The quick and dirty tricks suggested, none of which are particularly novel, are fine and probably good ideas for being more productive in the short term.
But what about the long-term increase from using willpower? I would be very interested to see research on how that works, particularly with an eye toward how one might construct a "willpower training regimen" of sorts.
There're a lot of questions that would need to be answered before being able to construct an optimal plan for increasing willpower reserves, such as: Does the gain depend on the final decision, or does it still benefit if you resist for a period of time before giving in? How quickly do you hit diminishing returns for use of self-control within a short time period? Are long-term gains roughly linear up to some point, or is it more complicated than that? What kind of effective upper limit is there? To what extent do gains depend on how tempting the thing you're resisting is? Are there long-term losses from not exerting self-control regularly?
Anyone know if research along those lines has been done?
Various systems of "magic" (Crowley, Chaos Magic, Robert Anton Wilson etc) have advocated engaging in pointless exercises of willpower in order to develop it.
Maybe, willpower is like a muscle that can developed.
I know. "Pointless" acts of willpower are also a common theme in some religious traditions and martial arts, as well as things like what ellyagg mentioned earlier. I really expect there is something going on there, but I'd like to see properly controlled scientific research to shed some light on the details.
Unfortunately, most of the studies on self-control I've seen have focused on the short-term aspects only (for obvious reasons).
Well, it's not research, but G Gordon Liddy's autobiography Will shows one person's regimen for successfully developing a high degree of willpower. It might be a little over the top, though. For example, while in prison he burns a hole through his arm to test his willpower against pain.
In the summer I used to procrastinate through a lot of time here, on Hacker News. Now I'm coming back mostly only during my semi-free time (but like everyone I probably have better stuff to do). And the first thing I see here is an article about how you shouldn't just check a couple of websites and do serious stuff instead. Great.
There was a bit of research done on this back in the 60s using children and marshmallows. The kids that could resist the marshmallows tended to grow up as successes. The ability to resist instant gratification as a kid seemed to correlate more highly with future success than did IQ, Grades, University, SATs, GREs etc.
> So if I wrote a computer program to deliver the newest xkcd comic to my screen at random intervals (it's like being gifted a comedy video)it would increase my productivity?
> Rolf
> @R.J. Hmm, randomly popping it up in the middle of your work would seem like a distraction. If you have a to-do list, having it occasionally pop up when you check off an item might be a possibility. It would also tie into the power of having a random reinforcement schedule, with the usual caveat that there's always a little danger in having extrinsic rewards.
Anybody know if this already exists? 'cause I'd buy that. Maybe have some social voting, feeds going into the reward set, and vote on the best rewards: Dilbert, XKCD, random top thing off reddit, etc. Find out what people find "rewarding".
But what about the long-term increase from using willpower? I would be very interested to see research on how that works, particularly with an eye toward how one might construct a "willpower training regimen" of sorts.
There're a lot of questions that would need to be answered before being able to construct an optimal plan for increasing willpower reserves, such as: Does the gain depend on the final decision, or does it still benefit if you resist for a period of time before giving in? How quickly do you hit diminishing returns for use of self-control within a short time period? Are long-term gains roughly linear up to some point, or is it more complicated than that? What kind of effective upper limit is there? To what extent do gains depend on how tempting the thing you're resisting is? Are there long-term losses from not exerting self-control regularly?
Anyone know if research along those lines has been done?