Brennan's Beeminder Journal

Hey Zed! I definitely agree with your mindset, and I think it’s sensible, but only for sensible people–which I am not.

The real definition of “incapacitated” can be a slippery slope for somebody with a weasel-like mindset (me), and so it can be difficult to judge when exactly a non-legit derail occurs. Back in 2018 when I previously tried to commit to Beeminder full-time, I called non-legit a bunch, which you can see in my /french graph.

I didn’t even realize this was a big deal until the No Excuses discussion started, but obviously I should’ve since it’s pretty obvious. I feel pretty bad about it in retrospect. So, I suppose this is just personal preference.

Also in entry #39, I talked about the /derail meta-system, which will derail legit whenever another system derails non-legit, which also helps.

My argument against this is primarily logistics-driven. Even if you’re totally okay with non-legit derails, there’s still a dozen e-mails I have to respond to if I miss an entire day, and a dozen graphs that need to be fixed, etc. Which is a pain for both myself and support that can easily be avoided.

Also, the idea to be able to change colours (so that things are red with a couple days buffer, etc.) is in the All Of Our Ideas feature requests, which might help!

I also have to add the disclaimer that I’m still totally edge-skating and this is an ambitious and idealistic idea for myself at this point. In fact, I just derailed an hour ago! My productivity is an empty tank right now. :rofl:

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Wait, be sure to read the “EDIT” I added toward the top of “No-Excuses Mode”! :heart:

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Week Forty-six! A little late this week, but most of what I wanted to talk about was covered by answer @ZedMango’s questions. I also had to reinstall my operating system (again) because both my sound and WiFi drivers suddenly and mysteriously vanished last week. The good news is that the problems I had with my NVIDIA card seemed to have been resolved with this updated version of Xubuntu, so minor victories.

Truth be told, I’m still feeling stuck in a rut. I’m still performing all the Beeminders I currently have, but as I’ve said before, that’s the bare minimum. Although I’d much rather be updating with a personal failure than not update at all. It’s honestly shocking how material is scoured across the Internets that has been unceremoniously shelved indefinitely with no updates!

One of the reasons I’ve been “lazy” is because I started playing Dwarf Fortress again, which is an absolute time sink, but luckily you run out of things to do after playing it for a week or two straight.

Now I’m planning to work on a forth Jekyll theme starting tomorrow, to replace the one that I’m currently using that I built from scratch nearly a year ago now. In retrospect, man it is ugly.

Also related, I’m sad to say that my ownership of Journal.Bar/ is going to be expiring soon, and even though the purchase cost was only a few dollars, the renewal is $65 CAD! That’s how they getcha. I’m not sure what URL to go with next, since it’s not really worth that much to me.

Oh, no worries. I totally get that the particular user persona that weasels barfing cats is probably far more weasel-minded than I am. (Though I have to take your word on that, since I’ve yet to meet such a person)

But I do think that “No Excuses” is just a good rule to have for all Beeminder goals in general, and maybe it’d be a more constructive goal for 2021 to enable that for all my Beeminders, instead of trying to entirely prevent non-legit derails.

People who require Beeminder to do work are often the kind of people that would try to avoid doing work altogether, so I’m not really surprised to see this be such an issue.

It’s funny, I think about how people that do their work don’t really need Beeminder, and people who don’t wouldn’t bother trying to use it. And yet there’s a large number of people (myself included) that do use it! I believe this is because humans are contradictory by their inherent nature, thank goodness. :wink:

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Week Forty-seven! I’d said I’m doing better this week, productivity-wise. I’m upgrading to a new workstation tomorrow, so that’s pretty exciting.

In regards to Beeminder, I’ve been trying out small approaches to small new habits. For the past while, I’ve been using /morning-pages2 as a way to get into the habit of opening a Google Doc and just write gibberish!

The idea I’ve had is to get up in the morning and doing the act of morning pages, but my Monkeyweasel mind still doesn’t wanna, so I’m taking the approach of getting the simple mechanical act of the habit ingrained, and then doing the writing part.

It’s pretty funny, since I have so many other habits that I can do with relative ease, I’m not sure if it’s just something particular about this, or if I’ve reached a sort of willpower limit, if you will.

