It is common knowledge among Beeminder aficionados that one should prefer to beemind inputs rather than outputs.
This seems logical. There’s no point in beeminding revenue since, in most case, it is either highly volatile or very stable.
(well, it does seem to work for @narthur, so take this with a grain of salt)
It’s better to beemind the amount of time worked instead of beeminding revenue
But what if I told you that there was a better solution to push oneself to work, other than beeminding work hours?
I wanted to work 4 hours /day overall, and 2 hours/day on beegig.
The issue is that I get paralyzed because 2 hours seems a lot to me.
I say to myself: “woah, 2 hours is huge! I’ll do it later. Let’s watch some anime or scroll on Reddit”.
It’s like Beeminder is throwing a brick at me, and I know that I’m too weak anyway. (but it’s only an illusion - I could work more!)
Then, I anxiously scroll on Instagram/Reddit/YouTube, saying to myself: “woah, this dog is cute, and I just received another Telegram message ”
It’s 2am, the Beeminder deadline is approaching and I feel terrible because of both beeminder, myself, and natural consequences of not working.
Also, working on beegiglooks terribly boring right now because of the current theme of the work.
However, this is only an impression; once I get going, I actually have fun.
It’s like cleaning a house. It seems daunting at first, but once you’re in the flow, sometimes, it can be pleasant to move around and improve things.
And after, I’m relieved to have done it and can enjoy my day better.
Actually sitting down, picking a task and starting a timer. This is the hard moment.
If I don’t get menaced by beeminder, I don’t want to work.
If I get menaced with a 4 hours block of work, I’ll tell myself it’s over already.
So, here’s my solution: create a manual goal that tells me to sit down with the intent to work for 10 minutes.
New goals
name
description
amount
session_beegig
sit down and work at least 10 minutes on beegig
1/day
session_tagrecords
sit down and work at least 10 minutes on tagrecords
Excellent idea, thanks for sharing! As someone who has derailed many times on similar gig-related time-tracking goals, I’m going to create some nudge goals today to support little-and-often work on my most important projects.
Folks who beemind going to the gym often do something similar: they just need to physically get there, rather than tracking the time they spend working out.
Somewhere on here there’s also been a discussion of microhabits, which seems related.
It looks interesting, I especially liked this review:
I decided to build the Mini Habit of exercising for 5 minutes per day. My Mini Habit would, at least initially, consist of running in place in our backyard if the weather was good, or in our laundry room if it wasn’t. It felt absurd, like it would accomplish nothing, but it was an exercise commitment that flew under the radar of every excuse that my brain could come up with. My brain simply said, “Sure, whatever, Carl Lewis. Have fun with your ‘exercise’. Maybe you’ll qualify for the New York City Marathon over in the laundry room.”
Maybe I should build a “mini habit” of “programming on project X for 5 minutes” every day?
Some highlights from the book
To summarize, a mini habit is a VERY small positive behavior that you force yourself to do every day.
sounds of bees in the distance
The only way to create habits is to teach the rest of your brain to like what the prefrontal cortex wants.
This hits home for me. It’s like some part of me really wants to do the work, the conscious part, but the rest of my brains doesn’t.
We’re quick to blame ourselves for lack of progress, but slow to blame our strategies.
Hits right in the knees too. I was blaming a lack of willpower (even with Beeminder), but I should’ve blamed my terrible strategies.
My mini goals didn’t work because there was still too much expectations on my end.
I didn’t want to input the data, answer a few messages from clients in 30 seconds and go back to my usual life; so I got stuck into paralysis mode.
To fix this, I’ve removed my old manual goals and replaced them with automatic Toggl integrations. 5mn every day with auto-ratchet.
Only having to start the timer should do the trick? I literally only have to start the timer and work on something relevant for 5 minutes.
I doubt that I can make this easier.
Also, I’ve prefixed my goals with “mh” for “micro-habits”
I have found that autodata goals are significantly more motivating than ones where I enter data manually. Probably a personality quirk, but maybe you’re like me, and the Toggl integration will do the trick! Good luck.
Only having to start the timer should do the trick? I literally only have to start the timer and work on something relevant for 5 minutes.
I doubt that I can make this easier.
Some people use a RescueTime integration, but that assumes there’s some way for RescueTime to “recognise” you’re working - a website you go onto, for example.
I’m pondering about making the deadline sooner in the day to make me start earlier since it’s 1am, and I just stopped working.
For many of the goals with automatic data sources, the deadline can’t be moved from midnight. This is to do with the way their APIs work - they just give us “on day 27, user did HH:MM of work”, so we don’t know exactly when it happened.
