Co-Working Collaboration to Combat Akrasia

Sometimes we need a person to cooperate with. Sometimes we need a person to discuss the idea with. And sometimes we only need a person who simply is there, who gives our actions the social feeling. (Insert evo-psych explanation why social feels more important to our simian brains.)

My goals at this point of time don't suffer from lack of external help, but mostly from lack of willpower. The useless stuff is pleasant. The useful stuff is great in far mode, but not enough "tempting" in near mode.

A social reinforcement could change this balance, but it would have to feel social. (I suspect the greatest temptation of web browsing is that it feels social.) Beeminder, special threads on LW, even e-mails about daily plans and accomplishments don't feel social the right way. I do feel connected while reading and writing the e-mails or comments, or while entering data to Beeminder... but not while actually doing the useful stuff.

So, because I don't live in one of the rationality beehives, I would like to try the "both on Skype / Google hangout working on separate things" coworking. Maybe with a very short chat about the work, only to add a few fuzzies and increase the social feeling.

However, if many people want to try this, perhaps we could avoid the need (and not-so-trivial inconvenience) of pair coordination by making a global virtual workspace where anyone could join and leave anytime they need, without planning in advance. I am not sure about the exact numbers, but with enough people spending enough time there we could reach a critical mass where 90+% of time someone is already there when a new person joins. Then we would have a permanent virtual workspace.

Let's try some numbers. How long do we want to work (outside of our jobs)? My estimate for myself would be 1 hour a day, on average. (I am not sure how realistic this is.) So to have there 2 people all the time, 24 hours a day, 48 people is a minimum with perfectly coordinated times. If everyone spends there 1 random hour, how many people do we need so that each hour with probability 90% (or at least 80%) at least 2 people are there? Someone better in math please help me! For the moment I will assume that the number is between 100 and 200. That is probably too much. Or isn't it? How many people did so far participate in the CFAR minicamps? Would at least half of them join this experiment for the first two weeks? Or is there someone willing to participate significantly more than 1 hour a day (e.g. someone who works from home)?

We could simply try. Agree on the technological details (so we don't accidentally start multiple conferences on the same time), and precommit -- say, during the rest of March -- to be there even if no one else is, when we are in a situation where we would enjoy the company of other rationalists. If enough people do this, sometimes you will meet another person there even without coordination. As a bonus, you can coordinate with other rationalists to meet at the global workspace; so you are guaranteed to have company, and at the same time you provide a positive externality for those who did not coordinate. And at the end of March we will have enough data to see whether this idea works or not.

The global workspace would need some global guidelines; I propose these: Do talk, but don't talk too much; give each other the contact and encouragement, but don't distract each other from work. Only participate when doing something useful, and when you finish, log out; but it does not matter what exactly you do, you don't even have to do in on the computer as long as you are somewhere near (and leave a message what are you doing). It is OK to turn off the sound if the others distract you, or if you are doing something that would distract them.

TL;DR -- Let's make one global virtual workspace for all LessWrong rationalists. Even if you coordinate with someone else, go to the global workspace. If you don't coordinate, but you wish you had some company, also go there, because you may be lucky; and if many people follow this strategy, their luck will increase. At some moment the coordination may become completely unnecessary.

Here’s a slightly different idea I’ve been toying with: Trading time

The gist of it is this: You make a plan to get together with a friend, and agree to work for 3 hours on whatever project he wants.You also plan a later date and time at which he comes to you and you work together on anything you want. This could be a hobby project, a difficult study topic you can’t quite grasp, or something simple like painting a wall.

The idea is that nearly everything is easier if you do it with someone else, especially for people that tend to procrastinate. Some things are even more efficient per person, such as pair programming. But even if it’s not, doing something non-efficiently is still better than not doing it at all, and usually more fun with someone else. The way I think of it, this is an opportunity to get those things done you’ve been wanting to do all this time, but never get around to.

Ironically, I’ve been meaning to try this out, but haven’t gotten around to it yet :x

Obviously this doesn’t work for everything: it’s hard to do for writing a thesis for example, but plenty of things can be made to work with some creativity, especially if your partner is there in real life. It’s a different concept than what’s expressed in the blog post, which is more like working at the same time instead of working together on the same thing. I’m currently mainly interested in the former, although I wanted to share this idea here since the topics are similar.

