Quarterly Review Doc [master]

Published: 2025-08-16 Reading time: 11 min Tags: everblue Draft: Yes Part of: everblue notes

Reminders (read through before you start):

Habits:
- Great habits are hard to build.
- Properties of a great habit:
  - Requires zero effort. “The delta between literally-zero-maintenance and not zero is staggeringly large, basically because nobody reliably has willpower.”
  - Has some level of iteration built-in — over time, the habit will improve itself.
  - Has some level of meta-ness built-in — over time, the habit will improve other habits.
- You can probably only try out a couple habits per quarter. The best way to ensure all of your habits will fail is trying out too many of them at once.
Actions at meta-levels trade off robustness of direction for magnitude. In other words, the more meta you go, you need to be more careful that your actions will be robust to subtle shifts in direction/goals/values (or that you were subtly wrong the first time around). The more mesa you go, the more obvious it will be if something you’re doing is in the right direction, but it’s less likely to compound/end up being strongly positive/etc.
Plan-making:
- Imagine yourself enacting the plan — imagine the headspace you’ll be in then, not the headspace you’re currently in now.
- Imagine you’ve achieved the thing. What’s missing from the picture?
- Imagine it’s the time the plan would’ve happened, and it failed. Why did it fail? What are the most likely reasons? Now, snap back to the plan-making: what can you do to prevent those things from happening?
- Imagine it’s the time the plan would’ve happened, and it went way better than you expected. Why? Now, snap back to the plan-making: can you make those things more likely to happen?
- What goals is the plan aiming to accomplish? What about those goals do you actually care about? What matters less?
That which matters, likely matters a lot more than you think. That which doesn’t really matter, likely matters a lot less than you think.

Quotes (pick a 3 at random, roll a D18):

“Many apparent effects are swamped by exercise or nutrition” — gwern, dnb faq
“we don’t get a lot of things to really care about” — pig, from the movie “pig”
“update your effect size estimates downwards” — ege erdil, his twitter bio
“When I was a kid, people were always telling me that there was no substitute for hard work. If I wanted to be smart, I had to sit and force myself to read hard books. If I wanted to lose weight, I had to force myself to exercise. If I wanted to play piano, I had to force myself away from the computer to practice. Cheating, they explained, would only cheat myself in the end.

And yet today I eagerly ran to the library to grab five large books (and return seven more), felt an itch to go jogging, and walked away from web surfing so I could go practice a musical instrument. The adults were completely wrong.

Your body’s resistance to an activity isn’t an obstacle to be overcome, it’s a message that you’re being an idiot, just like when your hand hurts after you punch a wall. The right solution isn’t to start punching the wall harder, it’s to look around for a tool to help you do the job.” — aaron swartz, “take the easy way out” (http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/easywayout)
“[T]he work that needs to be done is not a finite list of tasks, it is a neverending stream. Clothes are always getting worn down, food is always getting eaten, code is always in motion. The goal is not to finish all the work before you; for that is impossible. The goal is simply to move through the work. Instead of struggling to reach the end of the stream, simply focus on moving along it.” — Nate Soares, Rest in Motion
“All you have to do is find the action that best brings about the stuff you care about, and then do it.” — Ronny Fernandez, Think on Purpose
“I have come to believe that people's ability to come to correct opinions about important questions is in large part a result of whether their social and monetary incentives reward them when they have accurate models in a specific domain.” — Oliver Habryka, Integrity and accountability are core parts of rationality
“[W]hen you operate under many constraints: you neuter your ability to shape the world.”
— Nuno Sempere, Why are we not harder, better, faster, stronger? (https://nunosempere.com/blog/2023/07/19/better-harder-faster-stronger/#:~:text=that’s what happens when you operate under many constraints%3A you neuter your ability to shape the world.))
“The way to figure out what to work on is by working.”