Also, for duration goals, the API might only tell us about a session when it ends - so if you start something at 10pm and finish at 1am, we may only get to hear about the 3 hours when it’s all done.
Not sure if RescueTime has either of these properties, but something to be careful about - try some experiments, I’d suggest!
This is definitely true for me. My #DoTheThing goal derailed on “finish the XYZ” but was sustained and projects advanced on “Sew one stitch.” I also am going to change my goal times so that I’m not up doing this stuff so late.
Arrived late (from google) but just wanted to add to the discussion.
@sheik This is a great idea, and is essentially the 2 min rule from Atomic Habits!
Basically any activity you start gives you inertia to do more, so James Clear talks about mastering the decisive moments, those first few seconds that dictate what you will end up doing for the next few hours. E.g. the 3 seconds that it takes to sit on your couch or sit at your desk dictates whether you’ll spend the next hour watching TV or working on your laptop.
So I like the idea of using the commitment device to ensure you perform the decisive moment, say up to the first minute of the task. I’ve found that using a commitment device to regulate the whole activity can be daunting, especially if it’s arduous task (like working on something for X hours), and you’re likely to disable it.
After using the CD to do the first few moments, then I think positive reward for accomplishing additional milestones is mainly what would best keep you going.
I think what would be super cool is if those initial moments you’re required to do from the commitment device gradually increases over time, like 1% every day. On day 1 you only have to do 30 seconds, a month later it’s only 40 seconds, three months later it’s just over 1 minute, six months later it’s 3 minutes, a year later it’s 18 minutes. Perhaps somewhere along there some cap is reached so the exponential doesn’t go out of control, or so that you’re not on the hook super hard. Although by then, perhaps you’ve made it such a habit, esp with the positive rewards, that the increase is not so daunting and feels natural. Is there a way to do something like this in Beeminder?
You can find some event that happens every day for you (e.g. waking up, brushing your teeth, eating dinner, going to bed, etc) and set this up to be your cue to do the first few moments of the task in Beeminder. This is called habit stacking, where you take something you already do every day and make that the cue to do the habit you want to start doing. Which is better than making the cue based on time, since sometimes you’ll be doing something else that might prevent you from doing work then.
@sheik Is beeminding nudges still working for you? Have you made changes to the idea since?
Ultimately, everyone has a different profile and way of reacting to Beeminder. I think that for me, keeping it a very short nudge is essential (like you say, the few seconds of going to to the deskor to the sofa to watch Netflix). Otherwise, I would burn out.
It’s definitely possible to increase the rate automatically by using Beeminder’s API. Or you could create a Beeminder goal that prompts you to crank up your other goal. Oh, I remember there is an auto dialing tooling somewhere, made by @narthur if I’m not wrong…
Basically, you:
Connect your Beeminder account to the tool
Add some magic words in your goal’s description
Let the auto-dialer increase your goal slowly
Yes, that’s an interesting concept! I am actually building a habit stack. Just today, I decided to turn my life around for the 100th time, but by doing habit stacking starting from the first hour of the day up until I go to sleep. It’s an interesting coincidence that you comment on this super old thread just today as I got this epiphany
(I’m a bit slow sometimes, I knew about habit stacking since years, but I only « get it » and want to apply it today)
I deleted the goals because of a major burnout. I think I was not « aligned » with the work and it caused me psychological harm somehow to force myself to work. Definitely something to watch out for…
Anyway, a change of interest that I made is splitting big goals into little goals, and also, being less strict in the threshold for allowing myself to add a +1 to the goal.
For example, I had a goal called « sms_0 », which involved answering all instant messages across all apps. It was really hard since I would answer all texts, then disappear and not answer, then answer all texts. It was taking hours and making me feel bad.
I decided to create one goal per messaging app instead. I’m also experimenting with creating goals for specific people that I consider « VIPs » and should answer faster (2 days max instead of 7 days max). One goal for Instagram, one goal for WhatsApp, one goal for my mom, a goal for my sister, etc.
For example, if you have multiple mailboxes, you can create one different goal per mailbox. The point is to make each goal feel trivial.
Another example is a goal that forces me to post on my blog. I am less strict than before in the sense that I allow myself to post something uninteresting just to satisfy Beeminder. Looking back on these posts, I actually find them interesting even though they felt bland when writing them.
