That was really wonderful; thank you all so much! We had 20 people [EDIT: 20 connections but Bee and I shared one so 21 people] and it felt amazing hearing things like “Beeminder makes my life so much better” or “I look at Beeminder first thing when I wake up and last thing before bed”. And so many good ideas for how to beemind things, highly valuable feedback on Beeminder friction, etc etc.
I’m working on a [slightly] edited transcript of the side chat (which misses all the out-loud context) and here’s what I have so far and am editing this post to add more… [and done!]
Transcript of the typed side chat
@adamwolf: My weight loss goal thing I was mentioning earlier: My Weight Loss Progress
@shanaqui: Ugh Adam is so nice, I can’t stand him 
[re: Adam’s preamble about the meetup being a niceness-only zone or however he put it; it was funny, you had to be there]
@shanaqui: Jon’s really tall. You can’t tell from this.
@shanaqui: I am really small. You can’t tell.
@shanaqui: Hulk is the rabbit who just arrived.
@philip: Incredible! [I just now got this]
@mary: The bunny is too cute!
@adba: I’m also in IT - is anyone not? 
@lanthala: I mean we’re all nerds here
@shanaqui: You can’t tell, but sometimes the bunnies help with support by doing what they’re doing right now.
@lanthala: I feel very supported <3
@shanaqui: I’ve clearly fooled you all – I have no idea what I’m doing tech-wise. I just type REAL fast.
@adamwolf: and read fast!|
@shanaqui: I read a whole book this afternoon <3
@universick: @Nikki what did you read?
@shanaqui: Hulk’s Uber arrived to go back to snack on hay…@Elena: I read an advance copy of Carrie Vaughn’s “The Ghosts of Sherwood”, a novella coming out from Tor soon!
[@adamwolf introducing himself here, I think]
@adba: Yay, the Android app is the main way I use beeminder.
@philip: Beeminding the same real-world goal from several – smart!
@lanthala: But so much data entry every time you do something ; ;
@adamwolf: IFTTT can really help!
@shanaqui: I joined in 2014! I did not know it was so long ago!
@marcmarti: could you share the link later? @nick
@adamwolf: I use IFTTT to help copy datapoints from one goal to another! I will find a good example post of mine 
@adba: 15 per quarter hour is more like it…
@adamwolf: An example of IFTTT data copying is here: (It’s a little fancy, but it’s an OK example) Nifty trick for "days I did this other goal" goals
@Quintrino: What Makes People Happy: 54 Ideas on How to be Happy
@Quintrino: @Marc that’s the link on baseline happiness.
@marcmarti: @thanks Nick!
@marcmarti: i did it the wrong way haha
@shanaqui: I’ve given up on not touching my face while I’m home. As you can probably tell. [in response to Mary mentioning having to add a Beeminder datapoint for touching her face]
@marcmarti: Out of curiosity, is there anyone else from Europe, apart from Nikki and me? Maybe Markos?
@lanthala: yeah, I’ve been in self-isolation for 3 weeks now so there’s no reason not to touch my face as much as I want
@apolyton: Yes, in Luxembourg currently, originally from Greece.
@shanaqui: Danny’s answer to everything is Beeminder [probably referring to how I cope with corona-distraction by dialing up my work goals so I’m scrambling for beemergencies all day]
@adba: I live in the UK
@adba: and I’ve lived in Europe since '98
@shanaqui: https://www.beeminder.com/shanaqui/nonewsisgoodnews
@adba: I’ve also been in self-isolation for over 2 weeks
@shanaqui: That’s my no-news goal.
@adba: And finally feel well again, as of yesterday
@marcmarti: Living in Spain things have been quite bad 
@marcmarti: And avoiding news is super dificult - but we try!
@shanaqui: Oh someone used a really great term for reading tons of bad news all the time that I am totally adopting: “doomsurfing”
@Quintrino: Doomsurfing is a great term! I’m going to use that too.
@apolyton: Question: how many of you are able to work from home and how many can’t
@marcmarti: Question: is there a way to have a goal that both tracks doing a Little, but not doing too much?
@bwiderski: ut have had to order in a bunch of stuff to make it more ergonomic for long hours [I don’t remember what this referred to!]
@dreev: blog.beeminder.com/bothsides
@lanthala: Marc that would be a really great new goal type
@philip: @Marc I’m in London, a lot of my work (used to) take me around Europe
@justanotherjon: +1 to Nikki’s post
@adba: Hi neighbor (Philip)
@adba: Markos: I’ve been working from home for years.
@Quintrino: @Markos, I’m working from home, and I’ve been technically able to for a long time, but was worried I wouldn’t be productive.