Feel free to contact me to get to know eachother! My email is Nuntius.Marii@Gmail.com, and my skype id is m.qrius.

Here's what I've observed of / my experience with the chatroom so far:

• It is always running on a pomodoro schedule. I have been around for 25/5 and 50/10.
• Microphones are set to push-to-talk, and I've yet to hear anyone actually push and talk.
• When I enter, I usually say hi (using text chat) and someone else returns a friendly greeting, and informs me how much time is currently left on the pomodoro.
• It is not good form to chat while everyone is on a pomodoro. You will be chided.
• People usually wait until the end of a pomodoro to leave.
• Those people with a side-view camera usually have it turned on during work time, and then put the face-view camera on during break time. I find this optimal, but I only have one camera, so people get to see my lovely face for as long as I'm there.
• I and at least one other person felt awkward when first starting to work with webcam feeds on our computer screens. However, at least for me, it was easy to habituate to, and didn't make me work less efficiently while I was still getting accustomed to it. Sometimes when I'm working on my computer during the pomodoro, I have the chat window covered.
• On breaks, people have been very friendly, and it makes me feel a lot happier both while on breaks and while working.
• It feels like a shorter and quieter version of this when everyone gets back down to working again. It's a good feeling.

Mind you, I have used this for one hour yesterday and one afternoon today. This could all be a placebo. I will report back again in 2 weeks, and maybe in a few months, if I'm still using it then. All I know is that, today, my happiness level is much higher than normal, and my productivity level has been slightly higher than normal.

I have made a small start towards this - I urge you guys to find a better alternative, but until then I invite you to:

This open chatroom

EDIT: Login as guest to avoid spam in your twitter/facebook (credit Zian). I also recommend using some sort of adblock-program (sometimes the advertisements are with sound).

Regarding the popularity, there seems to be activity at least two thirds of the time, ranging to up to 10 people during "peak" hours.

This is also my experience. Almost everything is easier when you're working with someone. (Unless that someone is my mom. I cannot work with her watching me.)

See also http://lesswrong.com/lw/2qv/antiakrasia_remote_monitoring_experiment/

You can hire remote assistants (typically in the Phillipines) to do this for you via a Skype window for about $1/hour. I thought someone from here was doing that?

Two months have passed and I’m glad to say the LW Study Hall on tinychat is still active and alive. Since judging from the comments it kind of looks like we’ve moved on from tinychat, a review like this might be useful for anyone who hasn’t been there yet.

My first sessions on the chat were driven more by curiosity than anything else since I didn’t believe it would be really effective for me – I’ve felt that I procrastinate too much, but it never occurred to me that working together with other people might make me more effective. I was proven wrong.

Since those first sessions I’ve been online almost every day and got to see different people come and go, and some people stay. It didn’t take long for me to feel like a part of the “chat community”, and to feel motivated to work to see the regulars more often, some of which I might even consider friends now. The atmosphere is friendly, people make an active effort to integrate newcomers in the “community” and I have yet to see an argument that isn’t constructive. Though the breaks are a bit flexible, people usually don’t overstretch it and it’s generally good practice not to chat during a working phase. More introverted people can participate without taking part in the chat much and without broadcasting video.

So, what makes this chat so effective in combating procrastination? Pomodoros are the “flow” of the chat. Since you’re working with other people, you are much more likely to stick to the pomodoro cycle than if you set those constraints for yourself. That doesn’t just mean you keep the breaks relatively short, but you also don’t work too long. I find that if I work alone, I tend to keep at it for longer than I can keep concentrated. When I do take a break I don’t really have anything else to do, so I might start to procrastinate, leading to a work cycle where the “breaks” can be as long as the working phases. This has been my main issue with structuring my working day, and I was more surprised than I probably should have been to see that problem solved by working in a group. Judging from my own experiences and those of others I believe everyone struggling with akrasia should at least try if it works for him/her. For those who struggle with akrasia more, it might be useful to combine several techniques such as precommitting to fixed working dates, showing your screen on camera or finding someone on the chat who will remind you (e.g. via skype) to show up again if you’ve been absent for longer (or any number of other methods like beeminder).

