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Smer1
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PS: weren't there some chat room for EA software developers?

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by Smer
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How do you deal with fear of missing out / fear of better option when picking projects. I struggle with this a lot. I am a curious person who is always trying to improve, I am maximizer in most contexts. It allows me to have an open mind, to prevent tunnel vision.

At the same time it prevents me of making a decision, I always try to find a way how to improve my chances, how to find my cooperative advantage etc but I am in my early 30s, so I want to optimize for an impact. I am web developer so my skills are in demand and I can work on different areas(good problem to have), but obviously this just opens other options to me.

So generally I know my direction - better internet / web applications but possibilities how to approach this problem are endless. Also, I still like to have a place for other intellectual stuff like, EA, philosophy, business etc


There are few things which I try to do like:

  • to accept there are limitation and drawbacks. I accept I can't eat all the flavors of the ice cream and I can't just skip from project to project.
  • use decision process like DECIDE framework
  • get away from environment like social media which make this worse.
  • plan ahead. When I search for some information I try to search it to solve specific problem rather than going through intellectual rabbit hole. I still leave some space for random info to get outside of my bubble, but I try to limit it. No new podcasts, no new books(rather reread classics), limit news etc.
  • appreciate existing options more, there is a lot we can be all thankful for and I found my self taking for granted my job
  • channel the energy to some side project. For example, I love exploring new ideas, so I can write simple blog about them or share them on twitter
  • get inspiration from craftsmen . I love watching jiro dreams of sushi, or The Last Dance, where you can see the appreciation for the craft.
  • get a time to stay back -> meditation, going offline to nature etc

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markov_user5
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Hi Smer, I admittedly find it a little difficult to answer your question as it seems you raise a few different ones. Is it correct that your main struggle right now is to decide where to move your career, as you have a lot of different options and don't know which one to take? Or is that just one example, and you're more interested in the very general issue of finding it difficult to make decisions in the first place?

If it's the former, then I believe a more in-depth (maybe coaching kind of) conversation could be more fruitful here than a forum post, as I'm not sure broad answers to your post's title will be very applicable to your concrete situation. Also you mention a lot of things which you're already trying, but I find it difficult to see them in context as you didn't provide any notes on which ones of those work for you, and in what ways they already contribute (or not) to the central problem.

Anyway, just to try to add my two cents to the "how to deal with FOMO"-question, which I can relate to rather well as I'm also a 30-ish web developer often struggling with making decisions:

  • I personally have the impression I'll just have to get used to living with the feeling of "what if this decision I'm making is not the best one?" - especially for big decisions that feeling will be there no matter what, so I might as well take it for what it is (a matter of subjective experience of uncertainty, and not actual evidence of the decision being suboptimal)
  • delays caused by postponed decisions usually come at a cost, so quick suboptimal decisions are often better than ideal decisions made (too) late
  • I sometimes use the book Decisive (or rather summaries thereof) to aid my decision-making, although I have a feeling it's often only more about about raising my confidence in a decision than about actually finding the best one
  • The author of Algorithms to Live By makes the point that real world problems are often too complex to properly solve, and that it makes sense to artificially relax these problems into easier ones so we can find suboptimal but still pretty good solutions. That's mostly with regards to travelling salesman kinds of problems, and may or may not apply to personal decisionmaking.
  • Career considerations may be a category where premature decisions come at a high cost, so here it really makes sense to spend a lot of time thinking them through thoroughly. Which probably includes discussing them with others. I'm not sure if 80,000 hours still offers 1-on-1 career consultation, but if they do, that may be a good thing to try, and if they don't I'm sure there are other people from the EA community who'd be willing to help out as well.
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Smer1
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Thank you, main struggle is FOBO in the context of career. I have a problem with FOBO in different contexts too, but not as much because as you pointed out career choice has a huge impact. I might look for career consultation for sure. 80000 hours career advice services is overwhelmed right now AFAIK so I might need to look somewhere else.

PS: Given you are web developer what's your opinion on having an impact as web developer?

Depends on a lot on job you have, but I work for dev house so impact I have depends on project I am assigned to. Many times it means low impact CRUD apps, work which can be either done by anyone or work on a products which fill really likely fail and code and your work will be thrown away with it. Solutions I could think up is:

1. Try to work on your own product(where you at least get upside from the risk) which is obviously though.

2. Work on open source projects although this takes a lot my limited free time which I like to spend other interests.

3. Find a diff company with more impactful role, which I am actively looking for.

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Aaron Gertler 🔸3
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(Meta-note: I recommend using the Question feature if you publish future posts that ask a question of the Forum's community. Just select "New Question" instead of "New Post" when you go to compose the post.)

If you're trying to figure out how to find an impactful EA web development project, why not post about this on the Forum and/or in large EA Facebook groups (e.g. EA Hangout)? 

A Forum post soliciting ideas for EA web development projects may bring in some interesting options; in that post, you can also discuss projects you've worked on in the past, as well as some of your own ideas, so that people can make more specific suggestions. Same goes for an EA Hangout post.

Here's the page for the Forum's "Get Involved" tag. Tags are very new here and not all relevant posts are covered, but that should be a good start for checking out project ideas other people have had (specifically, using the "lists of project ideas" posts on that page).

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Smer1
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Thank you Aaron! I will take a look.

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Smer1
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PS: weren't there some chat room for EA software developers?

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Kirsten2
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You might enjoy the episode "Thinking in Bets" on the Rationally Speaking podcast (or the book by the same name).

Although it can't fully eliminate FOMO, it can help you to feel less regret if you took a risk and it didn't work out.

http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs-208-annie-duke-on-thinking-in-bets.html

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Smer3
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Thank you , was planning to read the book for quite some time and I will check the podcast.

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