Hello friends, acquaintances, frenemies, and lurkers!
I’m in the middle of wrapping up my series on productivity with a post on how to solve productivity problems using teleological (ends-based) reasoning.
Here are the other productivity posts in case you missed them:
For now, I’ve got a couple good reads.
Plus I’ve finalized my New Years-themed philosophical life coaching offer and can’t wait to get cracking with the right clients. Maybe you?
💭 Is Rationalist Self-Improvement Real?
I am closer to “post-rationalist” than rationalist. At the same time, it would be a real bummer to find that efforts to improve thinking - by rooting out various biases, weighing evidence more appropriately, etc - routinely fail to improve people’s lives at all.
This in-depth exploration of rationalist self-improvement concludes that “rationality” works, primarily through (1) small but compounding gains from better decisions & thinking (2) securing better outcomes from the rare but high-stakes opportunities that come your way.
Have you tried rationalist-type methods for self-improvement? Did they work? Click reply and tell me, I’m dying to know.
☀ The False Promise of Morning Routines
Hallelujah! Someone’s finally written what I was thinking (incoherently, in pieces) for the past few years:
“morning routines have been repackaged as sacred rituals, safeguarded from the cursed bits of the rest of the day”
but
“the move toward ritualized morning self-care can seem like merely a palliative attempt to improve work-life balance”
and
“otherwise fun accounts of morning routines can become mental-health traps for some people.”
My morning usually involves launching out of bed to the sound of at least one crying child. I’m lucky when someone doesn’t tip over my coffee. The day just rushes out of the gate from there, c’est la vie.
But the real truth is that, even when I had the ability to create a “morning routine,” I didn’t — because I don’t want one anyways. You can choose that too!
Read the whole thing here: The False Promise of Morning Routines
Announcing: Beyond the Resolutions
New Years coaching for smart people who want to break free from the lame resolutions failure cycle this time and try something thoughtful instead.
You can read all about Beyond the Resolutions here.
Holla if questions!
Thanks for reading and until next time,
Pamela