I actually drafted an attempt a couple weeks back as a writing exercise. It’s definitely not ready as is, but I’m posting it here as an example of what one user thinks is important for a new/potential user to know.
You’re here because you want to accomplish something and you need a tool to help make sure you put in the kind of consistent effort over an extended period of time necessary to achieve this goal. Beeminder is a tool that helps you hold yourself accountable to making regular progress towards your goals, but is also flexible enough for the unpredictability and messiness of the real world.
Sure, for some goals, like flossing your teeth, you can just resolve to do it every single day. But what about if you want to read more? You could resolve to read, say, 20 pages every day. But some days you’ll have more time to read. That’s where Beeminder comes in. Beeminder helps you make consistent progress towards your goal, even when life is anything but consistent. When you create a goal in Beeminder, you commit to making progress at a certain minimum rate. For example, let’s say that you decide you want to read an average of 20 pages a day, or 140 pages a week. Some days, you may read 100 pages, while other days you may not read any. Simply tell Beeminder how many pages you read, and Beeminder will graph your progress {show example graph} and warn you when you’re in danger of “derailing”, or slipping below the minimum rate you set for yourself. Not only is Beeminder flexible between days, it is also adaptable to changing circumstances and priorities. Say you know you’re about to enter a busy period at work and won’t have as much time to read. You can lower your rate from 20 pages a day, or 140 pages a week, to 5 pages a day, or 35 pages a week. Obviously you’re probably not going to read exactly 5 pages every day. More likely you’ll read the necessary 35 pages in one or two sittings, so you’ll have more time to spend on your other priorities. When things calm down again, you can raise the rate back up to where it was before. But here’s the thing! We designed Beeminder to be flexible when it comes to what days you do something and understanding when you need to adjust your goal rate. However, we also designed Beeminder to help you stick to your resolutions!
If you slip below the minimum rate you set for yourself, Beeminder will “sting” you by charging your credit card, first for $5, but the amount charged (the “pledge”) increases each time you derail. Don’t worry though! We give you every opportunity to avoid derailing. We will send you email reminders when you start to come close to danger, and you can enter new data by replying to that email or by using our mobile app or our website. And whenever you derail, we send you a legitimacy check email. If you derailed for a good reason, such as a power outage or an error in data input, simply explain what happened and we will undo the derailment and you won’t be charged.
But wait! Can’t I just lie to avoid the punishment? Well, yes. Most of our users are honest and can’t lie to us with a straight face, so our default policy is to simply take your word for it. This is our business, but we only want to take your money if we deserve it! Besides, the whole point of having the threat of losing this money is to motivate you, so if you don’t pay, then you lose this motivating factor. If you know you’re going to be tempted to make up an excuse, then you can check our “weasel-proof me” checkbox ahead of time, and we’ll require documentation such as a doctor’s note or confirmation from any listed “supporters” who you set to be CC’d upon a derailment. If you check this box, we also disable your ability to edit or manually add data to goals with automatic data input, such as Fitbit steps. Finally, regardless of whether you check this box or not, we don’t let you change rates instantaneously otherwise you could always decide to change your goal at the last minute. Instead, changes in your minimum rate take effect in a week, so plan ahead!
Okay, we’ve covered a lot of ground in this video, but actually using Beeminder is really simple. Create a goal {picture}, set a rate, and just stay above (or below, in some cases) the “yellow brick road”!
It sounds so simple, but our users have used Beeminder to lose a hundred pounds {Link}, to write a novel {Link}, to run the distance between New York and California last year {Link}, and much much more. What will you do?