Crowbar Log?

[sodatrain]

Hey folks -

There are lots of references to people opting for the 'crowbar' method for certain decisions or expenses. We don't seem to have a thread focused on crowbar-ing. Let's start one to discuss crowbar-ing and share wins where you've successfully crowbar'd something. I realize a 'crowbar log' doesn't quite match the flow of a Fixit log.

Some prompts to get things started:

- have you applied the crowbar method? What has worked well? What hasn't?
- Are you thinking about the crowbar method more and more like I am? How did you decide to finally take the plunge? How did it go? What advice do you have for someone considering it?
- What are the most creative crowbar successes you've had? Something you are most proud of? Dreaming of?
- Why aren't you applying the crowbar?

[sodatrain]

Ill start.

I'm closer to crowbaring (broadly) than ever, but what I struggle with is the impact I feel it could have on those who are around
/ close to me. Specifically my kids who are in college and almost in college. There is of course "oh if I keep earning my corp wages for another year or so I can save a bunch more".

The crowbar I have in mind is to crowbar my expenses broadly and not resume corporate work that I hate. Just got laid off a couple weeks ago for the second time in a year. Tech is tough right now it seems.

Seeing my family already requires a plane ride to the corners of the US and some to Europe. I'm working on establishing myself in AK which increases the physical separation / increases the cost to visit my family. Not sure there is much to be done about that other than find slower and less expensive travel to see them.

Maybe I'm ready to crowbar some individual expense categories. I guess that is where I can put some energy in the coming weeks. I really hate the corporate job search and resume BS.

[7Wannabe5]

1) I started a part-time lifestyle business in less than 6 months with $8000 which on average supported me and one of my kids for around 13 years.

2) When I decided on a dime at age 50 to become polyamorous, I established relationships with three attractive men within 1 year, and each of these relationships lasted at least 5 years, producing well over 500 free dinners, 4 years of free garden and construction help, 3 years of free shelter, 6 pairs of free shoes including really good hiking and snow boots, dozens of free trips, free bike, bike basket, and bike trailer, etc. etc., and uncountable rolls down into the briar patch for me (JK, actually was likely less than # free dinners out. My second "marriage" produced 'briar patch rolls" at a much higher rate, which is a point in favor of cohabitating monogamy IFF you pick the sort of partner who has "sturdy indestructible" sexuality, as in maybe not in the mood if actively vomiting.)

3) In 2021, I read at least 100,000 pages towards perhaps 100 insights along a spectrum from "hmmm..." to "mind blown!"

[2Birds1Stone]

I've applied this method to both financial and fitness goals in the past. Maybe it's also the way some people are wired? I'm a very much "all or nothing" type of individual when it comes to committing to things.

Big efforts typically = big results which = more motivation to keep going.

In my early 20's I got tired of tipping the scale at a hair under 300 lbs so over the next 23 months I lost 125+ lbs and got into good enough shape to step on a drug free bodybuilding stage.

Similarly, in 2012 after being promoted twice at the corporation I worked for, I found MMM's "Shockingly Simple Math To Early Retirement" blog post and started hacking away at expenses and cutting them by nearly 50% in the span of 1 year.

Then in 2014 I realized that this was starting to gain momentum but income was holding me back, I crowbarred by career/income trajectory and by 2015 doubled my income within a year.

Many of the changes involved in all three scenarios required discomfort and "readjusting" to the new normal.........every time it was WELL WORTH IT in the end.

Your "why" has to be strong enough. I hated being obese, and knew it would kill me. I really disliked "working for the man" and also felt extra pressure to get out of the corporate rat race because I was under credentialed and felt like my income prospects were capped/limited as a college dropout.

It's been a while since I've felt the need to fully crowbar something, though I guess quitting a prosperous career in 2023 would count?

And in spring of 2024 "crowbar lite" was used to kickstart a new fitness journey after realizing I slid way down a path that wasn't intended and became very dissatisfied with the result. I went right from being a pistachio cream cannoli inhaling couch potato to lifting weights 5-6 times a week, tracking calories/macros and walking 15-20k steps a day........9 months in the results have been astounding.

Not sure if any of this is super helpful, but these personal experiences inform me that it works and I would do it again if I wanted to make a big change.

[AxelHeyst]

(FYI If you can drop 3k in 90 days, you can get an Alaska airlines signature CC and get 70k miles. You got some building materials to buy soon right?)

My latest crowbar fantasy is to live in a cave in the mountains overlooking QH for a month.

I think you can break crowbar method into crowbar strategy and crowbar tactics, or maybe ‘complex’ crowbar and ‘simple’ crowbar.

Simple is NBY, #noalcohol, sell your car and figure it out, pitting $x in an envelope and when it runs out before the end of the month tough shit, etc. One for me was “don’t buy books, library or free only”.

Complex involved focusing on actions that are intended to have an effect that is desired. An example here might be “draw 10 reverse fishbone diagrams a day” plus a number of other actions with the intended effect of “internalize WL7”. I never had anything super simply defined for my goal of internalizing WL7, but I dumped a lot of attention on the goal starting at ~WL3-4 and one measurable result was expenses going from 70k to 7k in 3 years.

Some of my simple crowbars:
Selling my truck while living rural.
No alcohol.
#sketchaday practice with blender3d (most rapid skill level up)
Eat for <$200/mo
The Skillathon thread was largely crowbar-centric, should be some ideas in there

ETA: crowbarring is all about a big delta change, when the distance between ‘where I am’ and ‘where I want to be’ is large. As such, it’s an early-game move. Or, if you’ve been muddling long with incremental changes so far, it’s a mid-game “fuck this milquetoast bullshit, I’m ready to get serious” move. Once in late game, it’s not really appropriate or relevant as you’re likely more into tuning and tweaking and fiddling with systems moves, which per donella meadows you’ve got to be somewhat delicate with in order to learn the system you’re trying to influence.

