# Beeminder for Programming **URL:** \ **Category:** Akrasia\ **Created:** [April 14, 2015, 3:17pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminder-for-programming/693 "2015-04-14T15:17:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bradleydeanwoods](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/bradleydeanwoods/32/141_2.png) [@bradleydeanwoods](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/bradleydeanwoods)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 3:17pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminder-for-programming/693/1 "2015-04-14T15:17:45Z")
Could I get some tips on how to use beeminder more effectively to aid me in my development work. Only way I know of using trello is tracking cards that have moved to a certain list. I use bitbucket for source control and thought of just tracking commits. So I am looking for additional stuff like these two examples that will help me as a developer to be more effective and productive. What has worked for you guys\gals with your development environments? ---
**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 2:39am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminder-for-programming/693/2 "2015-04-15T02:39:31Z")
Great question! Let me start a list and turn it into a wiki… ## List of ways to beemind programming 1. [Gitminder](http://gitminder.com): Beeminder’s GitHub integration for beeminding commits 2. [Beemind CodeSchool](http://beeminder.com/codeschool) 3. Use RescueTime to beemind time spent in your text editor or IDE 4. [Trellominder](http://trellominder.com) 5. Project Euler (@insti’s working on an integration; I beemind it manually in the meantime) 6. [User-Visible Improvements](http://messymatters.com/uvi "Beeminder's manifesto on UVIs") (UVIs) “This is the bees’ knees” – Beeminder founders ---
**Author:** ![bradleydeanwoods](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/bradleydeanwoods/32/141_2.png) [@bradleydeanwoods](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/bradleydeanwoods)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 12:51pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminder-for-programming/693/3 "2015-04-15T12:51:18Z")
I do use rescuetime to track overall spent coding and that has worked really well for me. How do you track UVI’s? I like the fact that you are tracking visual improvements. Have you found a way to automate this? ---
**Author:** ![insti](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/insti/32/545_2.png) [@insti](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/insti)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 3:36pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminder-for-programming/693/4 "2015-04-15T15:36:45Z")
> [@bradleydeanwoods](#): > > How do you track UVI’s? I like the fact that you are tracking visual improvements. I have a text file that I update with the details of each UVI. There is an automated process[1] which then uses that to update the beeminder goal. Unfortunately there is no magic which will update the text file with the details of a UVI, but it’s useful reference to have anyway, as the beeminder goal keeps you focused on delivering UVI’s and you then have an easy record of things to be able to paste into status reports/invoices etc. [1] I don’t remember if it’s a git-commit hook or a cron job. ---
**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminder-for-programming/693/5 "2015-04-15T19:14:48Z")
Thanks for adding UVIs to the list! That’s the most powerful of all in our opinion. We actually don’t automate it all. We give [each tweet a lot of thought](http://twitter.com/beemuvi "@beemuvi -- which is also what beeminder.com/changelog redirects to") and then also manually update [beeminder.com/meta/uvi](http://beeminder.com/meta/uvi) (we describe the UVIs more tersely in the comments there, but if it weren’t for the long-established habit of doing that we’d at least have the tweets auto-generate the datapoints on Beeminder. And just to reemphasize the power of beeminding UVIs, it is abundantly clear that Beeminder would have died without beeminding this. For over 4 years now (from before public launch) we’ve averaged 1 UVI per day. We have $1000 at stake and have actually [coughed it up once](http://blog.beeminder.com/bikes/), soon after hitting 1000 UVIs, and it was easily worth it. ---
**Author:** ![bradleydeanwoods](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/bradleydeanwoods/32/141_2.png) [@bradleydeanwoods](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/bradleydeanwoods)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2015, 2:27pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminder-for-programming/693/6 "2015-04-16T14:27:47Z")
I already have my [rescuetime goal](https://www.beeminder.com/bradleydeanwoods/goals/3) which I will keep going but I just decided to add a [90 day uvi goal](https://www.beeminder.com/bradleydeanwoods/goals/uvi). Hopefully this will speed up my time to launch. I have not automated this goal so I will manually keep track of changes made in spreadsheet. I see you have one for code coverage. How did that work out? ---
**Author:** ![apolyton](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/apolyton/32/1965_2.png) [@apolyton](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/apolyton)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2015, 5:15pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminder-for-programming/693/7 "2015-04-16T17:15:27Z")
I had an “open issues” goal, tracking the number of open issues in a JIRA project. That didn’t work well because not all issues take the same time and the overall judgement i made for the time spent was not good and I ended up getting anxious about it. I’m now mainly on a goal of (Rescue)Time spent, filtered on the “Software Development” category of RT, and it’s going better. My thinking is now “put in the time, the issues will eventually go away” 🙂 All in all, it’s what motivates you the most. Try, review and adapt. ---
**Author:** ![bradleydeanwoods](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/bradleydeanwoods/32/141_2.png) [@bradleydeanwoods](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/bradleydeanwoods)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2015, 5:36pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminder-for-programming/693/8 "2015-04-16T17:36:43Z")
Ive got a couple goals that help but I thought I would probe the community for more solutions that I could benefit from. ---
**Author:** ![apolyton](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/apolyton/32/1965_2.png) [@apolyton](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/apolyton)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2015, 7:56pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminder-for-programming/693/9 "2015-04-16T19:56:28Z")
a UVI goal sounds good, in the sense of “release something every day”, e.g. do something concrete and useful (you can get carried away and spend time coding on useless/meaningless stuff too)