Congrats to the bee-founders: Your Infibee plan is making me pay up for lack of focus. I’m most effective with at most three daily goals. Anything beyond that should instead be a habit.
I’m still stingy, but at least I’m paying for some kind of bad behavior.
How is the Infinibee plan making you pay for lack of focus?
Thanks, I edited the original post accordingly.
I get it now. What do you think of @nepomuk’s argument that 9 is the perfect number of goals? I’m actually super impressed with those who can handle beeminding dozens of goals. I guess I have a seemingly unwieldy number myself but most of them bubble up to eep territory only very occasionally and some are really just for tracking. Like this Misfit goal demands exactly zero of my focus since I just wear the thing as a necklace 24/7 and have the road dialed conservatively (but if I got absurdly sedentary it would catch up with me, so it’s a kind of insurance policy).
(Btw, “Infinibee” not “Infibee”.)
I believe people who have that many bee-goals are using beeminder wrong, and here is how to do better. The key to lasting behavior change is not cognitive, unlike beeminder. Some better ideas are: lots of little supportive habits designed to remove you from temptation, an environment that demands good behavior, reframing to make virtues enjoyable. In more actionable terms: “never buy sweets” is an easier habit than dieting; your boss is an anti-procrastination tool in your personal environment; reframing annoyance at other’s tardiness into pride over my own safety buffer.
The right thing to beemind is the launch of these key supportive changes. Then they have to run on their own forever (else you have to iteratively add another one). Such a launch is hard, focussed work. That’s why I’m wary of too many goals. Conversely, if it’s not hard, you’re accumulating unsustainable “goals” that haven’t made it into lasting behavior change.
Personally, nine actionable goals per day is too much for me. Six barely work, but three is the most effective number.