- Screen everything off, ignore your entire to-do list except for one item
- This can be a costly tactic, but often it’s crucial
- Your todo list is Pareto distributed in Actual Importance, and treating every item the same is a damaging illusion
- Apply for an effective ventures grant
- Hire a research assistant (via internet)
- Watch the assistant work to gain tacit knowledge so you’re better at research next time
- Get hired as a research assistant (via internet)
- Much more people are looking than you think
- Just email people you admire
- Make a website
- Ask Claude: “hey, can you help me make a cool-looking website with github pages?”
- Domain names don’t cost much and are easy to set up
- Dump your random thoughts on Twitter
- Raise other people’s aspirations on purpose
- Sending them this list might raise their aspirations :D
- Walk away from political debates
- Pick up trash on the ground when you see it
- Use an LLM for everything
- It’s genuinely better than you in many respects
- You can get all the prompts you need with a claude.ai subscription
- It just Wouldn’t Be Serious not use an LLM in 2024
- “Buy more copies”
- Buy from many different brands and then blind test yourself
- Things are cheaper in bulk
- Why waste time on shopping trips?
- Buy more than you think you need
- If something is good, why not increase it by an order of magnitude?
- Send a cold email
- Ask your university library to buy a book for their shelves
- Memorize a poem
- When someone gives you a compliment, ask for more details / examples
- This is the kind of data outreach that has you grinning with glee when you think about it even weeks later
- Works in reverse, too!
- Clean your room
- Or only just a little part of it
- When you’re thinking about someone with fondness, tell them
- I’ve messaged people I knew years ago after randomly thinking about them
- This stuff is like crack cocaine for humans, but healthier
- See also
- Keep in regular contact with people by setting up a regular email scheduler with google scripts
- My parents receive daily emails from my program: I just have to refill it from time to time, and then every email is queued
- Just ask Claude how to do it
- Ask someone out
- Ask someone out that you’ve met for 30 seconds
- They’ll probably say no, but now it’s easier next time
- Spend money on things
- That is what money is for.
- Intentionally make close friends
- Put money on the line
- Sell something random online
- Use google calendar for everything
- Delegate work to future selves
- Remind future selves to email friends
- Schedule emails to yourself about your current problems, so that your future self will see how far you’ve come
- Visit a city nearby for a day with a cheap bus
- Send pictures to an open-source open source archive
- Cancel a subscription immediately after getting it so it doesn’t renew automatically
- Avoid touching door handles like a psycho to halve the amount of colds in your lifetime
- Work in progress