TL;DR: your level of willpower depends on how much willpower you expect to need (hypothesis)

Time start: 21:44:55 (this is my third exercise in speed writing a LW post)

I.

There is a lot of controversy about how our level of willpower is affected by various factors, including doing "exhausting" tasks before, as well as being told that willpower is a resource that depletes easily, or doesn't etc.

(sorry, I can't go look for references - that would break the speedwriting exercise!)

I am not going to repeat the discussions that already cover those topics; however, I have a new tentative model which (I think) fits the existing data very well, is easy to test, and supersedes all previous models that I have seen.

II.

The idea is very simple, but before I explain it, let me give a similar example from a different aspect of our lives. The example is going to be concerned with, uh, poo.

Have you ever noticed that (if you have a sufficiently regular lifestyle), conveniently you always feel that you need to go to the toilet at times when it's possible to do so? Like for example, how often do you need to go when you are on a bus, versus at home or work?

The function of your bowels is regulated by reading subconscious signals about your situation - e.g. if you are stressed, you might become constipated. But it is not only that - there is a way in which it responds to your routines, and what you are planning to do, not just the things that are already affecting you.

Have you ever had the experience of a background thought popping up in your mind that you might need to go within the next few hours, but the time was not convenient, so you told that thought to hold it a little bit more? And then it did just that?

III.

The example from the previous section, though possibly quite POOrly choosen (sorry, I couldn't resist), shows something important.

Our subconscious reactions and "settings" of our bodies can interact with our conscious plans in a "smart" way. That is, they do not have to wait to see the effects of what you are doing, to adjust to it - they can pull information from your conscious plans and adjust *before*.

And this is, more or less, the insight that I have added to my current working theory of willpower. It is not very complicated, but perhaps non-obvious. Sufficiently non-obvious that I don't think anyone has suggested it before, even after seeing experimental results that match this excellently.

IV.

To be more accurate, I claim that how much willpower you will have depends on several important factors, such as your energy and mood, but it also depends on how much willpower you expect to need.

For example, if you plan to have a "rest day" and not do any serious work, you might find that you are much less *able* to do work on that day than usual.

It's easy enough to test - so instead of arguing this theoretically, please do just that - give it a test. And make sure to record your levels of willpower several times a day for some time - you'll get some useful data!

Time end: 20:00:53. Statistics: 534 words, 2924 characters, 15.97 minutes, 33.4 wpm, 183.1 cpm