Another trick I am using these days is to intentionally block out a whole day to do Beeminder tasks. I just do as much as I can in advance. Since the goals are trivial, I actually feel okay. It feels like a game. Afterwards, everything’s green for a week, and I feel free to get tunnel vision on projects I’m working on.
(Before, I would frantically try to do all my Beeminder goals right before going to sleep, which was really bad)
————
Habit stacking is the way in my opinion; « rewriting » life little by little by intercepting existing habits. I’m still experimenting with it so I won’t talk it about it too much… but an example: putting a post it on my phone that tells me to dress up, prepare my work bag + do a house chore before having the right to use it.
Beeminder is a superpower for sure, and right now, I’m investigating how it could help me write a habit stack. My first idea is to force myself to write down my morning routine every 2 days on my blog. Let me know you if you have an idea on how to use Beeminder to create a habit stack, I would be very grateful!
————
I feel like I didn’t really answer your questions that much, since I am not into nudges that much anymore (I’d rather do habit stacking!). I’m a bit all over the place and going on tangents too.
Despite that, I hope you got some inspiration for your own life from this post. Welcome to the Beeminder community if you’re new ;)!
We used to have an exponential commitment type, but folks found it surprising and difficult to manage. Maybe they were putting in overly ambitious numbers without grokking the effect of compounding.
What you might find interesting is @narthur’s autodial.taskratchet.com that (in strict mode) will gently increase your slope in line with how much you’ve actually done in the last 30 days. If you always stay ahead of the committed slope then it will always increase.
What a coincidence! The fortune of the universe is on our side
One thing I remember about implementing habit stacks is that you should not stack a new habit after another new habit. That’s because if you don’t do the first habit for whatever reason, you also won’t do the second (and all the others that come after it). It’s just one point of failure for the whole system, whereas you would want them to be individually independent. Better is to stack each habit after something you do everyday, even if the new habits are intended to happen right after each other!
For example, working for 4 hours in the morning is one of my intended habits, and going to the gym right afterwards is as well. However, the habit stack cue for going to the gym is not finishing my 4 hours of work, it’s drinking my daily supplements shake (which I do every day, obviously). That shake also happens to be my reward for completing 4h of work. So it looks like:
[new habit](working 4 hours) → [do every day regardless](drink shake) → [new habit](going to gym)
(And btw, the cue for working for 4 hours in the morning is the habit stack of using the bathroom right after I wake up, which I do every day, and have never skipped if I might add ).
Now if I don’t do all 4 hours, or skip that block entirely for whatever reason, I’m still going to have my shake that day, which will serve as the cue to go to the gym. (It would be cool if I could ONLY have my daily shake if I did my 4h of work, which would be a strong motivator, but that’s a different issue).
Hopefully that helps!
And definitely writing down your morning routine periodically is a great idea, so you can figure out what things to best stack on!
And to combine ideas, you can perform a habit stack which leads into only a nudge. In my case, after coming out of the bathroom in the morning, I only have to sit at my desk, open my laptop, and read over what I did last. Only that is part of the commitment contract. Then the inertia and the rewards throughout is what keeps me going.
You mentioned deciding today to turn your life around for the 100th time lol, does that mean beeminder is only partially working for you? (Presumably, if it had everything you needed, you’d only have to decide to turn your life around once and then just follow its direction). Is it because of the beeminder burnout issue you mentioned, where perhaps you start strong but then burnout and disable the goals, and then once there’s a new gust of motivation sometime later, you restart goals? It reminds me of when I have a burst of motivation to disable all the distracting apps on my phone with a screen time blocker, which works well for a few weeks/months, but then when I disable it for whatever reason, some weeks/months will go by before a new burst of motivation comes to re-enable them.
Awesome! It’s like tracking the leading measures instead of the lagging measures. Getting to zero unread messages is the goal (the lagging measure/result), and the direct steps to getting there is spending X min every day reading messages or reading Y messages per day (the leading measures). It’s always better to track the leading measures because you can directly control this, and you want to track what you can directly control! Plus, it’s never really about the goal, it’s about the systems you create to accomplish the goal. Lots of people achieve a goal and then get off the bandwagon (like achieving a weight loss goal and then stopping their diet) which results in them later having to set that same goal again! By tracking the daily system and not the goal, you accomplish the true result (which is not really weighing less than X pounds, but being a fit person )
What’s your blog?! I would love to read some articles! I’ve been starting to write about my ideas as well lately, which is nice because it generates new ideas that I would not have thought of had I not written about them.