There are a few issues with the chat, especially that tinychat isn’t always stable. The limited options have also been subject of complaints, but it’s so far the best thing we’ve found. I’m optimistic that a better option will be found or created in the long term – the more people frequent the chat, the more likely it gets. Covering all time slots hasn’t worked out perfectly, but we usually have good “coverage” during the UTC afternoon/evening, so that is probably a good time to try. In case the chat is empty, don’t be discouraged, just try again later. I will try to put as many of my working hours in the precommitment schedule (link on top of the chat window) and hope others will do so more often too, so it’s possible to sync up working time.

Over these two months the lesswrong chat has become a substantial part of my life that I really want to keep, ideally for much longer. While it is no longer an experiment for me, I want to invite you to try it, if you haven’t already. I’d be glad to welcome you on the chat anytime. :)

After testing out google+ hangouts and doing a 2 hour screen share there with CannibalSmith I want to recommend using the hangouts instead of tinychat.

Sharing your screen can be more beneficial than turning your camera on for many reasons - other people can easily see when you are procrastinating (if you are doing work on your computer) and they can scold you immediately. On the other hand when you have your camera on, nobody knows if you are working or just facebooking. relevant post

Sharing your screen however has some obvious disadvantages and it can be more privacy-invading then having your camera on but hey, if you are revealing something personal on your screen then you are probably not working. There are also some cases where screen sharing can be ineffective (for example when your task at hand is to read a book or to do anything not on your computer) but places such as hangouts allow you to easily switch between your camera and screen and provide a ton of other features that can be somewhat useful. In addition to that you can write apps for hangouts which can also be utilized at some point.

As for my ~2 hour screen share with CannibalSmith - it went great, I didn't take a single break in that time nor checked facebook, gmail, skype etc. and I am one of those people that check everything 10+ times an hour.

P.S. I am writing this during a group pomodoro on tinychat because I was too lazy to do it otherwise.

Edit: Of course if there are other applications which we can use that have the option of sharing your screen then that'll probably work well, too.

Something that worked well for me was reading together with someone. Each reads a separate thing about topics both enjoy. Then each summarizes what he read after each chapter (or each pomodoro). It is active learning while nearly doubling learned content.

From 20 April onwards, I'll be back and would like to have a Skype work companion. Plus points for Philosophically inclined Transhumanists, Evolutionary Psychologists and people who want to understand Morality. Star points if the person wants to exchange feedback for whatever she is working on and what I'll be, that is, evolutionary, cultural, and signalling constraints for moral perspectives.

I'm open to coworking generally.

My ideal coworker is someone who is funny and interested in maths, physics and computer science. My plan would be to read books like Mathematics Form and Function or The Feynman Lectures on Physics and try to summarize / explain the content. For co working where I shut up, I am working on re-implementing MC-AIXI for my honours thesis.

Please contact me if interested, my email is patrick.robotham2@gmail.com my skype nick is grey_fox26

Another suggestion... finding someone to do brainstorming, talking about ideas, especially when you are stuck on some problem.

I'm interested in both trading time and in co-working.

As yet another form of co-working, I'm also available for advice. If your project is stuck somewhere, talk to me about it and I'll get excited. At the very least, that might reflect back to you, and probably I'll come up with something useful for you to think about. Historically, the first piece of good advice takes less than 20 minutes to generate over 80% of the time, and so if you're leery of devoting a three hour block to working with someone, this is still worth considering.

For coworking of the "both be on Skype working on separate things" variety, I find having a weekly schedule that I can plan around (and thus remember easily) about 10-20% more useful than one-shot appointments.

I have lots of different projects I'm working on, and am not sure which I'd want to do most.* I'd probably ask the person I'm coworking with. I have a handful of small coding projects that I would be much more willing to start next to a competent programmer. (I promise to ask Google any questions before asking you :P )

* One of the benefits for coworking / related arrangements for me is that I seem to calibrate my excitement for a project based on the excitement of others more than other people, and so I imagine I'll get much more done on a particular project if someone looks at what I'm doing, says "wow, I'd love to see you finish that," and then stays there for a few hours. I'm not sure how much of this is just outsourcing the cognitive effort of "what should I be working on?"

