Introducing the Workbank

Recently I've run into two problems:

1) I've haven't been working all that much for my research professor. I love the work, I just... don't do it.

2) I don't have funds set aside from discretionary spending. I believe I shouldn't spend money under any circumstances that aren't "I need to live", which is an obvious problem. I still buy luxuries, but I feel bad when I do. This isn't a good way to live.

So I've decided to kill two birds with one stone: introducing the workbank! For every hour of physics work I do I get five bucks of disposable spending, slightly under half of the amount I make. I can spend this on whatever I want, like meals on campus, club dues, cooking equipment, etc. Only five dollars max roll over to the next week, plus whatever I made that Sunday (to give incentive to work on Sundays). And to add a bit of bite: if the workbank ever goes negative, I have to donate twice the difference to charity.

Ideally this means I can spend guilt free as long as I work, since for every dollar I spend I'm also saving at least a dollar. So does it work? I've had it running for a week, and I haven't had any problems so far. I made more progress last week than I did in November. I've also been buying more nonnecessities. While I still feel a little guilty, hopefully that will go away in time. I've been making really small 'just because' purchases to work on that. Hoping on keeping this up for at least another month, if not indefinitely.

The idea of combining solutions to problems is actually a pretty interesting one. I haven't thought too much about it besides "it might work here", but I'm going to play around with it and see if anything really useful comes out.

On Inertia

Let's try an experiment. Take some homework you have. If it's reading, read two or three sentences. If it's a problem set, set up one of the problems. I'll wait for you to do that.

Okay. Do you stop after three lines or read an entire paragraph? Do you try to solve the problem?

I know I do. As I started making small, cumulative changes, I noticed some patterns to how I did things. I didn't want to start working on a project. But once I started, I didn't want to stop. Once I start a problem set, I have no trouble working for two hours. The problem is starting. It's not quite laziness, because I don't give up early. I think a better word is 'inertia'. At person at rest remains at rest, and a person moving remains moving.

Inertia prevents you from doing things. But I think it can also work in your favor. Since the hardest part of doing something is starting it, we should be able to cheat that by using a small stepping stone. If you don't feel like exercising, say you'll walk to the gym to clear your mind. Then enter the gym to use the water fountain. Then just do a small part of your routine...

It's all about that first step. Inertia is a powerful thing.

Millennium Goals - Deadline One

The first set of millennium goals were to be completed by today. Overall, I didn't do very well. Goals are below.

Successfully replicate a restaurant dish. Pass. Done with a couple of different things. Unfortunately this doesn't really mean that much, because "any restaurant dish" is such a low bar it's impossible not to pass. The other goal is a lot stricter, and I'll definitely have a lot more fun with that.

Read two books on photography. Fail. Was planning on doing this over break, decided to read things I wanted to instead.

Run a 7.5 minute mile. Pass! Really proud of this one!

Bench press 140 pounds. Fail. Nowhere close. Hoping I'll get this far by spring break. Reaching 200 by the end of spring quarter will be physically impossible.

Flash five balls. Pass. Video goes up when I can juggle them.

Sit still for 20 minutes. Passed a couple of different times. Honestly not sure why I wanted to do this one.

Get an A- in Grad Math Methods and a A in Statmech. Fail. I withdrew from Math Methods.

Stop instinctively avoiding eye contact. Pass, I think. This one is a lot harder to judge success, but I think I'm doing a lot better.

Write a 500 word creative piece in Spanish. 50 words is the same thing as 500, right? No? Then fail.

Overall 5 passes, 4 fails, only really proud of 2 of the passes. My original goal was to have at least 13 passes in total, meaning I'd have to pass eight of the long term goals. I'm definitely failing the anaerobic one and almost-definitely the Spanish one, so there's no chance of hitting that mark. I still intend to try for them and accept the consequences of failing.

Looking back, I'm unsurprised I did so poorly. I was setting up huge goals with a lot of time to do them with no milestones. It would have made a lot more sense to set up a bunch of small goals that built on each other with short times between them. Weekly goals, if you will. I'm gonna go back to the drawing board and find a better way of structuring improvement.