On a similar note, I’ve had this bottle of multi-vitamins that I seldom take more than once a week, even though I ought to take it daily. I find micro-managing this sort of thing with Beeminder unhelpful, since it’d just be a manual entry goal that I could easily weasel.

However, I bought an additional cod-oil vitamin D supplement (due to the lack of sun in Canadian winter), and I’ve started taking both daily. It might sound silly, but I think this is because the vitamin D tablet is much smaller, and thus less intimating to try to take!

Also, since being cognizant of derails, I’ve been doing them a lot. :sweat_smile: Unlike previously, I haven’t ratchet’d my mercy-week of buffer following it, which takes a bit of pressure off, but also results in an ugly plateau in the graphs. Of course, as any seasoned Beeminder user will tell you, the aesthetics of the graphs are the biggest selling point.

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They are so pretty!

As far as multivitamins go, if you find them intimidating, you might want to look for some gummy vitamins! There are some that are just like candy hehe. :candy:

I also find journaling so much easier with pen and paper! I like the gibberish idea :slight_smile:

I call these insta-goals - goals that you can do right away in less than a minute. They’re my favorite - the limited time makes it less intimidating somehow.

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/Courses : Tracking the courses I take through online learning platforms manually. Will also track assignments when I start my program.”

How are you tracking all the courses?

Wouldn’t it be better if you track each course itself?

For ex., track when you start a course and its completion, how many times you went through it, how long it took you to complete, etc.?

I have some courses I started and didn’t finish so I’m trying to figure out how to use Beeminder to complete the course and apply what I will be learning from the course.

Maybe tracking how to use Beeminder to complete a course and tracking what I’m applying from learning from the course is a nebulous goal How to beemind nebulous projects like doing your taxes or fixing a neurosis - #9 by lanthala ?

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Oh man, you could TOTALLY beemind your notes using that technique! Just take the notes in a google doc, set a slope that would result in the speed of class-taking you desire, and go! If the assignments are such that they can be done in plain text, you could include those in the doc as well, otherwise just rely on the fact that you (should) have to do the assignment before watching the next class. I have a coursera class that I want to take soon, and I might try that myself (my other thought was to beemind anki cards added from the class).

Also, re: beeminding little things like pills, I’m 100% with @zedmango here (as usual :P); the majority of my beeminded goals are tiny manual-goal reminders like toothbrushing in the morning, taking my pills, taking melatonin, turning the compost, journaling, etc. None of them take long at all, but somehow without a prod I just won’t do them, so beeminder gives me that prod. But I don’t particularly have issues with weaseling (most of my goals are manual or would be trivially fudged if I wanted to) so that probably influences things.

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@lanthala so the speed of note-taking would be intensity measured in minutes?

I was actually going to go slow in note-taking as I rarely made notes in the past, kept them in my head and quiz myself.

I’ve been trying to apply this book How To Take Smart Notes by Sonke Ahrens in RoamResearch. I just took this course today called Algorithms of Thought by codexfutura. He advocates Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren’s How To Read A Book and basically applies that book’s principles & rules to today’s books and papers in the RoamResearch app.

I wish there is going to be a Roam integration with Beeminder because I currently beeminding a nebulous goal in Roam.

Regarding with what @zedmango, I should be beeminding my pills: less sleeping pills & consistently take melatonin.

Thanks @lanthala

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Oh, I didn’t mean speed as in “notes per minute”, but like “classes per week” :smiley: If each class gives you, say, 1000 words of notes, then setting a slope of 2000 words a week would push you to take 2 classes a week.

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(What sort of things would you like to Beemind using Roam? I’m collecting ideas.)

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I would love a Roam integration too. One obvious candidate would be the number of results returned by a particular Roam query. Some other ideas: number of words (or number of edits) on a particular page; number of pages/blocks with a particular tag (i.e. number of linked references to a particular page).

I’d also love to figure out how to trigger some code from within Roam to submit data points to Beeminder. E.g. imagine if ticking off a TODO with a particular tag could automatically trigger submission of a data point.