Please note that the Study Hall is password-protected as of today. The password is "lw". The relevant discussion post (explaining why we chose a password) is available here: link

I spent a few hours in the chat room and had my most productive day in a while. Pomodoros seem to be weirdly effective in this setting.

This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, myself. I totally struggle with akrasia and executive functioning, and I find I have more willpower if I do things socially. I've been using friends to go to the gym for the past few weeks. I've actually been rethinking my relationship with leadership because of it: I used to hate being the leader (preferring to just be left alone), but now I'm thinking that I need to lead in order to do the things I want to do.

Shannon, this sounds really valuable! Thanks to you and Mqrius for kicking this off.

I just wanted to mention that if there's demand for more social features in Beeminder, we're definitely listening. (Outsiders often tell us we should have more social features but LessWrong (and similar communities like Quantified Self) are our bread and butter so if we hear it here we'll pay more attention.)

I have tried many things over the years in my hope to shed my procrastination, but this is something different from what I have done and am very willing to try it.

Shortly about me: 26 years old, live in Sweden (Norway within near future). I recently aquired a medical degree, but because of long struggle with akrasia I feel behind from where I should be "knowledge-wise". Relevant studying (radiology) together with future planning (specific job searching) are what I want to spend more time on, but since deadlines have disappeared after University, much more of my time is now wasted on "mindless" stuff.

I would like to offer my "help" to anyone who would like to try this. I will keep the appointments and be a friendly companion. However I'm not sure if I can be of any value to you in terms of learning you relevant things or be able to keep up with a Eliezer-level discussion.

My only requirements for you are:

1. Lesswrong-reader - congrats, you passed!
2. Keep the appointment(s) we set

Contact me if interested to give it a go.

People are still coming to tinychat, so:

We have moved to mqrius's openmeetings server at least for now. You need to make an account but there is no verification so you can just fill in everything randomly. And please when you register put something in either the 'first name' or 'last name' fields otherwise we will have a bunch of people in the chat with no visible names.

Edit; We are back on tinychat

I'd be happy to pre-commit to spending 1-2 hours/day for 4 days out of the week for any week between the coming one and 3 weeks from now. However, I'm not sure how to get notifications for followup posts on LessWrong; in a perfect world, a brick would drop on to my desk when the tech side of things/scheduling thingy has been set up and I'd come and look at the followup post(s).

Hi, if anybody is interested in studying something about graph theory or combinatorics, send me a message.

I just found this piece of software which might be a good tool to use for coworking. http://www.sqwiggle.com/

Here's what I've observed of / my experience with the chatroom so far:

• It is always running on a pomodoro schedule. I have been around for 25/5 and 50/10.
• Microphones are set to push-to-talk, and I've yet to hear anyone actually push and talk.
• When I enter, I usually say hi (using text chat) and someone else returns a friendly greeting, and informs me how much time is currently left on the pomodoro.
• It is not good form to chat while everyone is on a pomodoro. You will be chided.
• People usually wait until the end of a pomodoro to leave.
• Those people with a side-view camera usually have it turned on during work time, and then put the face-view camera on during break time. I find this optimal, but I only have one camera, so people get to see my lovely face for as long as I'm there.
• I and at least one other person felt awkward when first starting to work with webcam feeds on our computer screens. However, at least for me, it was easy to habituate to, and didn't make me work less efficiently while I was still getting accustomed to it. Sometimes when I'm working on my computer during the pomodoro, I have the chat window covered.
• On breaks, people have been very friendly, and it makes me feel a lot happier both while on breaks and while working.
• It feels like a longer and quieter version of this when everyone gets back down to working again. It's a good feeling.

Mind you, I have used this for one hour yesterday and one afternoon today. This could all be a placebo. I will report back again in 2 weeks, and maybe in a few months, if I'm still using it then. All I know is that, today, my happiness level is much higher than normal, and my productivity level has been slightly higher than normal.

I think I am less productive when someone else is around. It seems like I am less effective at my current job when coworkers are around and certainly when I am being evaluated at work. This may be because I am socially anxious and socially maladjusted, though.

Coworking probably won't work well for introverts.

I like this post, but I think that it should be in Discussion. If you agree with the latter sufficiently to be bothered, add a subcomment to that effect.