"Fixed" Beeminder wanted

While it’s perfectly reasonable of you to ask, I’d like to point out that this is why such a product doesn’t exist - stealing the beeminder customers that aren’t willing to pay money isn’t going to result in a company that could pay it’s hosting costs, much less what one can make getting a software development job.

Hopefully one of the other suggestions people have made works for you. I realize I don’t take them to the extreme but I do try to keep a week buffer on most of my goals and I do set very easy slopes sometimes.

BTW I have found that while 0 is a valid amount for most goals it doesn’t work for URLminder - I don’t know if there are others - but you can work around that by setting a vacation for as long as you want after the initial week of one word per day.

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@apolyton Yes, this is one possibility. