Tag: metacognitive space

Metacognitive space

~ elityre ~ 2 Comments

[Part of my Psychological Principles of Personal Productivity, which I am writing mostly in my Roam, now.]

Metacognitive space is a term of art that refers to a particular first person state / experience. In particular it refers to my propensity to be reflective about my urges and deliberate about the use of my resources.

I think it might literally be having the broader context of my life, including my goals and values, and my personal resource constraints loaded up in peripheral awareness.

Metacognitive space allows me to notice aversions and flinches, and take them as object, so that I can respond to them with Focusing or dialogue, instead of being swept around by them. Similarly, it seems to, in practice, to reduce my propensity to act on immediate urges and temptations.

[Having MCS is the opposite of being [[{Urge-y-ness | reactivity | compulsiveness}]]?]

It allows me to “absorb” and respond to happenings in my environment, including problems and opportunities, taking considered instead of semi-automatic, first response that occurred to me, action. [That sentence there feels a little fake, or maybe about something else, or maybe is just playing into a stereotype?]

When I “run out” of meta cognitive space, I will tend to become ensnared in immediate urges or short term goals. Often this will entail spinning off into distractions, or becoming obsessed with some task (of high or low importance), for up to 10 hours at a time.

Some activities that (I think) contribute to metacogntive awareness:

  • Rest days
  • Having a few free hours between the end of work for the day and going to bed
  • Weekly [[Scheduling]]. (In particular, weekly scheduling clarifies for me the resource constraints on my life.)
  • Daily [[Scheduling]]
  • [[meditation]], including short meditation.
    • Notably, I’m not sure if meditation is much more efficient than just taking the same time to go for a walk. I think it might be or might not be.
  • [[Exercise]]?
  • Waking up early?
  • Starting work as soon as I wake up?
    • [I’m not sure that the thing that this is contributing to is metacogntive space per se.]

[I would like to do a causal analysis on which factors contribute to metacogntive space. Could I identify it in my toggl data with good enough reliability that I can use my toggl data? I guess that’s one of the things I should test? Maybe with a servery asking me to rate my level of metacognitive space for the day every evening?]

Erosion

Usually, I find that I can maintain metacogntive space for about 3 days [test this?] without my upkeep pillars.

Often, this happens with a sense of pressure: I have a number of days of would-be-overwhelm which is translated into pressure for action. This is often good, it adds force and velocity to activity. But it also runs down the resource of my metacognitive space (and probably other resources). If I loose that higher level awareness, that pressure-as-a-forewind, tends to decay into either 1) a harried, scattered, rushed-feeling, 2) a myopic focus on one particular thing that I’m obsessively trying to do (it feels like an itch that I compulsively need to scratch), 3) or flinching way from it all into distraction.

[Metacognitive space is the attribute that makes the difference between absorbing, and then acting gracefully and sensibly to deal with the problems, and harried, flinching, fearful, non-productive overwhelm, in general?]

I make a point, when I am overwhelmed, or would be overwhelmed to make sure to allocate time to maintain my metacognitive space. It is especially important when I feel so busy that I don’t have time for it.

When metacognition is opposed to satisfying your needs, your needs will be opposed to metacognition

One dynamic that I think is in play, is that I have a number of needs, like the need for rest, and maybe the need for sexual release or entertainment/ stimulation. If those needs aren’t being met, there’s a sort of build up of pressure. If choosing consciously and deliberately prohibits those needs getting met, eventually they will sabotage the choosing consciously and deliberately.

From the inside, this feels like “knowing that you ‘shouldn’t’ do something (and sometimes even knowing that you’ll regret it later), but doing it anyway” or “throwing yourself away with abandon”. Often, there’s a sense of doing the dis-endorsed thing quickly, or while carefully not thinking much about it or deliberating about it: you need to do the thing before you convince yourself that you shouldn’t.

[[Research Questions]]

What is the relationship between [[metacognitive space]] and [[Rest]]?

What is the relationship between [[metacognitive space]] and [[Mental Energy]]?

Some musings about exercise and time discount rates

~ elityre ~ Leave a comment

[Epistemic status: a half-thought, which I started on earlier today, and which might or might not be a full thought by the time I finish writing this post.]

I’ve long counted exercise as an important component of my overall productivity and functionality. But over the past months my exercise habit has slipped some, without apparent detriment to my focus or productivity. But this week, after coming back from a workshop, my focus and productivity haven’t really booted up.

Here’s a possible story:

Exercise (and maybe mediation) expands the effective time-horizon of my motivation system. By default, I will fall towards attractors of immediate gratification and impulsive action, but after I exercise, I tend to be tracking, and to be motivated by, progress on my longer term goals. [1]

When I am already in the midst of work: my goals are loaded up and the goal threads are primed in short term memory, this sort of short term compulsiveness causes me to fall towards task completion: I feel slightly obsessed about finishing what I’m working on.

But if I’m not already in the stream of work, seeking immediate gratification instead drives me to youtube and web comics and whatever. (Although it is important to note that I did switch my non self tracking web usage to Firefox this week, and I don’t have my usual blockers for youtube and for SMBC set up yet. That might totally account for the effect that I’m describing here.)

In short, when I’m not exercising enough, I have less meta cognitive space for directing my attention and choosing what is best do do. But if I’m in the stream of work already, I need that meta cognitive space less: because I’ll default to doing more of what I’m working on. (Though, I think that I do end up getting obsessed with overall less important things, compared to when I am maintaining metacognitive space). Exercise is most important for booting up and setting myself up to direct my energies.

[1] This might be due to a number of mechanisms:

  • Maybe the physical endorphin effect of exercise has me feeling good, and so my desire for immediate pleasure is sated, freeing up resources for longer term goals.
  • Or maybe exercise involves engaging in intimidate discomfort for the sake of future payoff, and this shifts my “time horizon set point” or something. (Or maybe it’s that exercise is downstream of that change in set point.)
    • If meditation also has this time-horizon shifting effect, that would be evidence for this hypothesis.
    • Also if fasting has this effect.
  • Or maybe, it’s the combination of both of the above: engaging in delayed gratification, with a viscerally experienced payoff, temporarily retrains my motivation system for that kind of thing.)
  • Or something else.