
How to Follow Through: The Emerging Science of Self-Control - alexandros
http://www.rolfnelson.com/2009/11/how-to-follow-through-emerging-science.html
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camccann
The quick and dirty tricks suggested, none of which are particularly novel,
are fine and probably good ideas for being more productive in the short term.

But what about the long-term increase from using willpower? I would be _very_
interested to see research on how that works, particularly with an eye toward
how one might construct a "willpower training regimen" of sorts.

There're a lot of questions that would need to be answered before being able
to construct an optimal plan for increasing willpower reserves, such as: Does
the gain depend on the final decision, or does it still benefit if you resist
for a period of time before giving in? How quickly do you hit diminishing
returns for use of self-control within a short time period? Are long-term
gains roughly linear up to some point, or is it more complicated than that?
What kind of effective upper limit is there? To what extent do gains depend on
how tempting the thing you're resisting is? Are there long-term losses from
_not_ exerting self-control regularly?

Anyone know if research along those lines has been done?

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joe_the_user
Great question!

Various systems of "magic" (Crowley, Chaos Magic, Robert Anton Wilson etc)
have advocated engaging in pointless exercises of willpower in order to
develop it.

 _Maybe_ , willpower is like a muscle that can developed.

I would like to see science on _THIS_.

~~~
camccann
I know. "Pointless" acts of willpower are also a common theme in some
religious traditions and martial arts, as well as things like what ellyagg
mentioned earlier. I really expect there _is_ something going on there, but
I'd like to see properly controlled scientific research to shed some light on
the details.

Unfortunately, most of the studies on self-control I've seen have focused on
the short-term aspects only (for obvious reasons).

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oliveoil
In the summer I used to procrastinate through a lot of time here, on Hacker
News. Now I'm coming back mostly only during my semi-free time (but like
everyone I probably have better stuff to do). And the first thing I see here
is an article about how you shouldn't just check a couple of websites and do
serious stuff instead. Great.

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elblanco
There was a bit of research done on this back in the 60s using children and
marshmallows. The kids that could resist the marshmallows tended to grow up as
successes. The ability to resist instant gratification as a kid seemed to
correlate more highly with future success than did IQ, Grades, University,
SATs, GREs etc.

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all)
[http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/09/psychological-
experiments-...](http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/09/psychological-experiments-
in-self-control-the-marshmallow-test/)

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niels_olson
> R.J.

> So if I wrote a computer program to deliver the newest xkcd comic to my
> screen at random intervals (it's like being gifted a comedy video)it would
> increase my productivity?

> Rolf

> @R.J. Hmm, randomly popping it up in the middle of your work would seem like
> a distraction. If you have a to-do list, having it occasionally pop up when
> you check off an item might be a possibility. It would also tie into the
> power of having a random reinforcement schedule, with the usual caveat that
> there's always a little danger in having extrinsic rewards.

Anybody know if this already exists? 'cause I'd buy that. Maybe have some
social voting, feeds going into the reward set, and vote on the best rewards:
Dilbert, XKCD, random top thing off reddit, etc. Find out what people find
"rewarding".

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chasingsparks
The cited works are interesting. If your interested in this sort of thing (who
on HN isn't?) check out The Pragmatic guys book:
[http://pragprog.com/titles/ahptl/pragmatic-thinking-and-
lear...](http://pragprog.com/titles/ahptl/pragmatic-thinking-and-learning)

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bmunro
Umm, I started to read this, but got distracted by the link to xkcd...

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raheemm
Goal setting is one of the best ways for me to get around the self-
control/procrastination issue.