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Hi @adamwolf just for starters, # of words per page since I’m using roam to my diary/log for my nebulous goal.

I’m still a roam newbie so I’m trying to spend as much time on it and learn and apply its features. Maybe minutes/hours spent on it. # of features used (which would mean I’ll have to know and use each and every feature)? # of capstone projects made with it?

Number of bidirectional links and I don’t know… number of connections thought of – is that possible?

I don’t know how the app integrations work because I’ve only used Beeminder as a standalone product.

But I’m thinking of using Complice with Beeminder and see. And Beemind my use of Complice.

I’ll reply with some more ideas as I use Roam and the more I use Beeminder.

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Week Forty-eight! Quite a bit of discussion this week, how exciting! I suppose I’ll try my best to respond to it all.

I wrote about this in entry #41 a little bit, but my approach to this is twofold: Have one Beeminder that’s outcome-based, and one that’s system-based.

/courses: For the outcome, each course I’m tracking is one on Lynda.com, since their material is really high-quality and I get free access with my public library card! I also added each individual assignment I did back when I was in my coding bootcamp as a data point as well.

/learning: For the system, I’m measuring my time per day that I’m learning, with a custom category on RescueTime that’s specifically only tracking Lynda and my note-taking app. You could also say this is a subsystem of /productivity, since all the time here is also added to my overall time-tracking.

Speaking of notes, I don’t have a Beeminder directly associated with them since enjoy writing them! I have a slightly outdated directory of notes that I intend to transform into a digital garden of sorts. And then when I push these notes, it’ll be added to my /github system, and my word count will be added to /writing, which is a nice example of how I try to connect these systems on top of each other.

I hope some of that might help!

(Very related, I’ll once again advocate for Obsidian, which is a local and free alternative to Roam Research that I’m developing a Jekyll project on top of.)

I agree very much! Regretfully, like a lot of other “planner people”, I’ve found a lot less usage for my bullet journal for planning and writing since I’m stuck at home and just capture everything digitally. I also have dysgraphia which makes longform journal-writing rather painful, sadly.

I’m the total opposite! I try to avoid doing manual goal-setting as much as possible. I’m (thankfully) quite good at doing small tasks without needing Beeminder, so it’d take more work for me to add their data in Beeminder than just doing them, and in contrast to the combination of anxiety and laziness I face when dealing with large, meaningful projects. I’m also super weasel-minded, as you can tell :stuck_out_tongue:.

When I was younger and suuuuper into self-help, I’d try to schedule each block of time for a specific productive task and how the most optimized day possible. Of course, when the time came in reality, I’d end up sleeping in or spending the first two hours of my day doing something entirely off-script, which totally demoralized me for the rest of the day.

Now, I suppose I take an “intuitive” approach to getting work done–as long as it gets done before sometime during the day before midnight, then I don’t worry about precision.

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I love seeing how people use Beeminder for such completely different things. Same system, totally different reasons and methods. I’m the opposite to you: I tend to have fewer issues with the large things – they’re either important or interesting enough that I can get motivated and do it all at once. But the little things, like tooth brushing or journaling or turning the compost bin, those get pushed aside or forgotten because they’re boring and not immediately important, and I can’t get hyped and do it all at once while I’m motivated – “little and often” is my nemesis!

(But much like you, I never could get block scheduling to work either; still looking for someone who uses it effectively who can explain their trick…)

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Week Forty-nine! Missed a week! Or rather, I’ve already missed a Journal Bar entry, but I’m alright with that, since I’ve been sliding further and further from my weekly deadline of Monday to all the way to Friday!

By just waiting a few more days, I can essentially just “derail” for a week and re-calibrate myself. Speaking of, I’ve had a couple of derails since my last entry, in both /distraction and /writing.

Not much to update other than that, I’m afraid! It has been an entire year since I’ve began this Beejournal, starting on February 10th of last year, and I’ve been wanting to go through all the various things that I’ve accomplished with the all-mighty help and thanks to Beeminder, but it just feels kinda silly when I’m in such a slump right now?