It seems like Beeminder provides the tracking and the accountability for accomplishing things (with flexibility!) but it’s up to you to figure out the micro steps within this overall system to best accomplish them (e.g. the habit stacks, nudge goals, tracking leading > lagging measures, adding rewards, etc). I feel that there is some missing optimal (but flexible) permutation that would improve the long-term adherence to the daily actions you want to perform.
It makes sense to me; maybe habits should be attached to stuff we’re going to do anyway because it’s already there since a long time.
It’s kind of like doing Aikido, where you’re supposed to redirect the opponent’s attack’s inertia.
Is there an actual commitment contract with a commitment device, or just a pinky promise to yourself? Just curious. Definitely agree, nudges ftw. I think the important part of this nudge is the “read what I did last” part, which is interesting. What are you working on, if you allow me to ask?
Yes, Beeminder has limits for me. It does force me to call my grandma and my mom, take critical medicine + other stuff.
It’s like a lot of things in life; some stuff only happens when you really want it. The hard part is not to create the goal, it’s to figure out which goal to create (which I’m still figuring out)
Actually, now that I think of it, it was a burnout, but also, I felt “fixed”.
Beeminder whipped me into shape. I was hanging out with friends, working, being a normal functioning person.
It’s kind of like that, but at a larger timescale. I think it happened to me twice (to disable a bunch of goals and fall back to bad habits).
I’d say the most important thing to remember with Beeminder is that it won’t solve everything. It can cause a chain reaction where everything falls into place, though.
It has not been the case for me yet…
Or it might have? I might or might not have used Beeminder to force myself to go out, which caused me to find my girlfriend, which caused me to do a lot of work on myself on many areas. Ultimately, she “forced” me to go to an interview I didn’t really want to go to, which restored my motivation to improve myself.
(a lot of non-actionable text, sorry, but it’s nice to think about it)
Overall, I would say that Beeminder has been a net-positive in my life. I still didn’t master it yet though…
100% this
I’d rather have the “perfect system to create the perfect life” rather than “the perfect life” because I would get off the bandwagon.
If you want to read my blog, I think you should start with the latest article:
(it’s a blog about how I’m going to become super rich, which is a bit obnoxious, so I’m on the fence about changing the name and the intro post – but history is history, and rewriting it would be a treason to myself)
You can send me your blog too! Here or in PM if you prefer.
Yes 100%
By permutation, you mean, sequence of actions?
What’s missing with Beeminder is the “background”, making everything fit together in a cohesive and pleasant day.
What’s missing with habit stacking is enforcement over many months.
Maybe:
Integrate the desired behaviors in the habit stack
Use Beeminder to glue existing habits with new habits
Using Beeminder to enforce habit stacking
Step 1: write a bunch of post-its
I am thinking about a post-it system.
I will take your routine, as an example.
Each post it has a number. Let’s say, post it 1, 2 and 3
Post-it number
Location
Action
1
Bathroom
Go sit to the desk
2
Inside the laptop
Read what you were doing last time
3
On the supplements shake
Go to the gym
The idea is to create and put post-its where the routine derails exactly.
I.e. if you notice that when you open your laptop, you end up on YouTube, then, a post-it is useful there.
But if you notice that you actually open your notes already automatically, then, you can remove the post it.
Step 2: create Beeminder goals
One beeminder goal per post it
Each post-it would have a Beeminder goal.
The rule is that each time you see a post-it, you have to do what it says. No choice.
At the end of the day, you report to the Beeminder goal. You add +1 if you followed what the post-it note said, and you add 0 if you didn’t follow it.
You could configure the goal to be more or less strict depending on how much you need it. You could create NFC cards and do something with your phone to “scan” the post it and add +1 automatically.
(I was doing it in the past, with a NFC card outside my home, to force me to go out in the morning)
One beeminder goal to setup the post-its at night
If you need, you can create a Beeminder goal that forces you to add the post its (in the bathroom, laptop, on the shake)
One Beeminder goal to review what post-its are needed or not
check which post its are needed
check at which points of your day you start leaking out of your habit stack
increase or decrease the rates for the post it goals (so, either you need to go work 5 days a week or 3 days a week after going to the bathroom)
(of course, that’s just an example I’m thinking of for myself – it seems a bit overkill, which is why I didn’t implement it yet)
It’s better to start little (a goal to force myself to post about my morning routine on my blog) rather than hard (5 post its, 1 goal per post-it, + 2 meta goals to orchestrate it).
Another super long post! I hope it gave you some good ideas.
I didn’t receive anything yet, are you sure you sent the DM ?
Also it’s fine to talk in public, don’t worry, it’s probably giving ideas to other people
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