One of my favorite exercises from CFAR is the Bugs List. By writing down everything in your life that feels "off," things you'd change if you could, problems you've been meaning to solve, irritations you've learned to live with, you have a straightforward set of problems to try solving with new techniques and frameworks you learn, and can, little by little, actually improve your life in a material way.

Most people's lists include things like:

I have trouble going to sleep on time
I wish I spent more time with friends
I keep putting off that one project
I don't exercise as much as I'd like
I eat out too often
I procrastinate on important emails

These are all real bugs. They're worth noticing and worth trying to fix. But after years of helping people work through their Bug Lists, in therapy or at rationality camps and workshops, something fairly obvious to most is worth highlighting: a lot of common bugs have a lot of root causes in common.

If you wanted a taxonomy for bugs, you'd quickly find yourself looking at what causes them, but it's not always the same between different people. Some struggle with sleep [...]

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Outline:

(01:30) Generators vs. Symptoms

(03:28) Ignorance

(05:12) Habits

(07:58) Bad Frames

(11:25) Hangups

(13:47) Traumas

(16:03) Applying the Model

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First published:
November 28th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GJakDpDfNSZBb5p4d/a-taxonomy-of-bugs-lists

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

A Taxonomy of Bugs (Lists)

LessWrong (30+ Karma)