Motivation

Configuration is complete (minus any bugs I may find).

User enters a project name and category, and their first name.

The original plan was to use the user's name as part of the slideshow, and the project name as key substitutions in some of the lesson panels. This would personalize the lessons, and give the reader the impression that the program speaks to them.

It was a good idea, but I'm not now convinced this has any value. I left it in the configuration session for now. It's easy enough to remove software (or just if'def it out).

Planning on a long composition day tomorrow, I'll think it through and see if it still makes sense.

So for code, I have only some minor slideshow word processing to add, any extra standout algorithms, and I'm done. Minus debugging.

For lesson plans, I have 1 complete, 1 in the process, and 1 in planning. With 5-ish panels each and the odd single panel, I think that should be all the project needs.

An extra beta tester or two would be convenient.

Apropos of nothing, I *may* have discovered the underlying mechanism for depression. It fits with everything I know about the condition, and leads to some testable theories on how to reverse it.

Might make for a follow-on project to this one. I'll see how popular this one is before I make that decision.

Well, my ooler bit the dust and I *thought* that was going to be a non-maskable interrupt and I would have to drop everything and fix it... but apparently my sleep schedule has adapted and I don't need to switch projects right now.

I did, however, get a bit burnt out and had to take a few days off. That's over, and I'm back in the saddle. Western style, with a pommel and stirrups.

Spent all afternoon trying to figure out a bug in keyboard processing. Have a better table of contents, and added a "methods" section describing all the techniques used. Started the "project as journey" lesson arc.

I've got a good "map" for the project (ie - a todo list), and have stubs (at least) for most of the pages, and some of the pages are sanded down to 400 grit. If I can get all the pages finished and polished to that level I'll open it up to beta testers. I suspect that there are less than 10 paged to go.

Shouldn't be too hard - I'm still waaaay ahead of schedule.

I added a "notes" page available from any of the lesson panels.

This shows the "cliff notes" version of the course lessons, so if the user, for example, forgets the 4 types of intrinsic motivation or can't remember what the overjustification effect is, they can go to the notes for review. It's set up as a "call/return" action, so they can refer to the notes and then get back into the lesson text.

This solves two problems, which is what to do about the "up" link in the navigation bar, which is good because "up" really doesn't make sense in this scenario, and how the user can review information they may have forgotten.

Officially an expansion of the project, but the pages are pretty easy to populate and the call/return mechanism was mostly a drop-in. Still need to format the pages better, but that will come at a later phase.

Lesson arc 1 (across 6 days) is almost complete, only need to add one more day of lesson text. Six days is a little long, I'm going to see if I can tuck two of the days together to shorten it a bit. I want to keep the really short, but now they're turning out a bit *too* short. Aesthetics in general can wait, but there's no reason not to be thinking about it.

Much of today was image editing, which I am painfully inept at, but the images came out OK if a little stuffy.

This first lesson arc is a more complex than the others, because it has to teach the basics of all the other arcs as well as implement one of the techniques.

This particular technique is "concordant self-image", which is to say that if you get a person to act in a way different from his beliefs, his beliefs will change to bring his image into concordance with his actions.

If you have substituted external motivations for internal ones (the overjustification effect), this exercise should be able to reverse that. I'll add some mantra conditioning as well (last page, not yet complete), and together the two should (I expect) be powerful enough to put the intrinsic motives back in place.

One or two of the other lessons should add a little amplification to the effect. Hopefully it will be enough to turn people around on their wayward projects.

As part of the project I'm flashing words (and images) at people.

To be certain they're focused on the slideshow, I'm "highlighting" one or more words during the slideshow.

At the end of the slideshow they're asked to identify the highlighted word. Nothing fancy, just a 4-point multiple choice, one of which is the highlighted word. No significance to this at all, except to keep the user focused on the slideshow as it happens.

Highlighting can be anything, like showing the word in a different color, rotating it, outlining it, and so on. Something to make the word "notable" and stand out, so the user notices it.

So now... what types of highlighting can I use?

I originally thought that "flashing" a different style at the user would be an acceptable method of highlighting. Having a word flash briefly red, for example. Or flashing briefly into uppercase. Or briefly rotated.

These look awful, so I've decided to drop the concept. I'd like to have a bunch more highlighting options, because I think it's important for the user *not* to be familiar with the methods used. The highlight should surprise the user, to get him to think about the word. That should highlight the concepts more strongly, and create a better priming.

I figure 2 days of coding will complete the coding (one for configuration, one for lesson management). Lesson management is mostly done, and configuration is mostly simple, so these might get done in a single day. Possibly tonight...

Also: Storing local data for a file:/// web page STILL doesn't work in Firefox, and I think it's an actual bug in Firefox.

