Faulty schemas for resolving "let's take a long walk on this gorgeous weekday afternoon":
marination: “it’s OK because my walk will be productive: when I get back, I’ll have lots of new ideas!” True but not actually why I wanted the walk. And probably not as true as claimed.
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straight hedonism: “it’s beautiful out, so let’s go!” OK, but if I actually went on a long walk every time it was pretty out, I’d struggle to build up momentum with my project, and I hate how that feels. Obviously this is not a strategy I can consistently apply.
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routine: “a daily schedule is key to your self-regulation; if you open the door to convenient exceptions, you’ll constantly be re-evaluating, and the whole point of a routine is to avoid constant metacognition” Yes, but *some* responsiveness is necessary. When and how?
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values: “one of my deeply-held values is to be responsive to beauty when and as it occurs” OK, but/and how to negotiate action between this value and the value of cultivating the fruits of deep creative concentration?
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time-trading: “I’ll work late tonight instead!” OK, but remember that your working hours aren’t actually fungible like that, so in most cases this probably isn’t a “fair” swap.
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Somewhat more functional schemas:
regret: “will I regret going on this walk instead of working a month from now?” This one’s pretty good, but it evaluates locally instead of holistically, so it’s hard to assess patterns of behavior.
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light-heartedness: “you clearly want to walk, so let’s go! trust that your natural interest in doing meaningful work will keep you from shirking ‘too much’—you’ll naturally find walking less appealing after a while and find yourself interested in your work again” True, though…
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… in my experience the force of natural interest can be substantially modulated through habits and routines, and I’m not sure the proposed natural equilibrium is actually the one I want.
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Another somewhat less faulty schema: compromising by working from a camp chair in a shady spot in the park.
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cost-benefit: "if I tried to work instead how much work would I actually get done? if I'm tired even if I get code written it will be sloppy and I'll spend more time fixing my mistakes. better to recharge now"
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Ah, yes, this is a good faulty schema to add. I find it's usually wishful thinking. Rarely would I actually create so many mistakes that the time would be "better spent" not working, particularly in the mid-afternoon. But it's attractive.
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I've personally noticed I can get too wrapped up in bad hypotheticals to even try things out, the "but I can't go take a walk every day". I decided I'd rather start with optimistic local reasoning and see if there's a problem in practice. (But you might already know you do that.)
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It's also similar to "people might lie to receive social benefits, therefore it's not fair to the people providing the benefits". My brain makes up those concerns too, but let's see if it's actually a problem before deciding we can't help people!
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If you could know in advance when the weather will be nice, would that make the decision easier? Or maybe wanting to go for a walk has to be spontaneous urge, to be meaningful, so you can't plan it.
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Do you have notes on how you modulate your force of natural interest? :-)
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