Beeminding by k1rsty

[k1rsty]

New Goals

• stripycrochet start a new craft project → start a beeminder goal for it with a fairly low rate so it doesn’t get abandoned. Also feeds into my general craft goal.

• donebytwo is March’s new month resolution goal and so far I’m struggling with it and think the idea is good but the goal formulation is probably not good.

Archived Goals

• deadtreebooks I was miles ahead of the line and data entry was being too much hassle. My general books goal for 2024 is going well though and reading more paper books is definitely helping.

Comments

I wrote a blog post - The View From 5000 Miles - that started off being about hitting 5000 miles on my ebike but mostly ended up being about Beeminder. I ended up ramping up the goal again whilst writing the post.

[k1rsty]

New Goals

• breathingspace is April’s new month resolution goal. A super simple commitment to stop and breathe a bit between waking up and picking up anything electronic. So far one side effect is falling asleep again (not really a problem except it leaves me wondering whether that should count or not).
• the other new goal is a feeder for my workcode goal.

Archived Goals

• none, but donebytwo was my March new month resolution goal and it will be archived shortly.

Comments

Life has got complicated again - we’re moving and decorating a new home now - and I’m trying to learn a lesson from getting burnt out last year whilst trying to do too much. So I’m putting breaks or slow downs in a lot of my non-essential goals to tell myself which things it is ok to not do at the moment.

Urgency load is way higher than I like it to be and is basically saying that I’m about to derail on a few things before the breaks kick in. The badge is orange because I’m fine with that really but just a bit annoyed I didn’t think about it early enough.

[k1rsty]

It’s been a busy month of moving house and three of the four new month’s resolution goals I’ve set up this year have derailed. I’ll talk about those over there at the end of the month.

I’ve also obviously archived something but I can’t figure out what; I think it was probably one of the goals that have been stagnant for a long time. I feel like I’m making these posts too far apart for them to be useful as record keeping, but also making them too often to have anything interesting to say in them. But I find them useful markers personally so I’m sticking with it for now all the same.

Comments

I’m actually very pleased with the breaks I put in and how low stress things feel at the moment as a result. And I’m still busy with stuff I can’t avoid so it’s not time to ramp things up again yet.

[k1rsty]

Derailments

• my pomodoro goal derailed; nothing bad I’d just lost momentum and buffer whilst moving house.
• my instagram goal derailed; head scratching over this one probably coming later in this post

New Goals

• new month’s resolution for May is a readinghour goal intended to stop my books goal derailing. so far it’s working as intended!

Comments

I went from having no thoughts about Beeminder in my last post to having all the thoughts. I’ve been thinking a lot of my goals aren’t very coherent for a while but not doing anything about it. I’ll spare you the all the thoughts I had but some major ones were:

• maybe a lot of my goals are a Beemindery version of the sunk cost fallacy? I said I’d do this thing a long time ago and therefore I am still doing it, even though it long since stopped making sense to do so.
• the way I had goals tagged as work/home/health etc was obvious but also meaningless
• what the hell am I trying to do here anyway?

The train of thought ended up - more or less - with this chart:

• My goals started to make sense as a whole when I put them into three categories

  • stuff I enjoy and want to do more of (even if it’s work)
  • stuff I don’t really want to do, admin basically, but don’t want to forget
  • stuff that somehow supports improving and getting better (the woolliest classification of the three)

• But I could also split them into

  • long term goals that I want to keep doing maybe forever,
  • short term goals. These are supposed to finish someday and classifying them like this helps me see what has overstayed it’s usefulness.

• Or there’s a third way

  • Some goals are there to remind me (with a sting!) to do things
  • Other goals were just tracking stuff, mostly because autodata makes it easy to do that.
  • (and then I don’t have a category name for the ones that aren’t really either of those)

• And I really like the pattern where some of my goals make trees and several smaller, often short term, goals feed into a bigger, long term goal.

I did all that a couple of weeks ago and this morning I decided to go through and archive a lot of the goals I thought were just cruft in the system without looking back at the chart before I picked the goals. I’ve crossed those out on the chart (along with a couple I’d archived in the meantime). It was pretty much all the tracking goals that got culled. I don’t think these belong in Beeminder. I’m not holding myself to any commitment with them, just using Beeminder as a handy place to see progress. A lot of them were autodata - if they’d been manual data I’d have got bored with entering it long ago. I feel like I need a different system to keep tabs on some of these metrics but I don’t think Beeminder is the right place.