There’s an extreme cold warning in effect where I’m at right now. It’s a balmy -33C° right now, and it’ll continue to be that for at least another week, so I haven’t been able to get out at all, really.

I try to remind myself of all the important things. Like how any amount of effort and progress, no matter how small, is infinitely better than nothing. Or that action begets action and inaction begets inaction. Or meditate on the ugly shrub principle, but the monkey-weasel of nihilistic hedonism beckons all the same.

Regardless, I’ll still keep this updated. I’ve been going over other Beejournals to see what formats and talking points I might be able to borrow, and it’s a wonder to see how many just abruptly end. I know I’ll eventually be able to shake the dust and get my shit together.

On the more logistical side of things, since renewing journal.bar/ was too expensive, I’ve instead bought journal.kim/ and I’m going to be transferring over! I’m sure that most people who read this only read the forum, so it’s not a big deal. It’s more just a hassle for me to update all of the links, hah.

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I’ve been trying to make it work this year (see my Zed Sched post) and my trick (borrowed from @mary) is I only have to do one minute in each block, and also I don’t have to do it if any of a few different reasons apply (sleep problem, important work obligation, important admin task, prescheduled event).

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Week Fifty! Of course, late again. Although this time it was only partly my fault, as I had a minor medical emergency and a rather surprise moving out. I’ve been diligently keeping up with my Beeminders, though! Only one derailment, /photos. And also a non-legit derail on /distraction, sadly adding my first datapoint to /derail.

But overall, I’m feeling really good and I’m excited to start doing more good work. Journal.Kim/ is now online with a bit of a new look! If you’re curious, here’s a pic of how it looked around last year! It is really great to have a little blog that you can maintain independently, and it’s helped teach me a lot of things about going forth with bigger projects.

I also did the much-needed housekeeping of updating datapoints to everything! Usually, when I add data for /books or /courses, I just add the digit without adding the note of what specifically reading or learning. It’s kind of satisfying to go back and review each different thing all at once. I also added an auto-ratchet to /meditation to help keep me more consistent with it, since I’ve been getting good at doing it consistently.

It’s crazy to think that when I initially started this journal a year ago, I only had five goals. As of right now, I have twenty-six(!), though a handful are meta/supporting systems.

Overall, my systems/goals are relatively stable. I feel like my initial goal of trying to implement Beeminder systems that encompass all areas of life to ensure a balanced and content existence is a modest success so far.

I do have plans for a few changes and updates in the near future, like getting an Android tablet so I could use RescueTime to specifically track my reading time. (One caveat of the Apple mobile ecosystem is that RescueTime can’t track specific things.) As well as reflecting on my relationship with social media and trying to find ways to use it productively and use it to my advantage–easier said than done.

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Week Fifty-one! I’m recovering from a minor surgery and just settling in. Overall, things are going good. I’m finally diving into Eleventy which I wish I had done sooner! It’s similar to Jekyll, but a lot more powerful and flexible, and although relatively niche right now, I see a bright future ahead. I’m planning to migrate my Jekyll projects to it.

Anyways, back to Bees, it’s been since entry #25 that I went over all of my systems entirely! And since this is entry #51, perhaps I’ll make it a bi-annual sort of thing. (Would data points be too sparse to make that a feasible Beeminder? Hah!)

I apologize for the following redundancy, however I felt it was a good idea to just have a single, cohesive reference that I can add to or modify easily. Each system has a explanation, as well as an update on how progress is going:

(Additional apologies for going a little emoji-crazy, but once I start I really can’t stop.)

The Metasystem 2021: Review

:compass: LEGEND:

  • :green_circle: Denotes Beeminder goals that are going really well, and are at a point where I enjoy doing them or do them automatically.
  • :yellow_circle: Denotes Beeminder goals that I’m having difficulty with, but still manage to get done when needed.
  • :red_circle: Denotes Beeminder goals that I’m either often derailing on, or putting off altogether due to friction somewhere.
  • :memo: Denotes Beeminder goals that are outcome-oriented, meaning they track finished, tangible products in some manner.
  • :repeat: Denotes Beeminder goals that are systems-oriented, meaning they track daily habits that contribute to outcomes, but can be done endlessly.
  • :balloon: Denotes Beeminder goals that are miscellaneous or meta in nature, or just for fun.