@philip: I’ve been working remotely for years, but a lot of coffee shops and pubs rather than literally at home
@adba: I reckon I should set up a beeminder goal for a hobby I want to properly pick up.
@philip: I Resolve Not To Resolve; Or, The Anti-Resolution Resolution | Beeminder Blog
@marcmarti: Anyone has a goal for waking up on time? I would because I need it is that but I would be derailing a lot of time 
@marcmarti: *the only problema being that
@lanthala: @marc the only thing that worked for me was having a kid
@lanthala: Now I wake up on time because my alarm clock never stops yelling
@apolyton: @marc no, but I use the Sleep Cycle app and it works quite nicely
@shanaqui: Marc: I’d just start it very very low. I use an app called Sleeptown for extra motivation. MUST BUILD MY TOWN
@shanaqui: (I beemind Sleeptown as well)
@mary: I love the Sleep Cycle app.
@marcmarti: oh yeah, i Heard about that @nikki! Will check it - you also have a goal?
@universick: I had a wake goal for a while where I had a button on the fridge that I had to push before something like 8:05 am; it worked really well but I ended up just never getting enough sleep
@shanaqui: I’m going to hold up my town!
@universick: All my friends think I’m insane!
@lanthala: yeah I’m still trying to figure out how to get myself to go to bed earlier
@mary: Cute town, Nikki. I didn’t get through the first building.
@marcmarti: when i tell them i do actually PAY money… they think i am insane
@marcmarti: but they do not understand haha
@shanaqui: My wife is pretty into me using Beeminder, because then I earn money because I also beemind working for Beeminder
@lanthala: Haha nikki
@adba: Philip: point taken, I now have a 30 minute/day goal for it. Not sure how I’ll find the time, but here’s hoping.
@marcmarti: Good observation @philip
@shanaqui: Applying for my fourth degree at the moment… thanks Beeminder.
@shanaqui: By the way, I am about to hold up the ENORMOUS book the workerbees are reading together (and beeminding)
@adba: I stuck to one degree, grudgingly. I really shouldn’t do a second degree, despite it sometimes being tempting.
@adba: Which book is that?
@justanotherjon: That is much more intense when it is not on audible!
@bee: zomg, i got it on kindle… no idea it’s so huge!
@lanthala: I was never so happy as when I finished school for the very last time
@philip: @Nikki - I got the kindle edition, I confess
@shanaqui: Priory of the Orange Tree is the book
@adba: A similar book I have to hand is still in plastic, shamefully. 
@universick: Hahaha I also do parental controls on iOS
@marcmarti: which app do you use in Android?
@adba: Philip: I am now missing 45 minutes of my day for two new beeminder goals. Thank you, I think. Probably.
@shanaqui: Android just has it, now, part of Android
@marcmarti: how? haven’t seen it
@shanaqui: Settings > Digital Wellbeing & parental controls
@pjpants: Factual Owl
@adba: It’ll be easier than my 3 hour/day goal last year, at least, kind of.
@shanaqui: (I’m on a Pixel 3, so I’m possibly ahead of the curve on getting Android stuff)
@narthur: I think this is the factual owl?: The Factual - Unbiased News, Trending Topics - The Factual
@adba: Looks like it to me, though I hadn’t heard of it before either.
@adba: Maybe you need a “do less” beeminder goal for letting batteries sit around unchanged.
@universick: Stream Deck | elgato.com
@apolyton: For tooth brushing, Oral-B now sends data to Apple Health on it’s own data category
@shanaqui: @Markos Oh MAN I wish I had iOS for that. I am AWFUL about brushing my teeth
@philip: Genius
@shanaqui: I don’t know if anyone has had the payout for my toothbrushing goal yet. I’m sure I must have failed.
@apolyton: But we need Beeminder to read this data
@philip: I’m a big fan of moving the action right next to the reminder for the action
@universick: Yeah kingdon I have one of those
@bwiderski: I use Todoist goals through IFTTT for most of my goals.
@adba: Adam: your setup is amazing. I kind of want to do that, and kind of think it would utterly eat my life.
@adamwolf:
@adamwolf: I think Mary was talking about something like this: Stream Deck | elgato.com
@marcmarti: I would love a lot of YNAB + Beeminder ideas
@mary: Yup, the elgato is the one!
