Most elegant way to create one-off must-do event with penalty?

Hello,
What is the best way to create a one-off must-do event with penalty (custom goal?) I’ve seen workarounds involving a recurring task such as “do something important every day” etc but I was looking for something a little more specific…
Thanks,
-Devon

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If you have an iPhone your best bet is probably to use Beeminder’s GTBee app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gtbee/id779525180?mt=8

It essentially works as a to do list with a sting. You set up tasks with deadlines and specific penalty amounts. If you do not complete the task in time you will be charged.

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Thanks for asking about this, Devon!

When Devon asked this in the chat thing on Beeminder, I answered like so:

Great question! If you’re willing to ask on the forum i can start brainstorming there…

lemme dogfood that: http://dreev.commits.to/chime_in_with_options_for_one_off_commitment_devices (on the forum, after you post the question) :slight_smile:

So here’s me starting my brainstorming list!

  1. The MustDo System as you alluded to
  2. GTBee as @cgamer1 just mentioned
  3. Commits.to as I dogfoodily demonstrated (private beta though)
  4. The /charge command built in to the Beeminder Slack bot
  5. Fancy things with IFTTT applets?
  6. Nebuminding where in the nebu-doc you type “Next step: do XYZ task (no typing more until that’s done!)” and now, boom, Beeminder is making you do the obvious next thing – kinda like the MustDo system but you precommit to it all being for a particular project
  7. Beemind your to-do list, especially with our Todoist integration
  8. A nonce Beeminder goal, using @zedmango’s procedure
  9. Boss as a Service

UPDATE: I’m editing this as new ideas pop up so we have a single coherent list of these. Again, great question!

  1. Create a goal that needs to be done twice a month or less.
  2. Retroratchet to your desired deadline.
  3. When you do the task, archive the goal.
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It occurs to me that some of Beeminder’s competitors may handle one-off commitments better than anything in my list above. Please do chime in, anyone, if you find that to be the case!

Is this feature is added in the future, maybe it would work as a premium feature since people would be motivated to set an obscenely high dollar amount then do the task anyway. Maybe it would make sense to require a one-off objective to be tied to a consistent habit as a means of kickstarting it?

Can you give an example of the type of event this is?

See also: Beeminder goal for deadlines

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I just used the /charge in N minutes Slack endpoint for the first time. It looks like it will be perfect. If I got to pick, I would prefer something in the Beeminder UI, but the advantage of the Slack functionality is this it’s already done. :slight_smile:

Thanks folks!

Insti, there’s some examples over at http://forum.beeminder.com/t/intermittent-frog-task-difficulty/4070.

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The issue that I have with the Slack endpoint is that it does not poll me with a reminder.

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