# Interested in Cognitive Bootcamp?

I'm running more 4-day **"**[**Cognitive Bootcamps**](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/h5mDx2Mt2P5m9v588/fractal-strategy-workshop-report)**"** over the next couple months (during Lighthaven [Eternal September](https://www.lighthaven.space/eternalseptember) season). DM me if you're potentially interested (either as an individual, or as a team).

The workshop is most valuable to people who:

*   control their decisionmaking process (i.e. you decide what projects you or a team work on, rather than working at a day-job on someone else's vision)
*   are either a) confused about planmaking / have a vague sense that they aren't as strategically ambitious as they could be.
*   and/or, b) are at a place where it's natural to spend a few days thinking big-picture thoughts before deciding on their next project.

There's a secondary[^lv56yf5vo8] focus on "practice solving confusing problems", which IMO is time well spent, but requires more followup practice to pay off.

I wrote about the previous workshop [here](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/h5mDx2Mt2P5m9v588/fractal-strategy-workshop-report). Participants said on average they'd have been willing to pay $850 for it, and would have paid $5000 for the ideal, perfectly-tailored-for-them version. My plan is to charge $500/person for the next workshop, and then $1000 for the next one.

I'm most excited to run this for teams, who can develop a shared skillset and accompanying culture. I plan to tailor the workshops for the needs of whichever people show up.

The dates are not scheduled yet (depends somewhat on when a critical mass of participants are available). DM me if you are interested.

The skills being taught will be similar to the sort of thing listed in [Skills from a year of Purposeful Rationality Practice](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/thc4RemfLcM5AdJDa/skills-from-a-year-of-purposeful-rationality-practice) and the [Feedbackloop-first Rationality](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/skTdjtx87XKurdvWf) sequence. My default curriculum is aiming to teach several interrelated related skills you can practice over four days, that build into a coherent metaskill of "ambitious planning, at multiple timescales."

I'm likely updating the curriculum from last time, but for reference and a rough idea of what to expect, here was the structure at the previous workshop:

> **Beforehand:** 
> 
> *   People sent me a short writeup of their current plans for the next 1-2 weeks, and broader plans for the next 1-6 months.
> 
> **Day 1: Practice skills on quick-feedback exercises**
> 
> *   Everyone installs the fatebook [chrome](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/fatebook-for-chrome/bbmkpfopjckjieficoddmcjmlkggillm)/[firefox](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fatebook-for-firefox/) extension
> *   Solve a puzzle with Dots and a Grid with an unspecified goal
> *   Solve a [GPQA](https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.12022) question with 95% confidence
> *   Try to [one-shot a Baba is You puzzle](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/jqb3prwGQjLriq7Lu/exercise-planmaking-surprise-anticipation-and-baba-is-you)
> *   For both of those puzzles (Baba and GPQA), ask "[How could I have thought that faster?](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rYq6joCrZ8m62m7ej/how-could-i-have-thought-that-faster)"
> *   Play a videogame like [Luck Be a Landlord](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1404850/Luck_be_a_Landlord/), and make fermi-calculations about your choices within the game.
> *   For all exercises, make lots of fatebook predictions about how the exercise will go.
> 
> **Day 2: Big picture strategic thinking**
> 
> *   Work through a series of prompts about your big picture plans.
> *   Write up at least two different big-picture plans that seem compelling
> *   Think about short-feedback exercises you could do on Day 3
> 
> **Day 3: Choose your own short exercises, and object-level work**
> 
> *   Morning: Do concrete exercises/games/puzzles that require some kind of meta-planning skill, that feels useful to you.
> *   Afternoon: Do object-level work on your *best alternative big picture plan.* This serves two purposes:
>     *   You get to practice "applying the method" on the ~hour timescale
>     *   You flesh out your second favorite plan, helping you treat it as "more real"
> 
> **Day 4: Consolidation**
> 
> *   Write up your plan for the next week (considering at least two alternative plans or frames)
> *   Review how the workshop went together
> *   Consolidate your takeaways and [Murphitjsu](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Htjbj8ystqc2zLtMX/murphyjitsu-an-inner-simulator-algorithm). 
>     *   What practices do you hope to still be trying a week, month, or year from now? Do you predict you'll actually stick with them? Do you endorse that? What can you do to help make things stick.
> *   Fill out a feedback form

[^lv56yf5vo8]: I started this project oriented around "find better feedbackloops for solving confusing problems", and later decided that planmaking was the highest leverage part of the skill tree to focus on.