I was bumbling through one of the many apps I have on my phone that chop up my health data and spit it back to me, and spotted a graph that said my “Active Energy from Workouts” had increased 5 years running but didn’t look like it was going to do the same this year, so I made a beeminder goal - stravakcal - to track that with the aim of at least not falling miles (metaphorically, actually megacalories I guess) behind last year. The aim of my stravatime goal was to up the time spent exercising a bit, but I guess a side effect has been not doing as strenuous things. I haven’t cycled as much this year so I think that’s the reason for the fall.
Also just while I’m here, a note that when creating this goal I discovered that Beeminder uses “calories” units when it means kilocalories which can be kind of confusing.
Other Comments
I added some breaks in for next weekend as I’m away, as before, my aim will be to keep the urgency load low so that my buffer is there for the break and not being used up beforehand. I’m loving my lock screen urgency widget made using @skorytnicki’s Custom Beeminder iOS widget methods.
revamp - work project which needed a GitHub checkin which I forgot to do on Friday and just couldn’t be bothered to go to my computer and do on Saturday.
Archiving
flickr - goal to process ~5 years worth of photos that I hadn’t sorted out. That was about 1000 photos made public over about 9 months. I’m really pleased with that and now just have a regular reminder to sort out my new photos.
mindfuldays - I’m just getting annoyed with this goal, which really isn’t in line with the intention behind it so I’m pushing it out of my way.
Other Comments
My remindersurgency goal finally got to a point where it’s actually making me do, or at least organise and be realistic about, things now. And it’s great, really happy with it at the moment. Well, I get annoyed with it as well, but overall it’s all good!
I’ve made a few changes to goals to account for what life is throwing at me at the moment.
A big increase in my clearout goal as we are possibly moving home later in the year and I want to get a head start on the associated organisation and removal of junk from the house.
A long break in my sewing goal and my handmade goals as the last time I sat down to sew on a beemergency sewing day my sewing machine broke and I have yet to figure out if it’s repairable.
Nothing new, nothing derailing, nothing archiving. I feel like I’ve been near derailment numerous times but they’ve all been averted.
Other Comments
I put some breaks in on a few goals for the next & final bank holiday weekend of the spring. I don’t have a calendial goal which is why I forget about putting breaks in until it’s slightly too late. But I only like to put breaks in for goals where they need it preferring to use up buffer if I can, and ideally I’d like to always have buffer and never put breaks in, so I think this way works better for me in the long term even if it means more derailments in the short term.
I totally forgot I was going to do a yoga workout before I went to sleep and woke up to a $0 derailment on my fitness-plus goal after 560 days of beeminding my usage of my subscription to Apple Fitness+. That’s far better than I thought I’d fare when I started that goal!
Archiving
My workwork goal to start actual proper work before 10am has begun to feel like an obstacle (because of often having to backtrack to enter data mostly) rather than useful so I’ve archived it. And that’s fine, I think a lot of my beeminder goals are “craft myself a ladder to get me out of this ditch I’ve fallen into” and after a while I’m carrying around a ladder I don’t need. So I’m putting this ladder away into a virtual shed where it’ll be waiting for me when I need it again.
Other Comments
I had very close calls on a couple of goals
I was going to let pomodoro derail before I left for the weekend, but then realised it only needed +2 and I could just about manage another hour of work.
Similarly I managed to keep cleanhouse pushed out to have enough buffer to cover the weekend away but thought I’d let it derail when I got back. But then it only wanted 7 minutes cleaning so I figured I may as well just do it.
I think those two are still quite likely to derail soon but pushing the derailment into the future always feels good.
As predicted in my last post, I derailed on cleanhouse the day after I posted, and I’m very nearly out of buffer on it again. Which is fine, I’m well aware how much I’m saving by not employing a cleaner and how my house is better for it even if I’m derailing on the goal.
Also pomodoro which I had under control but it needed +2 on Sunday afternoon and I decided reading my book in the sunshine and relaxing was a better use of my resources at that moment.
The badge above is blue because I’m happy with the derailments.
Archiving
I archived my existmood goal which was making me add details of my day to Exist.io everyday. I’m still using exist but this goal was making me do the absolute minimum at the last minute every day which wasn’t being useful enough to me. So I’m rethinking, and oddly, I think I’m updating better without the goal.
New goals
Two new goals.
doodledo which I set up because I realised I keep buying sketchbooks and art materials and then using them very little, so this is one of those ‘beemind using it if you want to keep buying stuff’ goals.
mornings which is attempt n to not squander the time in the morning when I get to do some uninterrupted work. This one just involves setting the beeminder iOS timer going on my phone for the goal when I start work and running it until someone/something/myself interrupts me (which 99% of the time involves me picking up my phone so I notice the timer and stop it). Then it’s aggregated using nonzero so it just needs a datapoint on a day, doesn’t matter what the data point is.
