″“Thinkhaven”” by Raemon

Inkhaven has people writing a blogpost a day for 30 days. I think this is a pretty great, straightforward exercise, that I'd definitely want in a hypothetical Rationality Undergraduate Program. But, it's not the only such exercise I'd want to include. It's gotten me excited for a different (superficially similar) program, which I might call "Thinkhaven." In Thinkhaven, the goal is to learn the skill of "relentlessly think new, useful thoughts you haven't thought before." Inkhaven had a basic "Goodhart-able" goal of "publish 500+ words every day." For Thinkhaven, I would imagine the Goodhart-y goal being something like: Every day, you must publish 500 words of "research journal." They should be cogent enough for third parties to follow along with your thought process, but, they don't need to end with nice discrete conclusions. Every two weeks, you must also publish a 2500 word effortpost. And, somewhat more opinionatedly: Each journal entry should include at least one new question that you're thinking about. (Often, these will be subquestions within a broader Big Question that you're exploring that week, or a reframing of that big question that feels like a better pointer) The spirit of the Goodhart is [...] ---Outline:(02:57) Mentors, and Different Styles of Thinking(05:20) Thinking Assistants / Research Managers(05:59) FAQ(06:18) Why require a new question each day?(07:28) What would asking new questions look like, in practice?(09:27) What should a Daily Journal look like?(10:39) Are the daily journals public? Why?(11:29) Do we even need the 2500 word effortpost? Why cant it just be research journals all the way down?(11:57) Why 2500 words every 2 weeks in particular? The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration. --- First published: April 25th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Wcrujo7wadRpuq8vx/thinkhaven-1 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.