:pencil2: Writing

  • :green_circle::repeat: Writing:
    Metrics: Tracking the amount of words that I write digitally, with a rate of 450 words/day. Data added via first-party integration with Draftin.
    Current Progress: Since I began tracking in June 2020, I’ve written over 160,000 words(!). I was intimated to start doing it sooner, but it was a habit that I quickly started to enjoy. Most of this is just private journal entries, but also counting blog posts, poems, and this Bee Journal!
    • :yellow_circle::memo: Blog:
      Metrics: Tracking the amount of blog posts that I write, with a current rate of 1 post/week. Data added via IFTTT and Medium.
      Current Progress: I’ve written a bunch of more blog posts since I started tracking this again last year, around two dozen that I’m proud of! Recently, though, I’ve been deleting posts that I’ve been writing because I feel as though they haven’t been up to snuff, so I’m going to be lowering the rate to 2 entries/month.
    • :green_circle::memo: Journalbar:
      Metrics: Tracking the amount of posts that I add to Journal.Kim with a rate of 1 entry/week. Data added manually.
      Current Progress: I’m often late in writing these updates, but I still manage to get out on per week, and it’s really enjoyable!
    • :red_circle::repeat: Morning Pages:
      Metrics: Tracking the amount of words that I write in a Google Doc, with a deadline of 11am instead of midnight like all of my other goals, and a rate of 250 words/day. Data added via URLMinder.
      Current Progress: Currently archived, I still haven’t started this one! I’m going to push myself to just get it started this week.
    • :yellow_circle::memo: Poetry:
      Metrics: Tracking the amount of poems that I post, with a rate of 1 poem/week. Data added via IFTTT and Tumblr.
      Current Progress: I’ve written around 50 new poems since I started tracking this again! I’m currently in a bit of a creative slump though, but it’ll pass.
  • :yellow_circle::memo: Twitter:
    Metrics: Tracking the amount of tweets that I post, with a rate of 1 tweet/day. Data added via first-party integration with Twitter.
    Current Progress: I’ve been using this on a private Twitter for a personal diary of sorts, but since I’ve been using Draft for that more extensively, I want to transition to actually using a public Twitter.

:chart_with_upwards_trend: Productivity

  • :green_circle::repeat: Productive Time:
    Metrics: Tracking the amount of productive time that I spend on the computer, with a rate of 6 hrs/day. Data added via first-party integration with RescueTime.
    Current Progress: Since I began tracking again last year, I’ve worked roughly 1,200 productive hours(!). Similar to Beeminder, just having the graphs and data for my usage motivates me a lot.
    • :green_circle::repeat: GitHub:
      Metrics: Tracking the amount of commits that I push to GitHub, with a rate of 1 commit/day. Data added via GitMinder.
      Progress: Since I began tracking last year, I’ve pushed over 700 commits(!) and create a few open-source projects that I’m really proud of. I could track my time coding using WakaTime as well, but this seems to be a good metric.
    • :yellow_circle::memo: Courses:
      Metrics: Tracking the amount of courses that I complete on Linkedin Learning, with a rate of 2 courses/month. Data added manually.
      Current Progress: Since I began tracking, I’ve completed dozens of courses! But I do need to work on learning retention and meaningfulness, since I can breeze by materials too quickly sometimes.
    • :yellow_circle::repeat: Learning:
      Metrics: Tracking the amount of time that I spend on specific websites and software to encourage my learning in the above courses, with a rate of 1 hr/day. Data added via RescueTime with custom categories.
      Current Progress: I’ve restarted this goal a bunch because like I said, I don’t spend enough time on materials, but I’ve been getting better at it the past few months!
  • :yellow_circle::repeat: Distracting Time:
    Metrics: Tracking the amount of unproductive time that I spend on the computer, with a limit of 2 hrs/day. Data added via first-party integration with RescueTime.
    Current Progress: I only have clocked around 300 hours of distracting time this year, but I do derail on this more than most other goals, so I need to be more mindful of how I spend my time on the computer.