Comments
On the mornings goal - part of me feels like I ought to just find a system that works and stick with it. But most of me thinks that I need the novelty of thinking up a new system and getting a new thing to play with for a bit, and redoing the way a goal works every few months is a feature and not a bug.
Everything is plodding along nicely, I haven’t added or removed any goals and different ones keep bubbling to the top and getting bashed down again. All is well.
My mornings goal is really good for my mental health. On days I put work off saying I’ll do it later I feel it hanging over me all day and get less done when I do get round to it. I’m never going to be a proper morning person but doing the work early on in the day really does feel better.
I’ve been messing with my stayfocused system and should probably post about that. It’s worked well but is quite a lot of admin overload and I’m simplifying it at the moment, I’ll wait until the new version has bedded in over the next week or so though.
My fitness-plus goal derailed, I’ve coloured the badge red because I was annoyed with myself for letting it derail, and if I’m not careful it’s going to derail again without any data being added in the mean time, which would be even more annoying!
Comments
My life seems to have ramped up to warp speed with numerous separate work and family commitments all coming to a head at once over the summer. I suspect my Beeminder commitments will take the hit over the next couple of months but also that they’ll help keep me sane so I’m reluctant to stick long breaks on them in advance.
I love the way you color (& justify the coloring of) your derailment badge!
I suspect my Beeminder commitments will take the hit over the next couple of months but also that they’ll help keep me sane so I’m reluctant to stick long breaks on them in advance.
GOSH do I feel that. I’ve been putting in a bunch of 2-3 day breaks just to give me some slack, because I 100% agree that a day where I can actually just stick to routine and crush all my beems and clear out the whole dashboard is a really good day, and especially after a couple of super hectic days around it I really cherish that. I don’t really suspect there’s any easy solution, but… let me know if you find anything that works for you
One derailment on my nocto blog goal, I’d stuck a month’s break in it but didn’t make it that far. All fine.
Breaks
House move is afoot and I’ve got to the point where I’m happy with sticking breaks in all over the place whilst that takes priority over almost everything else.
The house move put a spanner in the works on five different goals over the past couple of weeks doodledo (using sketchbooks), pomodoro (computer work), revamp (work project), sage (business accounts) and stravakcal (workouts). Two of those were $0 first derailments, and overall I’m happy with the work-life balance between the derailments. Though I’m stressed out with managing a family between two houses and a house sale as well as a big work project I feel like I’m keeping on top of the essential stuff at least passably well. Could be better, but it could also be a lot worse, and without Beeminder I think it would definitely be worse.
Comments
Between the derailments and some breaks I’ve added, my urgency load is low and it feels good to be giving myself some leeway. I’m feeling like some of my goals aren’t that useful to me at the moment so I think some pruning of goals will be coming over the next few weeks as things (hopefully) get a bit more back in balance again.
Summer of chaos continues with me trying to be in two places at the same time with at least three projects (work and personal) that would ideally all be single priorities.
I managed to derail again on revamp even though I’ve actually done plenty of work on that project (one of the three mentioned above).
And also derailed again on fitness-plus despite having put breaks in it - when it popped it’s head over the 7 day akrasia horizon my attitude was ‘well of course i can find time to do a short yoga workout sometime in the next week, how ridiculous to think that I couldn’t manage even that!’, but here we are. I’ve just added another break to it because nothing has really changed yet.
And the third derailment was on my storygraph reading goal which I had been miles ahead on. I’d had a daily reading streak on storygraph that lasted from Jan 1st through to mid July and once that went I seem to have given up on daily reading. I’ve just picked up two new books to read as the ones I’ve been reading have now been going on so long I’m bored with them despite them both being good books. I also just joined the new library at my new house and it has the best central library I’ve ever seen (open until 2300 because the bar/theatre/cinema in the same building are so the stacks may as well be too I think) and am looking forward to going out for a drink and some reading on an evening
Archived
I archived my mornings goal for a bit because I haven’t been having trouble doing the important stuff first recently, mostly because there’s been so much important stuff that it would have been harder not to do so, and it was feeling like an unnecessary piece of admin to keep the goal up to date.
Other Comments
I usually try and post on a Monday so the urgency load is kinda normalised but I’m about to derail on my goal to post to this thread so this is a Sunday update. Load is actually down to 29 since I started writing and I cleared up a couple of other goals in the background, it’ll be down to 22 when I post this.