@mary: (I always forget its name)
@universick: Adam you just set off Alexa on my tablet
@shanaqui: I use “OK google” to find my phone, like a call and response
@adamwolf: This is what I did before I realized I needed to put the app (or web shortcut or whatever) that handles the goal next to the goal: *Lots* of Android widgets on one screen
@apolyton: Back with a beer
@marcmarti: widgets don’t work on my Xiaomi
@marcmarti: they disappear in 24h or so
@universick: I think the google homes are the best at responding to questions, but I have data privacy issues with the google assistant
@adamwolf: (These are my home screens from a year ago or so, I don’t think there’s anything too sensitive: https://photos.app.goo.gl/LZYwdLcZ4PzMTyCo7 )
@shanaqui: Oh hey, selfish new topic. How should I beemind my MSc application?
@shanaqui: (Joke unless someone has an amazing idea)
@adamwolf:
@Quintrino: What’s MSc application?
@adamwolf: I have to drop off, but I’ll just mute/drop camera and let you folks keep going!
@shanaqui: Applying for my 4th degree. Mary is writing my reference!!!
@shanaqui: BYE ADAM
@apolyton: See you Adam !
@adba: Mary: how did that work? I tuned out to beemind at a crucial bit of it, sadly!
@shanaqui: (I always wonder what books things are when I see people with books, so if people want to know, behind me are my mystery novels followed by romance novels. I think you can mostly see Georgette Heyer and K.J. Charles! This is my small bookcase. There are four like this of SF/F…)
@mary: Luke, Are you asking about the Must Do goals?
@philip: blog.beeminder.com/mustdo
@adba: I’m asking about the goals for when you haven’t really mapped something out yet.
@adba: Were those the mustdo, or something else?
@Quintrino: Nikki, the books to my right are RPG books that I turned into a standing desk while I’m WFH.
@adba: (I’ve added 3 goals during this call so far)
@shanaqui: Luke: What goals?
@adba: That I’ve added during the call?
@shanaqui: Yep! Curious what you’re doing
@shanaqui: (Nosey)
@pjpants: like, right now during the call? or beeminder? life?
@adba: half an hour/day going through “complete babylonian” (because it’s awesome and I’ve mainly been ignoring it, and I don’t want to ignore it!), 15 minutes/day Japanese phonology stuff (an anki pitch accent distinction deck and taking notes from dogen’s phonology videos), and a daily gratitude journalling thing because I’ve been meaning to do that for ages.
@shanaqui: I’ve just set one of those up myself! (daily gratitude)
@morehavoc: apparently one can not join two zoom meetings at the same time. It was great listening to all of you! wave
@shanaqui: Bye Christopher!
@adba: I still need to do something with exercise beyond my walking goals, and I keep thinking about doing some gardening (and have a bunch of new blueberry plants that probably would like some attention), and I’m getting a 3d printer in a few weeks (bought it yesterday), and there are other languages that I’d like to be doing things with, and… but hey.
@pjpants: I am right now, during the call, knitting. And for beeminder, I’ve got a must do twitter and trello actions for my freelancing, a feelings journal and a general personal journal, steps, newsletter/blog posts, gratitude, and reading pocket articles
@adba: What I don’t have a good way to do is basically beeminding long-overdue personal one-off tasks of various sizes
@adba: Possibly I should use a 3rd party service with an API and auto-beemind accordingly, but I’m not currently.
@dreev: http://commits.to [@yebyenw asked about this and someone assumed we were talking about git commits :)]
@pjpants: Luke, I might use either Habitica or Trello for those kinds of things
@adba: Yeah, I used to use Habitica. I found it useful for dailies (but it’s frankly been replaced by beeminder for me), and I’m yet to find a tool I like better than paper for todo lists of various sorts.
@shanaqui: I switch my to do list stuff regularly, except for Beeminder
@shanaqui: Right now I’m back on Todoist, but… I also have a big paper one
@adba: I’ve used trello with a bunch of work/event stuff, but don’t particularly want to use it for these tasks.
@shanaqui: Right now I have a paper to-do list as well, which my wife has stuck up next to her desk each day. She shouts at me if I’m not progressing. Wifeminder.
@philip: I’ve moved to using Things for my projects and task lists, using Tiago Forte’s PARA organization scheme
@adba: Yeah; my partner doesn’t get to see me in person during lockdown, and wouldn’t be into that.
@shanaqui: (Re: Wifeminder: she doesn’t really shout at me. We don’t do that. She brings me a bunny and asks what I need to get unstuck.)
@adba: (That is incredibly adorable. My partner’s housemate has a bunny… I wonder if something could be negotiated. :D)
@adba: Source link?
@adba: Nikki: what are the first 3 degrees in, and what’s the MSC?
@shanaqui: (Oh god I’ve admitted the MSc out loud, now I HAVE to do it.)