ETA2: except for moats between WL’s though. So maybe crowbar is really appropriate for the 5>6 moat… and also the 8>9 moat? Not sure what that would look like.

[berrytwo]

Crow baring for me has worked well when it is an identity shift and not just discipline. My heart or mind needs to be a hundred percent on board and convinced with the vision I am creating. If deep down I don't think it's possible or that I am doing something out of deprivation, then cracks start to break and my vision fails. If I truly believe that I like biking more than driving, than I am going to do it. My crowbar has been figuring out how to bargain and coddle with the voice that is not convinced, until they are. In my book that I am reading she talks about moving from why me? ---- to how?

Therapy has been a crow bar method for me in shifting my identity.

Writing three pages of journaling a day has been a crow bar. I think I have seen people suggest having a daily writing/ journaling practice to you, if you haven't already I think that it would be a really helpful practice: stream of consciousness, three pages, every day.

[AxelHeyst]

Compare/integrate the crowbar method with “quests not goals” thinking for extra fun:
https://www.raptitude.com/2024/08/do-quests-not-goals/

[7Wannabe5]

It seems to me that complex crowbar would be towards the change being qualitative rather than just quantitative, although quantitative change can certainly push qualitative change. For example, crowbarring "being self-employed" is more complex than crowbarring "make 2X more money this year." Also, "care for 10 foster children" is at least as much of a crowbar as "run two marathons", but develops qualities not as valued within individualistic perspective.

[jacob]

Simple is NBY, #noalcohol, sell your car and figure it out, pitting $x in an envelope and when it runs out before the end of the month tough shit, etc. One for me was “don’t buy books, library or free only”.

Complex involved focusing on actions that are intended to have an effect that is desired. An example here might be “draw 10 reverse fishbone diagrams a day” plus a number of other actions with the intended effect of “internalize WL7”. I never had anything super simply defined for my goal of internalizing WL7, but I dumped a lot of attention on the goal starting at ~WL3-4 and one measurable result was expenses going from 70k to 7k in 3 years.

I would offer a different differentiation: Single variable vs multi-variable. (Possible associated with the MHC scale in case anyone wants to think deeper about it.)

A single variable crowbar has few side-effects. It's localized in scope. As an example, it would be "only buy organic vegetables". It will cost more but otherwise life goes on as usual.

A multi-variable crowbar is more of a sink-or-swim/do-or-die situation in that it changes everything. As an example, a "buy nothing year" (not day, week, or month) affects multiple behaviors and ultimately shifts one's entire system of behavior (lifestyle).

[Jean]

@7w5
I don't see how such goals could be crowbared.
They not only require willpower, but skills that one might not possess or be able to gain.

For me, what qualify as a crowbar is something that mostly require 1 decision, with a relatively big barrier of entry to revert.
The barrier must be high enough when the imediate impulse to revert arise to be possible to resist.
So you can ditch the car, ditch the computer, the fridge, etc.. or for a bny, never leave home with money, or have the money wraped in a sealed thing, that someone will check and whip you if it's open.

The next level is forcing you everiday to work on something, but as it require constant willpower, i wouldn't call it a crowbar, unless you set something up for it (like your have something block access to your pantry and money until you did your task for the day).

[7Wannabe5]

@jean:

Gotcha. I was thinking more in terms of leverage, although I would note that for most people, quitting their full-time job and declaring themselves to be self-employed would be a pretty big barrier to breach. Achieving FI is the process of becoming self-employed very slowly as much as it is the process of becoming retired very quickly. Quitting your full-time job with just $8000 financial capital to invest in your own business is more of a hustle and a crowbar. Frugality in terms of spending is obviously very helpful to either process, but I would argue that there is more filling in the wide spectrum of the sandwich between "domestic production for self" and "investment in businesses of others" when you add "small production for market" to the mix.

Also, one of the reasons why most people list parenthood as one of their most fulfilling lifetime activities is that a very small decision leads to a couple decades of "forced" personal growth. It's not willpower that gets you up in the middle of the night to feed the baby. If you woke up tomorrow morning and found yourself "father" to 10 young kids, that would be a tremendous crowbar. You would just have to get shit done. No more video games. No more fussing about whether you are qualified for this job or that. Although, of course, once you can afford to hire a day and a night nanny and maybe even a pregnancy surrogate, the personal growth inherent in the parenting challenge can also be averted. And all of us can very easily avoid the challenge inherent in the very many young kids alive today who are not receiving adequate care or concern for future conditions on the Level Orange/Modern basis and boundary of "their existence not a decision I made" or "that would be inefficient (under the terms I prefer.)"

To borrow a term from sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling, joining the FIRE movement comes with a risk of Acting Dead. Sterling's rule of thumb is that this is any behavior that your dead great-grandpa could do better than you. Do you spend as little money as possible? Well, your dead grandpa has you licked in that department. Dreaming of escaping work? You cannot possibly escape further than great-grandpa. Do you want to be the ultimate minimalist? Yeah, great-grandpa owns three rusty buttons, and a rotten shroud. That's gonna be hard to beat.

- "Optionality"- Richard Meadows

So, in order to avoid breaking this rule, I would suggest that ultimately either a tool set a bit more complex than a crowbar is required OR a boundary wider than self.

[Jean]

Well, quitting your job would be a crowbar maneuver. But you cannot just crowbar selfemployment if you have alternative to it. You'de need to render every alternative impossible.

I agree 100% with you about parenthood.
(coincidently, I spent this morning babysitting a friend's newborn)

About acting dead. That's funny, but not very helpfull. I'm not gonna forgo the goal of not being a mass rapist just because my dead grandpa will never rape anyone.