Anti-gamification?

[kenoubi]

@oulfis

For me, Beeminder supplies close-up “punishments” in situations where the actual punishment is delayed or non-existent (like failing to learn something I was interested in knowing) or where the actual punishment is insufficient to get over a mental block (like my medical thing that I want to put off every single week). But it doesn’t need to supply the reward, because the reward already exists, in the goal.

I’d find it really unhelpful if Beeminder tried to add arbitrary artificial rewards, because it would distract me from the actually important conversation between past self / present self / future self, regarding what I actually want to be doing.

Interesting… I don’t view Beeminder as discussion / negotiation between my past, present, and future selves. I view it as discussion / negotiation between my System 1 and my System 2. Accomplishing my Beeminder goals is naturally rewarding for my System 2, but it still helps to have some System 1 reinforcement, since System 1 is largely responsible for actually accomplishing the goal.

@narthur

Besides the reward of actually accomplishing what you set out to do, I think the fact that pretty much every Beeminder graph is a cumulative graph is a positive psychological cue. Instead of highlighting how your performance has gone up and down over time, Beeminder graphs always emphasize what you’ve accomplished over the whole period that goal has been active. I think this is probably another way that Beeminder leverages the intrinsic satisfaction of accomplishment for reward.

True… and I actually view this as a mild nod to gamification. (Don’t let the founders know though, they might take it out. )

@narthur

Also, if you’re interested in a more gamified approach, I’d recommend checking out Habitica. I used it for quite a while and really enjoyed it. Also, I believe there’s a Habitica integration for Beeminder.

Yeah, I’ve been vaguely meaning to do that for a long time, it’s just hard to pick up One More Thing when I already have So Many Systems For Managing Todos.