This post is a great reminder. It is obvious, in a way, but it is easy to forget: If I distract myself while working and need 2 hours to finish something I could have finished in one hour, that's one hour I could have spent on much more enjoyable or non-work productive activities. One hour less of reading great books, learning new things, talking to friends, playing with the dog. Hell, even playing (God forbid!) video games! Even that would be time better spent than the time vanishing in little bits of distraction and inefficiencies. Also, putting it in terms of opportunity cost appeals to my inner economist.

Thanks. I'm gonna take that last sentence as one of my motivational quotes for the week.

Tynan, yesterday I reread some of your old posts about polyphasic sleeping, especially stuff like the "polyphasic vs. monophasic deathmatch" and why you stopped. You said things like that you didn't know what to do with all the additional time and that it limited the social things you could do. When you describe your daily routine these days, it seemed that neither would be much of an issue. That's why I ask:Have you ever thought about going back on some sort of polyphasic sleep schedule? It seems it would work pretty well with your current life situation. But since I think it unlikely that you have not considered it, you being you and all, why have you decided against it?This really interests me.On topic: Cool that SETT's finally being adopted by more people. I'm looking forward to said blog to blog features, sounds interesting.

Hey Tynan,

recently I have not been reading your blog as frequently as I did at home as I am traveling South East Asia right now.*

As I am catching up right now, I just wanted to say that the "Read This Next" feature is working much better than how I remembered it. Not only are the suggestions a lot better, it is also somehow much less annoying. As in, not annoying anymore.

I like how it now disappears again when I scroll up. It also appears to be smaller - or is it just my higher resolution? Went from something like 1366x768 to 1920x1080.Anyways, it's not as obtrusive.

Speed and stuff is great, too. I can't exactly tell you what I mean by "stuff", though.

That somehow sounds like a recommendation for a paleo diet.

Seligman is an awesome name for someone researching happiness - it means "blissful" in German.

Tynan,I really like the two paragraphs following"The interesting thing about happiness is that it CAN be one hundred percent self generated."and the two paragraphs following"So if you're always happy, why do anything?".In short: The stuff you wrote about the methods of being happy and of learning about the world in order to make an impact on it. Stuff you write about these topics are pretty much almost very valuable.

On the other hand, I'm not sure I agree with the entire purpose-of-life stuff and wether it is "good" or "bad" to maximize for happiness. And by "I'm not sure I agree" I literally mean that I do not know. These things are highly debatable and require a much deeper coverage than a couple of paragraphs. I suppose you put it there as a premise for contrasting the two... things (States of mind? Internal goals? what are they even? clearly not "emotions" in this case), but since this premise is essential for your evaluation of the two, it leaves the entire message built on a weak foundation.Methaethical questions like this are probably some of the hardest-to-write-about topics there are.

I had similar thoughts reading some of Sebastian Marshall's writings in Ikigai - for example the stuff surrounding that quote you gave. I liked his writing on methods of execution and strategy, but when he offered his views on "the meaning of life", it was not clear to me why he would more in his "right mind" about it than people aiming to maximize the "happiness chemicals in [their] brain".

For the same reason, I think that "The Race" a few months back is one of your weaker posts. All of these do not really answer the "why?" question in a remotely satisfying manner. Or it is just me, and I simply have unreasonably high expectations for explanations!

And to wrap up with some praise so that you do not have to overexert your "gratitude for the challenge"-muscle:"Nine out of Ten", "The Hustler's MBA", "The Most Valuable Day", "Beating Someone at His Own Game", and "Where the Line Is", were all pretty cool posts I could take some good stuff out of and enjoyed reading.

Glad you didn't die :)"I like to think that I can do anything if I try hard enough, [...]"Sure that's a good belief, but there are always things that can't be done through willpower alone.It's no use setting yourself unreasonably hard goals (like trekking that trail in less time, without acclimatisation, protection from sun etc...) and then beating yourself up if you fail to achieve them. It's pretty cool that you made it that far.

I think it could be good thing to be able to search comments globally. I don't know whether it is SETT, this particular community, or a combination of both, but I often see long insightful posts in the discussions. It would be a shame if someone would not be able to find these. Votes could be incorporated in the search result ranking. BONUS: Ranking by average awesomeness (votes) of poster.

Paragraph 2 says you're an awesome mother.

Tynan, you keep misspelling serotonin. Usually I don't care too much about typos, but since I saw that one in several of your posts/comments, I thought I'd point it out to you. I love most of your posts, but if you are throwing around scientific terms, misspelling them might harm your credibility.

Sorry for grammar/spelling naziing, but I just often observe in myself that I seem to take texts less serious the more errors they contain, unless it is clear that it is only a rough draft of something.

On a sidenote: Am I right in that it is only possible to search the actual posts, not the comments, with the search bar on the main page?