Counterpoint worth considering:
It's hard to get enough of something that almost works.
(Vincent Felitti, as quoted from In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction)
I think there are two very different cases of "almost works" that are being referred to. The first is where the added effort is going in the right direction, and the second is where it is slightly wrong. For the first case, if you have a drug that doesn't quite treat your symptoms, it might be because it addresses all of them somewhat, in which case increasing the dose might make sense. For the second case, you could have one that addresses most of the symptoms very well, but makes one worse, or has an unacceptable side effect, in which case increasing the dose wouldn't help. Similarly, we could imagine a muscle that is uncomfortable. The second case might then be a stretch that targets almost the right muscle. That isn't going to help if you do it more. The first case, on the other hand, would be a stretch that targets the right muscle but isn't doing enough, and obviously it could be great to do more often, or for a longer time.
I would add “finish it”. Many projects don’t actually get finished, you skip the last working set etc etc
As the dictum goes, “If it helps but doesn’t solve your problem, perhaps you’re not using enough.” But I still find that I’m sometimes not using enough effort, not doing enough of what works, simply put, not using enough dakka. And if reading one post isn’t enough to get me to do something… perhaps there isn’t enough guidance, or examples, or repetition, or maybe me writing it will help reinforce it more. And I hope this post is useful for more than just myself.
Of course, the ideas below are not all useful in any given situation, and many are obvious, at least after they are mentioned, but when you’re trying to get more dakka, it’s probably worth running through the list and considering each one and how it applies to your actual problem. And more dakka won’t solve every problem - but if it’s not working, make sure you tried doing enough before assuming it can’t help.
So if you’re doing something, and it isn’t working well enough, here’s a dozen ways to generate more dakka, and how each could apply if you’re a) exercising, or b) learning new mathematics.
A Dozen Ways
Bonus Notes
For the baker’s dozen, in addition to Dakka, make it easier in other ways. Listen to music if it helps, remove things that make it harder or distract you, make sure you have the right equipment, books, and space, find a more convenient place to do it, and get people to reinforce your work positively.
And there is a secret 14th technique, which is to figure out if what you’re doing is the right way to accomplish your goal; it might improve some metric, but not accomplish what you really care about. If you still aren’t getting the job, make sure it’s not because of something other than your physical appearance or math ability. If you’re not losing weight, exercising more often doesn’t help. And if you’re getting stuck on the math, or feel that you can’t understand it, make sure you understand all of the prerequisites well enough.
Hopefully, this post is helpful. If it wasn’t, of course, you might try reading it again, reading it more slowly, rereading Zvi’s original post, thinking of additional examples yourself, coming up with another method for getting more dakka and generating examples for the listed domains, coming up with a new domain and trying to figure out what might qualify as more dakka under each example, using other rationality techniques to supplement dakka, explain this to someone else, or figure out if there’s some other reason more dakka isn’t working.
Disclaimer
If you’re still not sure, ask your rationalist guru whether more dakka is right for you. If more dakka causes headaches, anxiety, loss of sleep, excess posting on lesswrong, or increases existential risk, discontinue more dakka immediately and seek amateur advice.