— Paul Graham, How to Do Great Work (http://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html#:~:text=The%20way%20to%20figure%20out%20what%20to%20work%20on%20is%20by%20working.)
“Interest will drive you to work harder than mere diligence ever could.”
— Paul Graham, How to Do Great Work (http://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html#:~:text=Interest will drive you to work harder than mere diligence ever could.))
“You'll learn more shipping a failure than you'll learn from reading
about a thousand successes.”
— Alexey Guzey, What Should You Do with Your Life? Directions and Advice (https://guzey.com/personal/what-should-you-do-with-your-life/#:~:text=Companies find it incredibly hard to reliably staff positions with hard-working generalists who operate autonomously and have high risk tolerances. This is not the modal employee%2C including at places which are justifiably proud of the skill/diligence/etc of their employees.))
“Agency is the skill that built the world around you, an all-purpose life
intensifier that lets you make your corner of it more like what you
want it to be, whether that's professional, relational, aesthetic,
whatever. Build a better mousetrap. Have an enviable marriage. Start
a country. No one is born with it, everyone can learn it, and it's never
too late.”
— Cate Hall, How to be More Agentic (https://usefulfictions.substack.com/p/how-to-be-more-agentic#:~:text=Agency is the skill that built the world around you%2C an all-purpose life intensifier that lets you make your corner of it more like what you want it to be%2C whether that’s professional%2C relational%2C aesthetic%2C whatever. Build a better mousetrap. Have an enviable marriage. Start a country. No one is born with it%2C everyone can learn it%2C and it’s never too late.))
“It's useful to focus on adding another zero to whatever you define as
your success metric-money, status, impact on the world, or
whatever.”
— Sam Altman, How To Be Successful (https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful#:~:text=It’s useful to focus on adding another zero to whatever you define as your success metric—money%2C status%2C impact on the world%2C or whatever.))
“Why am I judging myself by the standards of those I hate?”
— Unnamed girl, Jujutsu Kaisen, Season 2, Episode 4
“Notice the small problems, and fix them. Notice when everyone isn’t enjoying what they’re doing, and be the first person to voice this. Notice when the jug of water is empty, and be the one to fill it. Notice when you say “oh, I can do this tomorrow” and do it today. Notice when you think “I should get round to this some time” or “I’ve always wanted to learn juggling” and actually do it. Notice when something is inefficient, notice the thing nobody is doing, and be the person who does it!”

— Neel Nanda, Become a person who actually does things
“being good at something doesn’t feel like you’re good at it. it feels like everyone else is terrible, and you’re just not terrible.”

— paraphrased from Rob Miles
“a lot of life is about avoiding absolutely catastrophic risks.”
— david rapperport
"You are increasingly defined by what you say no to.”

— zeke dee, blake’s blog

Retrospective

Look over your last quarterly review. Write down any reflections that you have. (Copy/paste it below, or link to it)

What happened? List out anything concrete & big that happened — trips, or big life changes, or important small life changes. Some prompts for finding more:

(List to prompt yourself)

Skim your calendar, looking at the dates, the arrangements you had, etc.
Skim your most recent emails, texts, etc.
Skim your notes page, and your ‘informal edification’ Notion.
Browse your Anki cards.
Paste through the things that you read & liked on Readwise.

What plans did you make last time?

How did those plans succeed? How did they fail?

In what ways are your values different from the last time, if at all?

What have you been spending time/effort/energy on that is obviously bad — by any version of you’s lights?

What have you been spending time/effort/energy on that’s probably bad, but not obvious?

What habits have sorta fallen off the map?

What habits that you started last time around are still there?

Prospective

What do you want, generally/vaguely/broadly? What do you want, concretely?

What do you care about? What are your priorities in life, right now?

Imagine it’s the end of the quarter. What do you want to have happened?
Go back through that list. Why do you want each of those things to happen?
Go back through that list. How will you know that you’ve achieved each item?
Copy & paste that list below. For each item on the list, babble plans that will raise P(that item occurs by EOQ).
Copy & paste that list of plans below. Now, prune those plans, edit them, etc. Try to build in some sense of iterative improvement, if you can.

How will you protect the habits that you currently have?

Are there any particular events that will happen this coming quarter? What things?

What do you expect to waste time/effort/energy on that is obviously bad?

Then, make plans to try to reduce time/effort/energy spent on these.

Should you make any changes to your physical environment? (your bed, your desk, your chair, your car, etc) List them out here, and list out plans to reduce them.