My bookreviews goal derailed. Though the goal was to keep my reviews up to date and they were up to date I just hadn’t finished a book to write about, so it was kind of non-legit but I knew it was coming and didn’t do anything about it so I’m happy to take it.
Upcoming Archives
I’ve been putting off the goal pruning I mentioned a couple of posts back but I think this is a good opportunity to get started…
I’ve scheduled archiving of my clearout goal. It’s been going for 3.5 years and has been pretty successful at making me tidy up and clear out bits of my home. It definitely helped the house move to have had this going on beforehand. In the not-quite-aftermath-yet of a downsizing house move where I’ve reorganised and got rid of so much stuff I don’t feel it’s useful to have this as a regular goal at the moment.
I’m also archiving my handmade goal which is about finishing something handmade, knitting or sewing mostly, a few times a year. My projects lately have been super big long term ones and this goal has had long breaks in it as a result, and I don’t feel it’s being useful to me currently.
OK, this summer has been absolutely wild and I’m about to derail on my goal of posting to this thread so let’s take a deep breath and have a quick debrief…
Derailments
pomodoro I was finding this one too much overhead when I was having no trouble working hard so, after derailing, I put a long break in this.
doodledo I derailed on my goal to use all my art materials, didn’t put a break in because ‘how hard can it be to just do a bit’ but I’ve been seriously minimal about what counts to add a datapoints to it since.
craft derailed twice despite decreasing the slope.
beeminderthread Yep, I’ve already derailed twice on my goal to post to this thread, which was ample opportunity to put a break in, but I didn’t want to do that either time.
sage Goal to update work accounts derailed thrice, which is kind of ridiculous but I was busy doing other more urgent things for work and now I’ve bumped into non-self-imposed deadlines I’m up to date again.
storygraph Despite reducing the page goal and feeling like I’ve read quite a lot I still took a derailment.
bookreviews I had several books to review but just didn’t get to it. I’ve just avoided a second derailment though.
narrowboat I’d put a big break in this because I knew spending much time on the boat was going to be tricky, but I didn’t foresee how tricky. I’ve now put a much longer break in while I get back, um, afloat, I guess!
fitness-plus I thought I had enough break and ‘how hard can it be… etc etc’ but I completely missed the deadline creeping up on me.
Archives
The goals I’ve archived were (without actually checking so I might be wrong) all things where the admin of keeping them felt like more trouble than the structure they were giving me.
Comments
Yes, that feels like a wild number of derailments for six weeks but they’ve been a mad six weeks.
My major takeaway from this is that I do not feel guilty, either to myself or to anyone else, for the things I haven’t kept up with. I wanted to do the things, I committed to do the things, but in the moment there were more important things to do and I decided to pay up. I don’t feel like ‘I just should have tried harder’ or ‘I’m a failure for not managing to do all the things’. This is definitely really good for my mental health!
I’m terrible at predicting things… I have been talking about a “summer of chaos” but my current prediction is that things will properly slow down for me in November and I can juggle some slightly lighter balls a little more slowly from then on. Things are a bit quieter already but my idea that September was going to be the end of it was some way from the mark.
If I wasn’t terrible at predicting things I’d have put a very long break in most of my goals when things started getting crazy in July. But I don’t think I could do that. I think I needed to think I was capable of doing everything. Somehow being bad at predictions also feels like a mental health protection system. I feel like a goal to keep checking what was about to appear on the akrasia horizon might have helped me, but also, I kept thinking I could manage to get things done in that timescale even when it should have been clear I couldn’t.
And over in the real world, pretty much all the essential things have been done, and my systems have worked reasonably well. And once I’ve posted this that’s one less goal that’s going to derail!
I think a good summary would be “I don’t need Beeminder to make me do the essential things, but I do need Beeminder to make it clear to me when I can’t manage to do all the non-essential things as well.”
I added a new shredding goal, because the house move has uncovered vast quantities of old paperwork I need to dispose of, and my shredder overheats if I try and do too much so it’s something needing the ‘little and often’ approach. Just a ‘do something, once a week’ goal with the aim of clearing the backlog.
Comments
Things are getting a bit more normal again, not quite there yet, but I can see normality in the near distance now. My systems are in need of a rejig to deal with the ways that the new normality is different to the old one, I’m using my ratechanges goal to gradually change things and avoiding the temptation to just throw all my goals out and start again.
fitness-plus - I just didn’t get round to it gmailzero - I didn’t notice this one, which usually looks after itself pretty well these days, as I didn’t remember seeing a notification about it. My notifications have been being pretty flaky across the computer/phone/watch boundaries lately but if I’d checked Beeminder at any point that day I’d have noticed. So happy to pay up, and it’s spurred me into sorting my email out a bit better, currently trying out Spark which I used before but it’s changed a lot since then.
