I promise to respect you in the morning.

Most people lead remarkably predictable lives, including me. If my mind actually did a whole lot, I think I'd expect more evidence of such.

I'm finding that avoiding anthropomorphising humans pays off quite well. Ignore the noises coming out of their mouths in favour of watching what they do. I call this the "lump of lard with buttons to push" theory of human motivation. It also works really well when applied to myself.

By "mind" here, I mean the bit that says "I" and could reflect on itself it if it bothered to (though science has extensively documented how almost everyone is a Dunning-Kruger poster child as far as accurate self-estimation goes) and thinks it runs the show and comes up with rationalisations for whatever stupid things the person just did. Listening to these rationalisations, promises, etcetera as anything other than vague pointers to behaviour is exceedingly foolish.

Your mind does not have a body — your body evolved a mind, for your genes' purposes. Almost all your motivations were firmly in place before a mind evolved. (Mostly to fool other minds.)

Telling the "mind" you really don't buy into its claims that things will be done without evidence of past behaviour can be useful. But don't completely piss it off, as this can produce the fired-up goal of pissing you off back. People get really upset at being considered predictable — they feel it takes away their moral status as a being of free will. Fortunately, this does not make them less predictable. Allowing the "mind" its illusions of control can occasionally be useful.

Humans anthropomorphise everything, as some sort of default reflex. Possibly somewhere halfway down the spinal cord, certainly not around the cerebrum. Try not to do this too much.

Useful predictions:

• The mental engine is not your concern and statements concerning it should be filed under "vague pointers." What you actually have to put up with is its output. The behaviour is what you want.
• Past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour. Nod and smile and don't believe anything will be done unless there's a track record. If the person's mind gets upset at this, suggest that generating a small amount of track record would serve as usable evidence.
• Human brains calculate consequences of actions very efficiently. This is why a Skinner box threat, e.g. to switch off a kid's Internet, produces immediate results, particularly if it's been put into effect in the past and so is credible. Ignore the noises the mind sends out the mouth.
• Micromanagement actually works as a last resort: if they do the task, the annoying noise goes away.
• Try not to hold others' stupid words against them. Watch what they do.
• Occasionally you can encourage the person to use their "mind" less annoyingly and stop spouting quite as much bollocks. For these purposes, consider the bollocks a behaviour to be modified.

Useful results:

• My house is clean. More than that, the older teen's room is actually not toxic.
• I've lost 12 kilograms. Any diet requiring actual willpower or work is not observably going to work on me, so I needed to do one that just happened to be as absolutely little grind as possible.
• I've given up assuming I'm ever going to put into effect any plan I've had on hold for too long. I'm never going to rip the vinyl.
• Dude. Four-year-old. Not big on moral philosophy.

The above post appears to have been typed using my "mind", so the stated theory may well be made of magical pink unicorns. That said, it appears to work.