List adapted from “thing of things”:

Are you sleep-deprived for some reason like “I feel bad making my partner do morning parenting even though I do all the nighttime parenting” or “I procrastinate all day and get my work done at 2am” or “Adderall can TOTALLY replace sleep”? If so, make plans for how to reduce that over this coming quarter.
1. If you’re thinking longingly about how nice it would be to follow this advice, you’re sleep-deprived, make plans for how to reduce that over this coming quarter.
2. If you’re sleep-deprived for an actual medical reason or a life reason that is not extremely stupid, you’re probably looking at me and going “I know sleep is important, it’s not my fault I do shift work and have insomnia” — go make plans for how to reduce the effect that thing will have on your sleep, and for how to prevent/mitigate that thing.
How are you doing on basic needs that most people have? Fill out the following:
1. Are you sick or in pain?
2. Do you do some sort of exercise on a regular basis? (Walks count.)
3. Are you eating enough food?
4. Are you getting enough protein? Vegetables?
5. I said ‘sleep’ two bullet points ago but are you getting enough sleep?
6. Are you going outside and getting fresh air and sunshine on a regular basis?
7. Are you either not taking mind-altering drugs or taking a normal, responsible amount of mind-altering drugs that doesn’t make all your druggie friends go “please take fewer drugs”? [ DO NOT REFLECT ON THIS ONE ON PAPER, FOR GLOMARIZING REASONS ]
8. Do you experience physical affection from a person or pet?
9. Does there exist someone who would notice if you were dead? Someone who will talk to you when you’re sad?
10. Do you talk to a person face-to-face sometimes? Do you get enough time by yourself?
11. Do you do something you think is straightforwardly fun on a fairly regular basis?
12. Do you have something to take care of, even if it’s just a plant?
Go back through the above list. If you’re missing any of those basic needs, reflect on the causes; then, try to babble & prune your way into plans that will cause you to get more sleep.
Are there any parts of your life a normal person would end up screaming “aaaaaaaa” about? You may wish to recruit a normal person of your acquaintance and explain the situation to them to see if they say “aaaaa”.
1. Are you in relationships with any people who benefit from you being scrupulous? If the answer is “yes, I put enormous amounts of emotion work into this relationship with this person and they throw an enormous shitfit every time I try to set a boundary and they guilt-trip me whenever I don’t do what they want,” that is probably related to your scrupulosity.
Are you part of a sick system? (quick summary of the post below)

“Sick systems” are relationships or workplaces engineered to keep people stuck. They run on four rules: (1) keep people too busy to think, (2) keep them exhausted, (3) keep them emotionally entangled (loyalty, identity, success tied to the system), and (4) reward them intermittently so they chase unpredictable “wins.”

Tactics include nonstop crises (often caused by incompetence) that create busyness and occasional victories; hopeful explanations that things will improve “when ____”; pushing real rewards into the distant future; creating small, variable, high-stakes tasks that occasionally succeed; slicing up people’s time with constant interruptions and dependency; entangling their self-worth with the system’s fortunes; and maintaining chronic scarcity so collapse always feels one step away.

Over time, stress and chaos feel normal, isolation grows, and people may feel hopeless yet unable to leave. Exit often comes via rock bottom, a clear pattern break, or an outside opportunity—followed by panic, then striking relief and clarity once out.

The piece ends cynically from the manipulator’s view: anyone can be captured if the system starts slowly, lowers standards, and keeps people’s needs small—so the system doesn’t adapt to people; people are fitted to the system.
Go back through the above list. Make plans to address the parts of your life that would cause a normal person to scream “aaaaaaaa.”

What are you looking forward to in the next quarter?

Outward

What’s going on in the world that matters?

Is there anyone who you should message?

Old friends to reconnect?
New friends who you want to consider getting closer to?
People you admire, letting them know you admire them?
People having a bad time, letting them you hope things get better?

Abyss staring

See prompts to stare into the abyss

If you had to leave your job/work/[whatever you’re spending the majority of your waking hours on] today, what would you do instead?
What’s the best argument in favor of doing that right now?
If you have a partner, what’s the best argument in favor of breaking up with them?
Are there ways you behave that you wish you didn’t? What unacknowledged desires could be driving those?
What have you said “yes” to that you wouldn’t say “hell yes” to? (prompted by Alex Watt)
Is there something you “should” do that you’re not currently doing? Why? (prompted by Silas Strawn)
What bad things are you afraid of happening? Imagine in detail what it would be like if they happened. (prompted by Kamilé Lukosiute)
What do you need that you’re not currently getting? (—David MacIver)