Well, to be honest, after I posted the above, I started thinking this was a really fuzzy goal, and difficult to remember to do regularly, let alone track each instance.
I’m still looking for good goals that help reduce procrastination, but I’m leaning towards ones that involve me doing concrete tasks.
For example, I really like the idea of breaking down a daily “must-do” goal into AM and PM must-dos. I already try to plan my workday like that anyway, so it’s just a matter of formalizing it into a Beeminder goal (or goals). The actual tasks I do in these goals will often be different, depending on whatever tasks are the most important on a given day.
To really get to the heart of the procrastination thing, I want to also have separate goals for thoughtfully selecting each AM and PM task, ideally completed ahead of time (the previous day?). I’d also like to incentivize starting and finishing early (or at least on time, without needing to stay late). These will all be “Do more” goals.
So, to sum up, the goals are:
- Select AM must-do: 1 or 0
- Select PM must-do: 1 or 0
- AM must-do: If completed by 1pm- 2. If completed after 1pm- 1. Not done- 0.
- PM must-do: If completed by 5pm- 2. If completed after 5pm- 1. Not done- 0.
The downside to (3) and (4) being set up this way is that I won’t be able to look at the data later and determine whether, (for instance) I mostly complete my AM tasks before 1pm or not. Or, for example, do I always complete them on Mondays, but never on Fridays.
And that kind of thing is useful information to have, because then I would restructure my planning and expectations accordingly. I could, of course, split each of them into 2 goals, but I don’t want to do that, as then I’d have too many goals. Another option is to use the hashtag to note the time I completed each AM and PM must-do.