Would You Rather as a non-coercive productivity technique

"Would You Rather" is usually known as a party game, but it can also be a productivity technique! #noncoercion Here's how: 1. Pick 2 things you might do {A, B} 2. Ask, "WYR do A, or B?" (say it's B) 3. Ask, "WYR do B, or C?" 4. continue until you'd rather do X than continue WYR!

Nov 25, 2020

I tagged the tweet #noncoercion because part of the whole point of this is to train your capacity to notice: • your own preferences & appetites • that you can choose to do things that you want • you don't need to do "the best thing" • you don't really need any reasons at all

And you can get out of this game any time, including in a way that's compatible with the game: just ask "would I rather do this thing (my current best candidate) or would I rather just stop doing this WYR thing?"

You can also do meta-stuff... like if you've been putting off P for weeks: • "would I rather do P or reflect on why I haven't done P yet?" • "…P or brainstorm ways to approach P?" • "…P or explain why P is actually impossible?"

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean · Apr 28, 2020

Often when I'm blocked on trying to *do* something, if I ask myself if I'd like to - "think about doing it" - "design how I might do it if I were to do it" - "write a proof explaining why it's impossible" ...those feel appetizing! & often lead to the thing getting done!

I invented this approach spontaneously when a friend of mine was really stuck at one point and having trouble accessing any sense of appetite, and we ended up doing some fun things and fixing a thing she'd been putting off for awhile.

If you'd like to experience me spontaneously inventing novel approaches to places where *you're* stuck, check out this online workshop with content, coworking, & live coaching by me and a bunch of other cool peeps. complice.co/event/plan2021…