Hi,
I’m lately going through some very hectic days and even though I’ve managed to stick to goals (with a few minor derails here and there) I consistently forget to enter data due to beeing dead tired at night.
How do you guys approach beeminding in these situations ?
I mail to my favourite support people:
not legit!
whoopsiedoodle I forgot to enter the data in time. I did that now. Please underail!
KTHXBYE
Then I think to myself next time some hectic times happen maybe I will know 7 days in advance and remember to dial the road down of all my many goals and then later don’t procrastinate dialing it back up again. Or use the visual road editor and hope it doesn’t blow up in my face and takes my browser with it. Or end up editing the wrong goal in there.
P.S.: Also hi @shxdow (:
Don’t know if I have any great advice, but thought I’d just let you know it’s not just you—beeminding when life is crazy and you’re dead tired is rough. I think it’s because Beeminder opens up so many possibilities that we tend to commit to a lot when life is good, and then Beeminder does it’s best to keep us on track when everything goes south, just like it promised it would, and it sucks. Not because Beeminder sucks, but because sometimes life sucks and Beeminder’s forcing us to keep on top of stuff in a way we probably wouldn’t have otherwise.
So, I guess if I did have advice, it might be something like:
Also, I’m totally with @phi—I always ask support to cancel derails if I staid on track in the real world but forgot to enter data.
I think this is an important question. I have used Beeminder through some pretty bonkers times, and I credit it a lot for helping me back on my feet as fast as I can
I would suggest that if you are having difficulty getting things done, to make a temporary adjustment to how much you have to do, or adjust the rate.
On the other hand, if you are having difficulty entering data… Maybe the right answer is to say ok, this happens, but maybe the right answer is to double down on entering data!
I don’t know what your goals are, but nice work getting them done even though things are busy. Is Beeminder actually harder to get done, or is it a case of “doing the work is important, and Beeminder can wait”?
I don’t want to advocate anything unhealthy, but for me, it’s important to realize Beeminder is nearly as important as any individual goal–I wouldn’t do nearly as much of what I really want to do without it.
You know you, and this may be way off base, but maybe it helps!
I agree with phi & narthur & adamwolf and just wanted to also point out this classic blog post from @philip about beeminding through a personal crisis:
I may be projecting this onto the OP’s question, but something that I’ve been thinking about lately is that Beeminder only works if you are actually presented with the decision of whether or not to derail before it’s too late. There have been quite a few times where I was so overwhelmed that I failed to monitor Beeminder enough to notice I was in danger of derailing. Since the impending derail never made it into my attention, my Beeminder pledge had no influence.
This may be a bigger problem for users like me who have quite a lot of goals (40+ currently), as the default settings for reminders leads to a constant stream of Beeminder panicking about one goal or another that 80% of the time can be safely ignored, but the other 20% of the time results in Beeminder not having the influence it should on my life.
I’ve attempted to solve this problem by changing the start time for the notifications to be much, much closer to the actual derail time (in most cases within an hour of when I absolutely have to start working on something in order to get it done in time), and then also set up Tasker to literally read Beeminder’s SMS notifications aloud when I’m at home. This seems to have helped some so far.
My god this is the most relatable thing. So my problem is that the more stressed I am or the worse the mental illness flare-up the more my memory & executive function are useless. I realize that I’m about to derail on >$50 worth of $10 and $5 goals at like 10pm and rush to get things done before midnight. That probably makes me a “tooth and nailer” by @dreev’s taxonomy. It’s less procrastination than just issues with some combination of hyperfocus and executive dysfunction.
Do you think a “deadline waterfall”, where you space out deadlines, could help this? I’ve been thinking maybe I need to do more of that to prevent this problem from happening.
I mean it’s definitely worth a shot! It’s a good idea.
Hi everyone,
I guess I did not give much context when first creating the thread. I’m lately being overwhelmed by the bilion things I have to do on a daily basis on top of beeminder’s goals. Many of the goals I currently have take from 10 to 25 minutes each which means I can (rather I have to) fit them during dead times in the day. Due to being “forced” to complete these tasks during these times, often in a rush, I forget to enter data or such. This is kind of a weird problem, one that has made me hesitate about writing about it: I do commit to goals as many of them have become an habit, but I avoid checking beeminder to lessen the already rampant anxiety I get when goals start piling up and im stuck in a class.
Anyway, I’m really thankful for all the kind words I’ve read, they really did cheer me up.
EDIT: for instance, I legit woke up today and noticed I didn’t enter data for like 2 days, my stuff is all messed up