Mind Performance Hacks

Hack #49. Roll the Dice

Break out of your rut by making lists of tasks, recreations, books to read, or research avenues to investigate—including some you don't want to—and rolling the dice to determine your fate.

Dicing, or dice living, is a decision-making technique developed by "Dice Man" Luke Rhinehart (pen name for George Cockcroft). While dicing is not a panacea, it is a many-sided remedy. It can:

• Break through your analysis paralysis

• Bring more fun into your life

• Introduce novelty and unpredictability into the way you do things

As Rhinehart writes:¹

Dicing is simply one of many ways to attack seriousness. If you list six options, some moral, some immoral, some ambitious and some trivial, some spiritual and some lusty, and let chance decide what you do, then you are in effect challenging the seriousness of your acts, you are saying it doesn't matter what I do. When the die chooses an action I choose to do it with all my heart—that is the dice-person's controlled folly.

Controlled folly is a term that Rhinehart appropriated from the fiction of Carlos Castaneda. To act with controlled folly is to act with the belief that your actions are useless, but to do them anyway, and to care about them. This is the essence of dicing.

In Action

The next time you're bored or depressed, make a list of six or more possible options (for example, reading a random book, getting drunk, having sex, writing a book, working overtime, going to the gym). Then, roll a die or dice to choose among them. ...