I think I'll ignore this. It works in default Chromium, and Firefox only holds, like, 3% of the browser share anyway. (I *hate* that I have to say this, but I'm just about ready to ditch Firefox entirely for a new browser anyway. Those people simply don't understand what made their product great, and keep making changes no one wants..)

Slideshow is done, and I'm really tired.

Somehow I got into zombie mode and my mind felt like it was walking through mud.

Still, the slideshow code is complete. There's 1 defect in the presentation css that can wait until tomorrow.

I expect to complete the lesson logic and config logic in the next day, and then the only thing that should remain is the creative writing.

Just spent all day sorting out cookies and local storage.

You would *think* that if I have a local html file, the browser would let me store a local cookie.

Nope. Cookies only work for remote files. Feature was removed from Chrome, and Firefox will only allow it for the current invocation; meaning, even if you allow local files to set cookies, restarting firefox will cause it to ignore that setting. Even though the setting appears in the exceptions list. WTF?

Fortunately there's an alternative called "web storage" that mostly works in all browsers, although the default behaviour is different for different browsers, but Firefox seems to like the exception across restarts so it's a manageable problem.

But... yuck. Four hours wasted figuring out ridiculous browser differences. One of which is almost certainly a bug in Firefox.

I have no idea how IE will handle this. Hope it works.

Another git push and files are backed up.

The system is set up as a course that runs for 30 days. Most of the days have no lessons, but I've got about a half dozen topics of interest that people can use to increase their motivation. The lessons are comprised of "arcs" that might happen over several days, and "pages" that comprise a single day's lesson.

Ok, an example.
I've just today completed the Intrinsic/Extrinsic motivation arc, of two days.

The first day consists of 3 pages (really short pages - 2 minute read each) that describe the two types of motivation. For homework, the user is asked to decide which of the 4 extrinsic motivation types their project is weakest on.

For extra credit, the user is asked if there's a simple way to strengthen their weakest motivation type.

The next day asks for their answers, across 2 pages.

Thus, the Intrinsic/Extrinsic arc is 2 days of 5 pages total.

I've got 5 or 6 really good arcs for the course, and I think I can get it up to 10. With 10 ways to increase motivation, the project should be effective for most people.

Here's hoping...

Just did a github push, things are going well. Most of the functionality (ie - code) is complete, I have notes on how to complete the rest (of the code), and several pages of writing.

In order to make the project as accessible as possible, I'm releasing it as an HTML file with some embedded javascript. Installation should then be as simple as "git clone", no other commands necessary.

The project breaks down to two parts: coding the presentation system, and writing the lesson syllabus.

Coding is simple enough, but I find writing difficult. Sitting down at a terminal and writing a coherent thought process is hard to do, but as it happens there are psychological techniques for this as well - those techniques address "creativity", which is not the same as "motivation", so I won't go into those techniques for this project.

Still, I have some half dozen good syllabus arcs touching on several psychological effects that people can use to enhance their motivation.

As an example: the "concordant self-image" research suggests that if you change your physical behaviour your mind will adapt to bring your self-image into concordance with what you've actually done. If you can get people to say they like something (even if they don't), their mind will adapt to this and assume that they really did like it. Ask people later and they will report that they actually *did* like it.

Advertizers use this to influence people with catchy tunes and jingles that get people to repeat things without thinking about them (viz: the Oscar Meyer Weiner song).

So one technique for better motivation is simply to say that you have the motivation. It doesn't seem like this should work, but research suggests that it does.

Psychology is weird.

I'm studying psychology as background for an unrelated project.

Whenever you study something, it's always a good idea to have some reason that you want the information for - a project, or end goal, or something. That way, the information will seem meaningful and valuable to your mind. Also, as you encounter individual bits of information that could contribute to the end goal, these bits will be easier to remember.

So as an end goal for my studies, I considered answer the question: "What motivates creativity?"

Throughout the classes, any time creativity or motivation came up the topic was highlighted in my mind and I could file it away for future consideration. I've done this now for several college-level courses and a handful of books. Most of psychology is about motivation, so this one question managed to cover much of the material.

Then I noticed that people complain that they never finish their projects. They start a project, lose interest, put it on a shelf, and it collects dust. Some people have collected dozens of half-finished projects.

I have dozens of these as well.

So it occurred to me: with an understanding of motivation, is it possible to *change* your mind to get better motivated? There are techniques all over the literature that describe ways to influence people. Can these techniques be integrated into a system that can be used for personal development?

Hence this program.

I'll describe the individual techniques in a later log. Right now I've got much of the program running (the slideshow works and all the support programs are done), the project categories have images and words (but these need to be culled and polished), and I've got about half a dozen articles and techniques written long-hand ready to be coded.