EA - In favour of ‘personal policies’ by Michelle Hutchinson

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: In favour of ‘personal policies’, published by Michelle Hutchinson on November 13, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum.I’m pretty sad this week and isolating due to having covid. I thought I’d try to have something positive come out of that, and write up a blog post I’ve had in the back of my mind for a while.I wanted to share my positive experience with setting ‘policies’ for myself. They’re basically heuristics I use to avoid having to make as many decisions (particular about things that are somewhat stressful). I got the idea, and suggestions for ways to implement it, from Brenton Mayer (thank you!).What are personal policies?There are various classes of decisions I make periodically, for which I’d like to have an answer in advance rather than deciding in individual cases. Those are the kinds of cases in which I try to make a ‘policy decision’ going forward.This is the kind of thing we do all the time for particular types of actions. For example, someone might decide to be a vegetarian. From then, they no longer consider in each individual instance whether they should eat some dish with meat in, they’ve made a blanket rule not to do so in any individual case.There are a number of things like ‘being a vegetarian’ which we’re used to. We’re less likely to make up our own of these ‘rules I plan to live by’. A way we might frame it when we do is as ‘getting into a habit’. I sometimes prefer the framing of ‘policy’ in that it’s instantaneous (whereas something can’t really be a habit until you’ve done it a few times) and it sounds like a clear decision you’re acting on.A way I like to think of this is: For tricky repeating decisions, make them only once.Having said that, for long run policies, it’s likely you’ll want to have periodic re-examinations of them to check you still endorse them. I keep a list of my policies, both to make them easier to remember and to come back and re-evaluate them.Use cases and benefitsMake faster decisionsHaving a policy for some type of decision means you don’t have to spend time making a decision in each specific case.One of my friends has the policy of always running for a train if there’s one she wants to be on which looks about to leave. This is the kind of situation where we’re often unsure what to do - is it impossible to make the train however fast I am? Do I have plenty of time because it’s not about to leave? Time spent dithering increases the chance you miss the train even if you then choose to run for it. So having made the decision in advance means over the long run you’ll catch more trains than you otherwise would have. (And given the downside is basically some extra cardio, this seems easily worth it.)Make better decisionsMore thoughtful decisions: Even aside from cases where you don’t have enough time to think much about a decision (like catching a train), it’s worth putting more time into a blanket policy than an individual decision. Rather than half-thinking through a type of decision a number of times, you might act better if you make a careful/thorough decision once and then act on that repeatedly (When the decisions are relevantly similar.).More objective decisions: In some cases, individual decision points are emotionally laden in a way that will bias your decision. In cases like that, you might make a more objective decision in advance than you would in the moment. For example, you might find it hard not to donate to a charity that’s raising money on the street if you have to decide whether to do that on the spur of the moment. You might feel your decision will be more objective if you think beforehand about the circumstances under which you do and don’t want to donate to charities when you pass fundraisers for them (eg yes for particular interventions, no for others).Help from others: I often find i...