Akrasis

Akrasia is acting against one’s better judgment. There’s a better definition at the link, but I am using it here in the gross sense stated above. For example: Eating late night icec ream while trying to lose weight.

I think this happens pretty often – not so much because people intentionally decide to act against their own better interests, more often they are acting unconsciously or by force of habit.

I think I’ve written about the elephant and the rider in the past. The idea is that there is a portion of you who has some conscious plan, which the elephant might do part of (unconsciously), but it may do totally different things.

For example: Planful me (the rider) wants to contact several friends a week to stay connected. But Habitual me will probably revert to TV and Icecream in the evening, simply out of force of habit. Perhaps there is a tool the Rider could use in the moment to shock the elephant out of its habit, but I’m not actually sure that’s helpful.

What would be helpful is: Periodically the rider might reflect on their intentions and evaluate how much of what they wanted actually got done. And even further reflect – why did somethings get done and not others? Are my expectations too high (and I should plan less each week), or are some things being systematically ignored?

Using some kind of task tracking tool (Todoist), with task monitoring would be great at this.

It’s surprisingly difficult in Todoist.

I’m looking at an alternative way of doing this, more news soon.