:muscle: Physical Health

  • :green_circle::repeat: Daily Activity:
    Metrics: Tracking the amount that I walk, with a rate of 5000 steps/day. Data added via first-party integration with Fitbit.
    Current Progress: Since I began tracking last year, I’ve walked over 2.5 million steps(!), though I recently cut the rate by half because I wasn’t walking as much with the cold weather, but since it’s getting warm again, I’m raising it again soon!
  • :green_circle::repeat: Sleeping:
    Metrics: Tracking the amount that I sleep, with a rate of 7.21 hrs/day. Data added via first-party integration with Fitbit.
    Current Progress: Since I began tracking last year, I’ve slept over 2,500 hours, which is double the amount of productive time I’ve accomplished, yikes. At least I’ve been rather consistent with the amount I sleep.
  • :green_circle::balloon: Weight:
    Metrics: Tracking the amount that I weigh, with a rate of -2.43 lbs./month. Data added via first-party integration with Fitbit.
    Current Progress: My scale broke, (though not because of me, I swear!), but I’m down around 15 lbs. since I began tracking in October.
    • :red_circle::balloon: Weight-check
      Metrics: Meta, tracking the amount of times that I add my weight data to FitBit and Beeminder, with a rate of 1 data-point/day. Data added manually.
      Current Progress: I was really consistent for several months, and I hope to start again when I get a new scale, whoops!
  • :green_circle::repeat: Foodlog:
    Metrics: Tracking the meals that I eat, with a rate of 1 data-point/day. Data added manually.
    Current Progress: Although rather superficial, I find it is helpful to just write down what I eat, even without nutritional or caloric data, and have found myself eating more healthy over the year!

:brain: Mental Health

  • :green_circle::repeat: Gratitude:
    Metrics: Tracking what I’m grateful for, with a rate of 1 data-point/day. Data added manually.
    Current Progress: Since I began tracking last year, I’ve written about hundreds of things I’ve been grateful for! I should probably increase this to 3 things a day, though.
  • :green_circle::repeat: Meditation:
    Metrics: Tracking the amount of time that I meditate, with a rate of 8 minutes/day. Data added via first-party integration with Apple Health and the Insight Timer app.
    Current Progress: Since I began tracking in October, I’ve meditated over 18 hours, and it’s definitely helped stabilize and increase my mood. I need to take the time I meditate more seriously, though.
    • :green_circle::repeat: Prayer:
      Metrics: Tracking the amount of times that I perform the Rosary, with a rate of 1 prayer/day. Data added via Electronic Rosary.
      Current Progress: Similar to meditation, I’ve enjoyed beginning doing this practice, but need to isolate more time to devote towards it.

:sunglasses: Lifestyle

  • :green_circle::repeat: Duolingo:
    Metrics: Tracking the amount of XP that I gain in Duolingo, with a rate of 20XP/day. Data added via first-party integration with Duolingo.
    Current Progress: Since I began tracking last year, I’ve gained over 12,000 XP and have a 280-day streak! It’s a fun habit that helps me transition into focus, productive work.
    • :green_circle::repeat: Clozemaster:
      Metrics: Tracking the amount of points that I gain in Clozemaster, with a rate of 150 points/day. Data added via first-party integration with Clozemaster.
      Current Progress: Since I began tracking in October, I’ve gained 25,000 points and have a 140-day streak! I find it helps me learn French better than Duolingo at this point.
  • :red_circle::memo: Photos:
    Metrics: Tracking the amount of photos that I post, with a rate of 1 post/day. Data added via IFTTT and Instagram.
    Current Progress: Since I began tracking in July, I’ve posted over 200 photos. Although I’m also in a creative slump with this rate now, and need to find what I want to photograph.
  • :yellow_circle::memo: Books:
    Metrics: Tracking the amount of books that I read, with a rate of 3 books/month. Data added manually.
    Current Progress: Since I began tracking in June, I’ve read almost 30 books, or rather, listened to. I really need to get into the habit of sitting down and actually reading, instead of just having audiobooks so I can multi-task.
  • :green_circle::repeat: Jobs:
    Metrics: Tracking the amount of jobs that I apply for, with a rate of 3 applications/day. Data added via IFTTT and Google Sheets.
    Current Progress: Since I began tracking in September, I’ve applied to almost 500 jobs, which sounds a little crazy. I know that I need to start tracking more meaningful data points, like call-backs, interviews, etc.

