Do and do not

I sometimes find myself in a bind with plans I make. I intend to do something, but I run out of time, other things get in the way, or I just don't feel like it. But, eventually, I have to make a decision: okay, it's late, do I stay up and do this thing even though that's a bad idea? Do I cut out something else just to get this done even though it could be done tomorrow? Is this a time to sacrifice in the short term? Or will the long term just be the short term but longer?

I faced this very problem the first time I missed my deadline for posting here. I considered just making it up the next day, which would solve things in the short term, but then I'd have double the work the next day and that could spiral out of control very easily. Not to mention it was kind of hiding away the problem. But the other option was skipping a day, and the problem with that was that it just seemed too easy. If I just give up when I don't plan my time well, what's to stop that turning into a habit and eventually sinking the whole project?

My eventual solution resulted in my first failure post, an idea that was a compromise between the two positions. On the one hand, I still had a bail out option when necessary. On the other hand, it came with a cost: I had to publicly own up to having failed. Pleasingly, that admission took the place of the post that was missed, preserving the habit that I wanted to maintain.

In general, I call this strategy "do and do not", to contrast with Yoda's famous "do or do not". The seemingly binary options are to do the thing you intended to, even if it doesn't make sense anymore, or not do it and risk letting yourself off too easily. But I don't believe you're restricted to those options. Do and do not is a middle way where you maintain the form of the thing you set out to do, even if you can't fulfill its substance.

Let's say you wanted to clean your room before you went out, but you left it too late and now it's time to leave for the party. To do would be to wait to go out until you finish cleaning, possibly missing the party. To do not would be to forget the cleaning and go have fun. To do and do not would be to be to clean a bit, and be a bit late. Enough that you maintain the link between intending to clean and actually cleaning, and enough that you don't get away with failure completely consequence-free.

Of course, Eliezer Yudkowsky would point out that you shouldn't set out this way. Committing to try to do something is just a weak version of committing to do it. However, once you've made the strong commitment and failed at it, I think a much more sensible option than stopping is to fall back on trying, on do and do not. It certainly seems better than not trying, at any rate.