[LINK] How A Lamp Took Away My Reading And A Box Brought It Back

post by CronoDAS · 2016-01-30T16:55:11.200Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 4 comments

By Ferrett Steinmetz

Ferrett isn't officially a Rationality Blogger, but he posts things that seem relevant fairly often. This one is in the spirit of "Beware Trivial Inconveniences". It's the story of how he realized that a small change in his environment led to a big change in his behavior...

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comment by Kaj_Sotala · 2016-01-30T19:46:59.887Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Interestingly, Brienne just posted a rather similar story, though for her the environment's effect on her behavior is much more immediately obvious than in Ferrett's case.

comment by Houshalter · 2016-02-01T16:27:23.056Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

He's posting this right after he got a new kindle. Of course if you buy a fancy new device you are going to use it more at first. Let's see if, a year later, he continues reading in bed, or goes back to his phone.

I know that sounds overly cynical, but I have made minor changes to my life that made big improvements. And I wanted to post about them going "hey guys this one weird trick totally changed my life!" And then a week later I was back to my old habits. The enthusiasm around the new idea turned out to be more important than the change itself.

comment by Elo · 2016-01-30T20:54:29.783Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Ferrett is great. Highly reccommend for both his fiction and his blogging.