We decided on a new family rule that any new equipment aquisitions should be backed by a beeminder goal. So Faire just borrowed a guitar from her aunt & uncle, and she’s beeminding playing songs on it, and I just swapped my gym membership for some kettlebells, so I’m now starting some goals to beemind usage of them. So far I’ve created one to beemind number of swings.
I have lots of ideas for other things to beemind re kettlebells, or I may just have a “do the kettlebell workout” goal (share time: what’s your favorite kettlebell workout?). I think I like having one whole goal just for swings, though, because it’s a super simple and quick high intensity thing I can do daily. One of the reasons I wanted to get kettlebells was because I much prefer doing 100 swings with a really heavy kettlebell than, e.g., going for a short run. It’s an ideal high intensity burst for me.
I also want to propose a “beemind old equipment too, or get rid of it” rule, but I’m not quite sure about the mechanics of that one. Maybe after some reasonable period (e.g. my kettlebells cost equivalent to about 3 months of membership at my gym, so maybe I have to beemind daily usage until I’ve paid them off, so to speak?), you can decrease usage, but have to maintain some minimal usage. Once a year? (I’m looking at you, skis). Maybe that doesn’t make sense if you’re in a position where storage is cheap, though. We have no closets in our house, and limited garage space, so maybe the “beemind old equipment too” rule should be more like a one-in-one-out rule? I’m not sure.
Ha, I’ve always approached significant capital acquisitions from the opposite direction – I have to do a significant amount of the correct category of work before I allow myself to buy something. For instance, I made myself cook at home for long enough to “save up” enough to purchase the upright freezer I really wanted (assuming a home-cooked meal cost $5 and eating out cost $20, it didn’t take that long). This was Before Beeminder, though, so I just used a spreadsheet.
Same with my selphie photo printer for scrapbooking, or (more recently) the Urban Worm Bag that just arrived. I’m an inveterate accumulator of hobbies, so I feel like it’s wise to have to put the time in to a new hobby before I can spend significant (>$100) outlays on it. Beeminding it is a solid idea though! And post-facto beeminding is a good choice for things that can’t be “tried out” without the expensive equipment.
(Also, man I’m tempted to get some kettlebells; I miss them greatly now that I can’t go to the gym!)
I love this idea! I’m reminded of when I was a child, and my mother had a rule for buying toys that the toy needed to generate an hour of entertainment for every unit of cost (adjust size of unit according to taste). This is somehow the equivalent but more grown-up
Yeah, I’m excited about our new family rule! (@bee and I are married as well as being the cofounders of Beeminder, for anyone who didn’t know that.)
As I said in yesterday’s beemail, I can’t decide whether to feel like geniuses or to feel dumb that we haven’t done this all along. But now we’re doing it!
"Second best time to plant a Chinese tree!", as we say to each other.
Referring to the Chinese proverb: “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago; the second best time is now.” I guess if you want to get pedantic 19 years ago is the second best time? Depending how you discretize? Math it up however you need to, the point stands. It’s a nice mantra to neutralize the what-the-hell effect, which as far as I can tell is the actual technical term in psychology for letting a small deviation from rationality spiral into an egregious deviation.
PS: Then @dsernst pointed out that what I’ve called the “what-the-hell effect” sounds like the sunk cost fallacy – doubling down on a bad decision instead of cutting your losses.
Anyway, I was trying to identify the right umbrella category for sports/music equipment. My best idea was “hobby equipment”. Then @philip sagaciously suggested adding courses and books to the list. Now I’m curious what @shanaqui would think of this rule. No buying books without beeminding reading them!
On the one hand, I am all on board. On the other, I have never managed to make it work, and because I’m a mood reader (and I read for fun, not for self-improvement or anything else, though I think that happens as a result because experiences change you) I don’t think making an individual goal per book bought would work…
On the third hand I’ve borrowed from someone else, I do sort of beemind reading them, in that I have a reading goal for reading an hour a day.
