added kickstarting motivation

src/changelog.pdc

@@ -3,6 +3,9 @@
 All major changes on the site
 =============================
 
+-   2010/11/15: Added [Kickstarting Motivation], cool technique I recently
+    implemented to start my days. Actually works, you know.
+
 -   2010/11/05: Updated a few positions in the survey, reflecting further
     insights. I'd predict, vaguely, that in a few months I either will be able
     to actively disprove anatta, anicca, dukkha and the unity of knowledge and
@@ -55,6 +58,7 @@ All major changes on the site
     On-site comments are gone, but I'm still very much open to anything over mail.
     Sorry for the broken links. At least the RSS feed is still there. ;)
 
+[Kickstarting Motivation]: /experiments/kickstart.html
 [vim]: /software/vim.html
 [Philosophical Survey]: /reflections/survey.html
 [Concentration]: /experiments/concentration.html

src/experiments/index.pdc

@@ -7,12 +7,14 @@ Experiments
 This is basically my public spoiler file for life. Why should I keep all the
 cool stuff I found out to myself? Information ought to be free, after all.
 
+- [Kickstarting Motivation], a technique I use to start my days
 - improving [Concentration] and motivation
 - how to develop [Speed Reading] and read a book in an hour 
 - [Sleep] hacks
     - some hacks for [Good Sleep]
     - my experience and criticism of [Polyphasic Sleep]
 
+[Kickstarting Motivation]: /experiments/kickstart.html
 [Concentration]: /experiments/concentration.html
 [Speed Reading]: /experiments/speedreading.html
 [Sleep]: /experiments/sleep

src/experiments/kickstart.pdc

@@ -0,0 +1,106 @@
+% Kickstarting Motivation
+
+Introduction
+============
+
+In my favorite cookbook (by and for vegetarian punks[^punk]), every recipe came
+with a song recommendation to listen to while cooking. So here's the
+recommendation for this article: the Portsmouth Sinfonia playing the William
+Tell Overture (on [Youtube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs7QdpF0DE8)). Even
+if you don't like classical music, *listen* to it. It's.. unexpected and
+demonstrates the theme of the article, which is the motto of Dwarf Fortress:
+"Losing is fun!"
+
+[^punk]:
+    The German "Ox-Kochbuch", if you're interested. And no, I'm neither a punk
+    nor a vegetarian. (Anymore.)
+
+The Technique
+=============
+
+Start with a short interval, like 1-5 minutes. Maybe try 30-90 seconds.  Then
+pick an item from your todo and work on it that long. 
+
+Don't worry about getting anything done, or even doing anything of importance at
+all. If you are writing a paper for class, you'll probably only get as far as
+opening your editor, jumping to the right line and reading a sentence or two
+before it to figure out what you are supposed to write next.
+
+Beep, time's up. Next item. Open some more apps, get a book. Beep, next item.
+You do this for about 30 minutes, or until every item on your todo has been done
+once, whatever comes first. 
+
+Now there are two possibilities. Either there will be at least one item (but
+probably a few) you started that is still on your mind. Or none is and your glad
+that's over. If really nothing got you hooked that way, nothing where you don't
+at least want to finish a sentence, read to the end of the paragraph or do more
+than just open some apps and arrange a few windows, then, well, to put it
+nicely, *your life sucks*. I don't mean this as an insult. It's just a fact, and
+it happens to everyone. Occassionally, we do things we think we *should* do, but
+hate. They take over our time and then, well, life sucks. You don't need a time
+management technique. You need to start *doing something fun*. 
+
+But let's assume that's not the case because fixing your life is really the
+point of another article, probably written by someone more motivating than me.
+Try [Khatz]; I really like the guy. So, there's at least one item you feel like
+getting back to. When the alarm went off, you wanted to just do another minute.
+Maybe you even did. Great. The kickstarting is working its magic.
+
+Enter Step 2. You increase the interval to maybe 10 minutes. Don't overdo it,
+experiment a bit. If you are unsure, or it feels a bit long, do less. Do only 5.
+Hell, do 91 seconds, just to show you can beat the first interval. I typically
+go with 5-10 minutes, randomly chosen. Repeat the process, but feel free to
+skip the tasks that didn't really interest you before. Leave all the stuff open,
+keep all the preparation around, but focus only on the few tasks that pulled you
+towards them. If it's just one, then pick a random other task, too, so you have
+something to switch to. You *want to be interrupted*. 
+
+You see, the trick is that interruption really fucks up your brain's scheduler.
+It *hates* it. It really only has two modes. Evolution totally cheated you out
+of a good deal here. Either it wants to spend as much time as possibly on a task
+or it wants to get away from it asap, typically after the original desire has
+disappeared. So, context switching really annoys the brain. "No, I don't want to
+think about new rocks to make an axe, I wanna hunt this zebra, now!", that kinda
+thing. 
+
+If switching is so bad, why do I instruct you to actually do it a lot? To raise
+your desire. What you can't have, but want, you only want more. You may not feel
+like writing the whole paper for this stupid class right now, but finishing the
+one sentence you started today, as proof of being better than a trained monkey,
+at least on good days, this one sentence? You're gonna finish this. But the
+rapid switching won't let you.
+
+And suddenly, what you initially didn't want, you now desire. Just keep on
+switching so you don't get bored. If the constant interruption starts to annoy
+you and you know you're gonna continue for a long time, just turn off the alarm,
+or better, set it to 40-60 minutes, as a fail-safe mechanism.
+
+This day has been won.
+
+Why such short intervals?
+=========================
+
+A last note, to make something clear I kinda skipped over in the beginning.
+Kickstarting your day with extremely short bursts has one big advantage - it
+doesn't set you up with any performance expectations. Make this explicit. Say to
+yourself, "I'm not gonna finish anything. Heck, I'm not gonna get anything done
+worth showing *at all*. I'm just gonna do 90 seconds. Who gets anything done in
+90 seconds?". I'm serious here. Completely expect to fail because you will.
+*Failure is good*. Failure is fun! 
+
+Nobody starts playing a shooter with the expectation "I'm gonna play for 4
+hours, finish all levels, hit every enemy and never miss.", but that's very
+natural when we organize life. I certainly wanted to study like this! "Sit down
+for 6 hours, learn all 4 chapters, solve every problem.", yeah right. As if. No,
+what we do is, "I'm just gonna start and shoot people in the face." and if you
+miss, pff, you just shoot again. What does it matter how far you get or how
+often you miss?
+
+It's really counter-intuitive. The attitude that you expect to be successful
+fails horribly, and the loser-attitude of "whatever, just have fun" dominates
+everything and gets stuff done. Don't think you're gonna do anything useful.
+Just get reminded often enough, ideally by a fully automated program, so that
+you're going in the right direction and *fail*.  
+
+[Khatz]:
+    http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/on-the-very-serious-subject-of-how-to-have-fun-all-the-time

src/index.pdc

@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ read the [Twitter] feed for smaller, more cutting edge thoughts.
 This is basically my public spoiler file for life. Why should I keep all the
 cool stuff I found out to myself? Information ought to be free, after all.
 
+- [Kickstarting Motivation], a technique I use to start my days
 - improving [Concentration] and motivation
 - how to develop [Speed Reading] and read a book in an hour 
 - [Sleep] hacks
@@ -56,6 +57,7 @@ Some of the stuff I wrote.
 [LibraryThing]: http://www.librarything.com/profile/muflax
 
 [Experiments]: /experiments
+[Kickstarting Motivation]: /experiments/kickstart.html
 [Concentration]: /experiments/concentration.html
 [Speed Reading]: /experiments/speedreading.html
 [Sleep]: /experiments/sleep