And now I feel like I have an idea what I’m actually trying to do with Beeminder and can expand again. Some things I might do soon:

• add a couple of extra goals for reading that support the books goal (eg to read more non-fiction)
• add some more goals to the improve category of goals to balance wanting to do a hundred different hobbies without feeling overwhelmed by all of them
• figure out what a consolidated improve goal would look like

[clivemeister]

Ah this is such a lovely post!

Honestly, I’m now going to rush off and work out what the N x M matrix would be for my goals - or maybe L x M x N, with short/long duration, work/home/health, and admin/enjoyment/improvement, or something like that, as the axes. Then I’ll be looking at the empty cells in the matrix and going “hmm, what goal(s) do I need to create in here?”. Perhaps with a meta-goal to review, and prune or add periodically…

Love it!

[grayson]

Ditto what @clivemeister said! Very inspiring. I went off and started on my own chart (still WIP) after seeing @k1rsty’s!

[k1rsty]

Derailments

Kind of annoyed with how many of these there were but not particularly annoyed with any of them in particular.

• instagram derailed again before it got archived
• shredding, I’d give up on this if I could figure out what else to do with the documents I need to destroy! I bought a new shredder a few months back, have oiled it regularly and it’s still nearly dead.
• readinghour, my May goal, I got ahead and didn’t enter/track data which meant I used up my buffer; a useful and successful goal overall though!
• stripycrochet - no time/inclination to keep up on craft projects at the moment
• craft - see above!

New Goals

• I added an extra reading goal for non-fiction which feeds into my main books goal.
• I didn’t really figure out the consolidated improve goal I was talking about last time but I did realise I wanted goals for piano and drawing that wouldn’t overwhelm me or each other and are both things I’d vaguely like to improve at so I’ve set them up with low rates and both feeding to an arts goal. We will see how things go!
• lessphone is my new month’s resolution for June, explanation over there
• also realised I had a GitHub repository that could help feed one of my other goals automatically so added the astro goal.

Comments

I’ve been utterly delighted that my chart inspired other people! Grayson’s is awesome and gives me new ideas for the connections between my own goals (in general as well as in the Beemindery sense).

This is the current version of mine with the new goals I’ve added this month in green. It’s feeling a lot more organised now I’ve cleared out the old stagnant goals.

[k1rsty]

Derailments

• sage (business accounting) - other things took priority, not a problem.
• stripycrochet - still struggling to find time for craft projects, I’ve turned the rate down for a bit so I stop feeling like I’m failing.

Archived

• shredding - motivation was fine, it’s the tech that’s failing me so I’ve archived this before actually finishing the pile of documents that need to be disposed of.

Comments

No new goals, and I don’t think I have anything interesting to report. Have a nice day!

[k1rsty]

@k1rsty

New Goals

• finishwah - july goal to finish a work project, part of the new month’s resolutions thread

Derailments

• lessphone - that was my june new month’s resolution. derailed by going a single minute over the goal but was pleased about the break it gave me.
• sewing - I was archiving this goal as I decided it made more sense to make single project goals but it derailed on it’s way out
• piano - just didn’t get to it
• finishwah - i forgot how weekends work

Archived

• lessphone and sewing, as above.

Comments

I’ve been putting this post off for a week hoping I’d have something more interesting to add but it seems I don’t!

[k1rsty]

New Goals

• sortout - september goal to carry on sorting stuff out at home, part of the new month’s resolution thread

Derailments

The badge is coloured grey because I’m not entirely certain how I feel about all of these. See comments below.

• draw (twice)
• piano

These two goals really haven’t taken for me. I think I’m trying to do something without really knowing what it is I’m trying to achieve with them. The thinking behind them is “I don’t want to (buy art materials)/(have the piano taking up space in the house) if I’m not using them” but I feel like the goals are making me feel I ought to be doing something beyond having fun and that’s sapping my desire to do anything.

• beeminderthread
• newmonthsresolution

I didn’t have any clear ideas for a new thing to try in August and then also didn’t get round to posting to this thread and took a break from reading the forum for a bit.

• storygraph

I’m happy with this derailment because it warned me that my books goal was likely to derail soon if I didn’t watch out. It’s been tricky but books is still just about on track.

• sage
• weeklydraw

Two work goals that I should probably have foreseen the need to put breaks in so I’d get a break from work sometime. However one is a pain if you get behind and the other is five minutes effort. I’m now caught up again though.

Comments

My last post was just after we concluded a year-plus long house move and I felt like I ought to be raring to go at other things, but I think I needed a break from Beeminder for a bit as much as anything else. (Also my new goal is for sorting out the after effects of the house move so I wasn’t as done with it as I felt at the time.)

