness and mundanity, instead of an actual mini-temple, this became the title of a word document where I journal all my mistakes. I should be keeping my mouth shut since it's only been three days, but I'm excited. I created this document with the intention to strive to make new mistakes and avoid old ones (an idea stolen from Charlie Munger). So far, I've found this process to be incredible for personal growth. Instead of trying to figure out what I need to do and executing it, I simply avoid my old mistakes, which leads me to new territory and thus progress.

An unexpected by-product of this document: I've found that after I make a mistake, I look forward to putting it into my journal (this could be because it's simply a new idea, so time will tell. Or it could be because I'm 'collecting' my mistakes). Instead of feeling an initial sting of crappiness, I now enjoy analysing my mistakes for a few minutes before I note it down and carry on with my life. Also, when I read over the document in the morning, I automatically look at my errors in a constructive way.

I plan to go through my "Temple of Errors" at the start of every day. I make this easier by ensuring that it's the only open document on my laptop when I switch it on.

For the annals of "Today i learned About Myself"

During my 3 years of highschool, i really wished a girlfriend because i was feeling lonely all the time and it was very difficult for me... So i began to look for a girlfrien and i noticed that many girls wanted to date me and i don't know why but every time i was getting closer to a girl i felt the desire to never talk to her again... It's very weird and i can't explain it it's a very new experience for me and that's probably why i'm fleeing.

Even Microsoft emails get sorted into my Windows Live (outlook) junk mail filter. Onedrive doesn't take folder uploads and the calendar is super buggy. I've decided to move to Google and it's far superior in every way, except the actual inbox, which is overly complicated and sorts things in ways I didn't ask and puts convos in threads and doesn't archive things like I would expect. Moreover, my names (which are very unique) are already taken, probably by me at some point so I have to have a shitty unprofessional email address instead. I want to work to sort out these kinks this month. However, even with rules saying anything with my name should be sorted from junk to inbox, in outlook, that isn't happening. So, I have to manually go into hotmail and forward messages to my new gmail account, since outlook will only automatically forward what goes into my inbox. It's annoying that hotmail doesn't even provide support. FFS.

Also discovered Ambition is kinda bad for you. Finally, an excuse to drop out of grad school :)