3 milli-blog - what I've learned in 2024 - underpromising and overdelivering + playing with house money
#update #advice
parents:: milli-blog
daily note:: 2025-01-02
This morning, I started to both get excited and dread writing this blog post. Excited because of all the great things I want to write about! (The irrationality and necessity of trusting oneself, all the new years resolutions I still want to think about, some cool math, etc...)
And dread because of all the great things I want to write about. Because I expect them to be great, perfect even. And therefore, excitement turns to fear. Fear that I won't live up to the excitement.
And because how many all of them is. Will I ever get around to all?
- First, here is a line of stupid gibberish to lower expectations: the banana unpeeled the monkey and ate it as vengeance for all its fallen friends.
A similar phenomenon happens in research, on a day to day basis. I start the day off excited about all the fascinating directions that I'm thinking about, learning about. But then I feel daunted by the task of choosing. And afraid of the, what I tell myself is inevitable, "look back and be disappointed" end to the day. This then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy via (at least) two mechanism:
- I question myself throughout the day. When I'm supposed to be focusing on something, half my mind will be stuck worrying whether what I'm doing is the "most effective" possible.
- The high expectations inevitably lead to disappointment. As even if I were to have done everything perfectly, I wasn't about to understand the geometric langlands program and solve quantum approximate markov chains all in one day.
Sometimes, this pattern of thinking spirals out of control and I end up in a zombie like state where I wake up already feeling the disappointment that I know I'll feel later in the day. Which makes it hard to start. The danger is when I start to interpret this as lack of interest. I start to tell myself that, maybe I'm just not cut out for this.
Alright, enough of the Daniel the Downer.
The point of this post is that, I've started digging my way out by employing an age old business cliche: underpromise and overdeliver. Trick leadership or stockholders that they should be happy if your team delivers 10% growth, and surprise them with 25% growth.
Similarly, trick future me into believing that I'd be happy with reading 1-2 pages of a paper. When I've already done that by 10am, I feel good. And feeling good is good for productivity and creativity.
This has helped! I've felt both much happier and more productive.
However, there are potential cons as well (as, unfortunately, not all drugs are like ozempic - a cure all with no side effects):
- Sometimes planning ahead is necessary: constructing a grand view of all the things that need to be done. But this isn't mutually exclusive necessarily
- It's hard to do... and is actually somewhat a negatively reinforcing pattern. The better I feel the previous day, the more ambitious I feel today, and I have to consciously tamp down those expectations each time
Perhaps a related cliche is on playing with house money. In poker, this can help someone who's used to being too reserved with their
But this a slightly different point now (creativity by removing expectations) which will (maybe) be in one my future mediocre blog posts!
Themes:
- using irrationality to my benefit
- treating past, present, and future me as different people
- Treat "me" as something to be gamed. To be tricked. Tricked for their own benefit! Kinda like nudges
- unrealistic expectations
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