This is not a new post. I made a very small edit to this today, Tue July 6, 2021. I didn’t realize that would bump this up to the top of the posts.
CoolHandLouis’s Journal Entry #2
I originally wrote this as a reply to another post. I’ve enhanced it with points #5 and #6, and I’d like to repost it as part of my journal. This post might be continually refined.
PRE DERAILMENT PROCESS
My personal philosophy/strategy for most of my goals is to get ahead a bit on my beeminder goals, so that I have some buffer for occasional lapses.
That said, I think that a failure on a beeminder goal is more serious than just the financial penalty. If the day gets late, my resolve gets a little weak, I don’t want to have the mindset of thinking “Ahh it’s just $5, I’m okay with paying out $5 to not do that particular goal tonight.”. No, it’s more important than that.
How much more important it is, that’s debatable and is a personal preference. But I think that’s an important question for each person to answer.
https://blog.beeminder.com/schelling/
I can make my goals more important than just the financial penalty by following a post derailment process (some of which can be spelled out ahead of time in a goal’s fine details).
POST DERAILMENT PROCESS
If I derail, I’ll consider the following points:
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Why did I derail? Was there a valid reason such as illness or exception in the fine print?
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Beeminder tuning (Beetuning). Do I need to be a little easier on myself, and reduce the bright red line slope? For example, I overcommitted on the amount of exercise I could do. Or perhaps I just need to anticipate an occasional slump, so I need to maintain a larger buffer? Of course, this strategy may or may not be applicable, depending upon the goal.
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Have I simply not reached my motivational pledge point? If so, then it very well may be a case of just accepting the derailment and moving to a higher motivational pledge point.
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If I have not reached my motivational pledge point, but I also do not want to increase my maximum pledge, then I might need to reframe the goal to something easier. One needs to be mindful to frame their goals within the bounds of their financial ability to reach their goal’s motivational pledge points. This is a more drastic form of beetuning.
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Very similar to the prior point, Beeminder is based on the hypothesis that a sufficient pledge amount would affect a behavioral change. But that might not be absolutely true for every goal. So the question becomes, are there some other things that need to be added to my personal “behavioral change and commitment stack” that might help me to avoid derailing again?
Some examples might be, (1) talk to my therapist or accountability partner about it (2) journal about it (3) brainstorm other ideas how to better commit (4) include some other punishment in the fine details (atonement). Example for #4 might be doing a bunch of situps, or doing community service like cleaning up trash of the side of the road.
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Consider adding in any specialized post derailment instructions, atonements, etc. into the Beeminder goal’s fine print.
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Is it an acceptable utility/expense ratio? If one is happy with their progress even with an occasional derailment, then that is also fine. It’s a matter of utility versus expense.
For example, someone has a big problem brushing their teeth consistently. So they create a continual beemergency capped as a $10 contract to brush their teeth every day, and they only derail twice a year, then that’s a very successful outcome for $20, which they can afford, and nothing needs to change.
(Thanks @narthur for pointing this out to me.)