If I remember https://sideways-view.com/2017/02/19/the-monkey-and-the-mach... right, it suggests that this sort of problem comes down to a misalignment or mistrust between your conscious agency and the rest of your brain -- that is, the 'deliberator' and the 'monkey'. If whatever you're doing isn't getting the monkey enough bananas over time, it doesn't care how effective you are at getting Zorkmids or whatever such nonsense you consciously value (nonsense from the POV of the monkey), and it will intervene. The most obvious intervention feels like I-don't-wanna -- find something else to do -- anything else.
Tactical interventions ultimately fail because the monkey, not the deliberator, has its hands on the levers. The monkey can learn that letting the deliberator do its thing and earn zorkmids will ultimately also bring in plenty of bananas, but that has to be true for it to work in the long run.
(I may be adding a few of my own thoughts about how this monkey-and-machine business applies to procrastination -- I don't remember if those were on that long page.)
That was quite a good read, thanks! Among the couple of insights, the concept of getting two conflicting optimization systems to agree by making them trade was something... new to me, at least expressed in that form.
Tactical interventions ultimately fail because the monkey, not the deliberator, has its hands on the levers. The monkey can learn that letting the deliberator do its thing and earn zorkmids will ultimately also bring in plenty of bananas, but that has to be true for it to work in the long run.
(I may be adding a few of my own thoughts about how this monkey-and-machine business applies to procrastination -- I don't remember if those were on that long page.)