hi, i’m aeternalis and i’m an akratic.
So, I certainly have aspects of the type bee personality, and I find Beeminder an incredibly powerful tool (for the graphs, chunking, and motivational design as much as for the hard commitment). However, I’ve overloaded the system in the past and have also used it in ways that didn’t interact particularly well with my mental health.
That said, I presently find myself lacking good systems to support my rather chaotic and obligation-filled life, so this journal will document my experiments in rebooting my Beeminder usage, and in working toward a more stable foundation and greater well-being (while watching out for my tendency to chase the distant mountaintops of hyperproductivity and perfection).
I’m starting with the self-described categories of “self-maintenance” and “recreation”. For “self-maintenance” I’m adding three goals that are easy habits (<3 minutes on average) but which, during my regular spells of depression, I’m likely to not bother with (or actively neglect), so I’m looking for the nudge effect here (which has worked in the past). These are set at 6.5 times/week (~93% adherence).
Then I have two hobby-centric goals (overall, the idea is encouraging me to make time for them):
- running-2025 - I am registered for a marathon in 2025, but at least with my Beeminder goal I’ll start with (effective after the holidays) a rate that is conservative and achievable even on bad weeks. I was thinking 20 miles per week for that, and then cut that in half to 10, which is like “bedrotting spiral” levels for me. I will adjust this upward with time. (I do know how to train for a marathon; just consciously choosing not to use a harder commitment for it at this point.)
- fiction writing - using a similar mindset, I have a target of 100 words per day, which on a first draft is like “write for 10 minutes” (I find word-count works better to ensure the keys are actually getting pressed) and which I would expect to exceed most of the time. When I have something in the editing stages, I’ll alter or replace this goal with a different one.
Goals I am explicitly not setting:
- weight loss, meals, etc - not-so-great historical relationship with food. I’ll work on this one at some point in the future. Probably starting with the “primum non amplifico” idea from the blog.
- productivity, task completion, and similar sorts of “do thing” goals - again, wearing in the system first, and I want to structure these to make life feel more stable overall, watching out for my particular pitfalls (overwhelm, depression). So, some goal-crafting thought is warranted.
(It does occur to me that I could make some precommitments here anyway… but we’ll see. Job one is realistically and sustainably pacing myself and not burning out.)