The main issue I suffer re: beeminder is that I have a lot of free time and sometimes if I don’t get right into it I end up wasting my time till I just about literally have to and end up having to cut somethings short (like I’ll meet the minimum for drawing but try to encourage myself to do more than the minimum each day). I do my best to block potentital distractions but the problem arises when I’m convinced of a task’s worth and it’s something I would apparently benefit from, sometimes it is and most time it isn’t.
Either way I start on it and next thing I know the whole day has gone by and I have to rush to complete my beeminders for that day.
Even without a task I used to whittle down time in weird ways on my phone. (Led to the creation of a beeminder banning me from my bed unless I’m sleeping) and the like till it was fairly late.
The problem additionally comes that not having done the activity and knowing I could have done it earlier/completed by now weighs down on me a little bit throughout the day and stops me from fully relaxing.
Another attempt was “Do drawing as the first real thing of the day” but what really counted as an activity was rather murky and naturally led to some sliding till I archived it.
I tried getting around this by scheduling my day but naturally I don’t listen when I get set on completing a task.
The next step would probably be to back it up with a beeminder but I can’t seem to think of a hard rule that would work really, I get given random errands by my mum or suddenly we’re visiting family etc
It’s not stuff that’s bad but it’s stuff that’s hard to predict and schedule around, much less an enforceable schedule and I never can guess how long it’s going to take.
Or how I would balance it out - say I get 3/7 or 5/7 tasks done in good time but waste time anyways on other stuff and delay the remaining.
Any ideas?/some of your own personal experiences would be welcome
Would setting your goal deadlines throughout the day help at all? I know it can be challenging if you have things come up that are out of your control… But maybe there are some goals you always want to have done in the morning, so you could move those deadlines into the morning?
That honestly might be quite the idea really, I think changing deadlines on the fly is somewhat versatile so theoretically I could allow myself to only do that if something legitimate does come up and then double up with another beeminder. Not the easiest but if push comes to shove it’s a decent idea, thank you!
I have the same problem as you, one thing I was thinking of doing is having one goal that is like “spend a one hour block of time working on all your beeminder stuff due today”, and having that due early in the day before everything else. If I end up getting distracted for a good reason because I’m in a rhythm with one particular goal, that still counts, but if I get bored with it I can switch to another goal.
The advantage is that it’s input focused, rather than output focused like many of my other goals are, while still be flexible enough that I don’t necessarily have to have gotten everything done in the event that I do get into a rhythm doing something else.