Comments
I think I can declare the summer of chaos is finally over! House is sold, boat is moved, teenager is settled at university, big work project is onto the next stage, cat is happy in the new house. Nothing but regular life, work, fun and using Beeminder to help me do more things than I think I can from here on in
shredding - “oh, it’s easy and all set up, I just need to feed things into the shredder in that half hour lull before I go out this evening” - of course something else that urgently needs fixing comes up when you leave things until the last minute! fitness-plus - much the same story as above. I’ve reduced the commitment on this one and am having a think about whether it makes sense with how my life is at the moment.
Archived Goals
I archived a couple of focus related goals that I’m just not using at the moment.
Comments
I’m feeling very much on the edge of burnt out, and just keeping things ticking along at minimum feels like the right thing to do for the moment. Hence the very low urgency, which will actually be 2 once I’ve posted this. Keeping everything pushed back over the akrasia horizon seems like the right thing for me at the moment. I have ideas for some new goals - I think I might set up a couple of slow easy things, it’s not the right time to push myself too hard.
blanket-2022 - our internet connection went down for six days so I couldn’t knit. Yes, it makes zero sense so it’s a legitimate derailment. It was a “for want of a horseshoe nail” problem involving my environment just being off-kilter. fitness-plus - again. I’ve flattened the road on this as it’s just not working for me at the moment and I can’t entirely figure out why. tinytask - see below
New Goals
tinytask - the idea was to get the little things that need doing done by keeping track of them and rewarding myself for them. Like irregular but sub-5-minute chores. I wasn’t really sure if it would work - and can now conclude that it hasn’t and I’m probably going to archive it. The tracking admin makes a bigger deal of things than it needs to, but also it feels like cheating to write down that two minute thing you did even though it’s needed doing for weeks and should totally count.
books - tracking books read, a new year’s-ish resolution spurred into life early for the December Dry Run thread.
Comments
I’ve put some breaks in for over Christmas and am thinking on what will make good goals to shape 2024 which I will put into action when I’m ready. Feeling much like I said last year:
sage Hello, I’m before-Christmas-Kirsty, I can’t be bothered to sort out the company accounts even one little bit but I think that in-between-Christmas-and-New-Year-Kirsty will be motivated to just do a tiny bit to stop this goal derailing. What do you think in-between-Christmas-and-New-Year-Kirsty? (Silence.)
New Goals
newmonthresolution - a commitment for the New Month's Resolutions thread. I have lots of ideas for new goals and think this is a good way to try a few out on a regular basis. And also it’s stopping me from trying too many things at once as I need 11 more ideas to save for other months!
journal - my january goal for the new month’s resolution. commitment to add at least 50 entries to a DayOne journal over five weeks. I’m hoping this lets me write down and remember things in a controlled manner rather than getting upset and depressed with my past self which is how some other nostalgic things (eg timehop) have made me feel previously.
daylight - the Apple Watch’s ‘time spent in daylight’ metric has intrigued me since they announced it and now it’s beemindable (in the TestFlight version of the Beeminder iOS app) so I’m beeminding it with no real commitment to see how it goes. (20 mins/day which is way below what seems to be my average, but also I sometimes struggle to get out of the house in daylight at all on short winter days)
instagram I thought I’d put a break in this one for the doldrums of winter but apparently not.
New Goals
eveningtidyup - for February’s new month resolution, so far (I started early) morning-Kirsty loves this goal and evening-Kirsty doesn’t actively hate it so that’s a win.
Comments
I’ve mostly been just nudging goals up and down regularly by small amounts as my ratechanges goal tells me to and that system is still working well after a year.
One big change was on my sage goal for updating the business accounts as several derails had left it way behind where it needed to be and I had a mad panic to get my VAT return in which was the kind of thing the goal was supposed to stop happening! So lots of buffer has been ratcheted away on that one!
bathroomclean - the eveningtidyup goal has been doing very well for keeping my kitchen tidy so I created a parallel one to keep the bathroom clean.
workcode - the revamp goal I had to check work in to one github repo was getting increasingly close to the fudge end of the beeminder scale. I wanted a more general goal to check in work to whichever repo I’m working on at the moment. The easiest way to do this seemed to be to create one main goal and then have several other subgoals that feed this one via the beeminder integration. So at the moment I have two workcode_reponame goals that have low requirements (I’ve made those private) and workcode is the main goal.
and I have yet to figure out if it’s repairable.