At some point in the last few months my account got switched to using my honey money balance rather than charging me real money (I may have done this myself but I don’t remember doing it deliberately) and once I realised I wasn’t knocking small payments into my bank account every few days it felt much easier to let the goals slide. This may not have been a bad thing for my mental health but it’s definitely lessened the attraction of Beeminder.

I quite like the idea of having a budgeted amount for derailments using honey money but at the moment I’ve been spending the honey money that I was intending to use for a subscription renewal later this year. Now I’m wondering what happens if I let my subscription go.

• I have access to 86 goals which approximately equivalent to unlimited for my purposes.
• I think I’d miss custom goals but I’m not sure how often I really use the powers they give.
• I’d definitely miss the graph editor but my subscription matrix says I don’t have access to it anyway so I should probably discount that. Though this mostly seems like a way for me to do things without asking Beeminder support for assistance. But also I’m fairly sure I’ve made a couple of “help I messed up using the graph editor” requests too, so maybe it’s not so obvious from Beeminder’s point of view that they should just give it to me free.

I’m not making a decision on that until the renewal rolls around but just thought it would be useful to get my thoughts down about it now.

I think I’ll switch my account back to charging me real money though. (Done!)

As mentioned above the arts goals I added for drawing and piano aren’t gelling with me. At the moment they are making me feel like I’m attempting to use Beeminder for too many disparate things. Keeping different plates spinning is one of the things I value Beeminder for but I think I need to consider that maybe I need everything to be a little more focused and adding extra plates to spin isn’t always a good idea.

I organised my goals well a few months ago, clearing out some junk as I did it, I feel like I’ve maybe just been trying to add junk back in since.

[aad]

@k1rsty

I’d definitely miss the graph editor but my subscription matrix says I don’t have access to it anyway so I should probably discount that.

Are you referring to this graph editor?

I had a similar confusion - thought graph editor wasn’t part of the package for me after giving up premium.

Turns out that’s intentionally free See here.

[k1rsty]

New Goals

• plan - october goal to get a bit more organised and prioritise some planning. I know it always saves time in the long run but I’m very much bumbling along from day to day and forgetting the important things at the moment.

Derailments

• sortout - my september goal for the new month’s resolution thread derailed twice, not great but it’s kicked my arse a bit and informed my october goal
• books - and my 2024 goal for the new year’s resolution thread derailed too, but it’s been pretty successful and I’m pleased with it.
• storygraph - derailed, warning me that the books goal was likely to derail too, which was good.
• blanket2022 - craft project that I hadn’t had time for, I should have put a better break in this while I was busy, but I didn’t really realise I was busy (see above about planning…)
• ratechanges - a goal to make regular changes to my beeminder goal rates to make them reflect reality. I’m not sure I need this goal any more and might archive it; although maybe it would be more appropriate to just change it’s rate!

One of those could have been easily avoided but overall I’m reasonably happy with those derailments.

Comments

Urgency load was 50 when I started writing this thread! Which seemed very high to me. But I’ve knocked it down to 42 by adding in things I’ve already done; and once I’ve posted this thread it’ll go down again (35 yay!).

I think I’m going to let my Beeminder subscription renew to use up my honey money balance. If I let it lapse and then decide I need it it’ll be more expensive to renew so I feel that I might as well put the decision off for a while.

Other than that I’m feeling vaguely disillusioned with Beeminder lately, but this post has made me feel a bit less so. I think it’s one of those “it’s not you it’s me” things; and I think my planning goal for October might have been a good choice.

[k1rsty]

Well, I was planning on posting this thread today having put it off last week as I was ill but apparently illness rendered me unable to count and my goal to post to this thread derailed yesterday. Never mind, it’s a good way to get my computer working head back in order so let’s post anyway!

Derailments

• astro derailed on website updating, happy with that.
• plan another case of forgetting how weekends work and choosing to derail rather than do things on them; a failure to adequately plan the goal I guess!

And then the rest I chose to let derail rather than deal with things while I was ill:

• beeminderthread
• plan (well I didn’t actually realise that one was due again, seems I’d fixed the total for the month rather than the rate so the first derailment didn’t give me as much of a break as I’d thought)
• pomodoro
• storygraph

Archived

• piano one of those ‘if Beeminder isn’t making me do what I think I want to do then maybe I just don’t want to do what I think I want to do’ things.

Comments

Urgency load seems high but there are a few easy things I can do today to knock that down a lot; then I think my derailments will be giving me a bit of respite to take it easy and recover over the next few days.

As I thought I would last time I renewed my Beeminder subscription again with the rest of my honey money and very little real money.