🤷 Meta / Misc.

  • :green_circle::balloon: Derail:
    Metrics: Meta, tracking the amount of times that I have to e-mail about a non-legit derail, with a current rate of 0, meaning that I will derail if this happens no matter what.
    Current Progress: Since I began tracking in November, I’ve only had to use this once so far, yay!
  • :red_circle::balloon: Meta:
    Metrics: Meta, tracking the amount of data-points that are added to all of my other goals, rather it’s manual or automatic, with a rate of 25 data-points/day. Data added via Beemind.me
    Current Progress: Since I began tracking in August, I’ve added nearly 9,000 data-points in Beeminder! Sadly, the API seems to have stopped working, so I’m going to have to archive. (It was silly and pointless, anyways.)
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Week Fifty-two! Finally, reaching a canonical year a few weeks late due to my usual tardiness. I decided to do a bit more of a qualitative write-up for my year review on LinkedIn and my main blog.

Which made me beg the question–should I be aiming to be more metric/quantitatively-focused, or qualitative and anecdotal? I’m leaning more towards the former than the latter, since sticking to the numbers help me stick to talking about Beeminder, instead of wandering off about other things in my life which I often do. :stuck_out_tongue:

One thing that reviewing this past year has taught me is that I need to review myself much more often! There are so many helpful things I take note of, only totally forget because I wrote about it weeks or months ago. Often, I feel as though I am a squirrel that plants useful acorns for later, and then forget, and hopefully they can at least become trees for others, hah!

Perhaps it’s a fear of realizing I haven’t really made much process, or just not wanting to cringe at past-me, but whatever the case, I need to get over it.

Speaking of excuses–I’m putting a stop to them. If I’m late, I’m late. If I derail, I derail. There’s no need to try to rationalize each and every setback I have, and it deters from me being honest–which is the entire point of this journal and using Beeminder itself.

Overall, I feel as though I need to take Beeminder more seriously–which might sound silly, but it’s true. When dealing with manual goals, I often just add data-points when I’m in the red without much regard. I had a dozen blank data points in /books because I just shrugged it off and told myself I’d fill them in later. As well as deeply thinking about the tradeoffs of tracking by particular metrics, etc.

That kind of irreverence really does not help me. I need to look at Beeminder-as-a-Meditation, more than Beeminder-as-an-App. In fact, it’s really more like Beeminder-as-a-Framework: It’s not really about the data or Beeminder at all, but rather revolving life around productive and helpful actions and intentions, rather than nebulous and ambiguous tasks in solitude that are washed away at the end of each day like sandcastles in the tide.

But then the question arises: When do you stop beeminding things? :thinking::thought_balloon: If something becomes second-nature and effortless, should I remove the goal? Maybe I’m being too sentimental about the data and history, and that the obvious answer is yes, because Beeminder has an obvious and almost strict function and intention.

When I look at my own archive page, all the goals there either stopped working due to a tech issue, or a personal failing. All of the goals that I’ve set up for myself so far have been created with the intention of having a lifetime permanency. Maybe that’s been a bit of a blindspot for me, and I’m kinda using Beeminder as a crutch even when I don’t really need it.

The obvious answer is no to me - if Beeminder helps something become habitual, why would you then take that support away? That’s like saying an umbrella has kept you dry, so you don’t need it anymore (as RBG said about the Voting Rights Act).

So I don’t think it’s a blindspot to intend to keep your goals as long as you want them. The crutch analogy suggests you need to heal from some sort of injury, and once it’s healed, then you can stop using it.

But I don’t believe that akrasia is something that can be healed from, the way a broken ankle can - I think it’s a human limitation that we use tools to overcome, and I haven’t seen much evidence that we can “heal” it with Beeminder. I see Beeminder as a tool to fight akrasia, and if you take away the tool, you lose its benefits.

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