This final Advent Calendar post is a collection of interesting or useful bits and pieces, many of them suggested by @dreev. Some of the links here point to old forum threads or blog posts but don’t be hesitant to comment on them if you have questions or want to continue the conversations.
Firstly, if you’ve read more than a few forum or blog posts, or get the daily or weekly beemails, you have probably come across some unfamiliar terms. Here’s some links where you might find explanations for them:
- Beeminder-specific terms and other words closely related to beeminding: Beeminder Glossary | Beeminder Blog
- Various generic words related to commitment devices and other life-hacks: Synonyms for Self-Binding | Beeminder Blog
- Terms related to Beeminder’s data aggregation methods and other aspects of custom goals: Custom goals - Beeminder Help
- Goal type names (e.g., odometer, whittle down): What’s the difference between the goal types? - Beeminder Help
- Latin words used in Beeminder’s Proper Bug Reports: How You Talk Yourself Out Of Reporting A Bug | Beeminder Blog
And now some other topics:
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Ratio Goal Type? - Newbee - Beeminder Forum - ideas for beeminding a ratio or average
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How I Use Beeminder | Beeminder Blog - the strategies used by Philip Hellyer (Beeminder’s Chief Philosophy Officer), in particular his categories of goals and how he copes with a large volume of goals (from 2014 but still useful)
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The Want-Can-Will Test for Akrasia | Beeminder Blog - a simple test to determine if you’ll be akratic (procrastinatory) about a particular thing you want to do, and therefore might need to beemind it
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“All Green” meta-beeminding goal - Akrasia - Beeminder Forum - one way to encourage yourself to have all green goals at the end of the day. (For an easier start, beemind having all-blue-or-better.)
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Anti-Flake Strategies - Akrasia - Beeminder Forum - ideas for helping yourself not forget things or avoid commitments you’ve made to yourself and others.
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Beeminding Outside the Box | Beeminder Blog - some novel ways to use Beeminder (from 2013 so some ideas may have been superseded by better methods since then, but this is still an interesting read)
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Questions to ask when procrastinating - Akrasia - Beeminder Forum - some thoughts about dealing with or avoiding procrastination for any given task
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Schelling Fences on Slippery Slopes | Beeminder Blog - a philosophical discussion about avoiding slippery slopes (e.g., “just 10 more minutes of gaming… and just 10 more now…”) from LessWrong by Scott Alexander of Slate Star Codex / Astral Codex Ten (those websites are great resources too)
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Nine Greens | Beeminder Blog - Mirabai Knight’s Beeminder strategies from 2015, including the clever idea of having an attractive display of goals on her mobile home screen to encourage greenness
And of course there so many other gems in the blog and forum. If you find anything that especially appeals to you, please drop a link to it below, any time from now on - doesn’t have to be soon!