Hey everyone. I haven’t participated much around here, but thought it might help keep me focused if I do. I’ve had a bad time this week – derailing once already on my fitbit goal, and about to do so again, and I think I derailed on one of my reading goals as well. I was contemplating asking for it not to be counted when I get the legitimacy check, since it’s partly because of… not injury exactly, but my backbone feels like a very painful broomstick up the back of my body!
But, on reflection, I think instead I want to build up a safety buffer using the fact that it’ll go flat, and keep myself accountable for the fact that I carelessly let my safety buffer get eaten up, too. $5 isn’t so bad for a first sting, after all, and might provide a motivation boost.
But that’s the stick – anyone got some carrots for me? I was doing really well with my fitbit goals, but failing just a little tends to leave me pretty despondent, no matter what it is… Hence why Beeminder is likely to work for me, but still, I could use some help keeping my chin up!
Well, I have a “walking” goal (4 km daily), and I use Runkeeper to measure how much I hike. I also had an autoratchet setting (I’m on Plan Bee) at 7 days*. Maybe I’m weird (hint: yes I am), but managing to fire up an autoratchet was a big carrot for me (like in: “yeah, I did it again, whoa!”), so I hiked 180 km in February and about 160 km in March instead of 116 and 124 respectively. At the same time, this guarantees a reasonable buffer.
That said, I have to say that I like hiking a lot, so for me it would even make sense to have a do-less goal on it, too (because my work must be done!). OTOH, part of the reason I like it so much is that I often walk more than I “have to” and I can see me breaking the records, so it seems to be a complicated feedback… Maybe this is the right way: to develop an attitude of really, really liking to do what you beemind (or beeminding what you really like)?
*Today, a few minutes ago, I changed my setting to 14 days. This will take some time for the autoratchet to kick in again, but I’ll make it! And then I’m going to increase the autoratchet setting again. Now this is a challenge!
Hmmm, that is an interesting way of motivating yourself! I’m not on Plan Bee, at least for now, so it’s not an option for me, but I wonder if I can figure out a way of giving myself similar motivation. I don’t think you’re weird at all, at least for that reason!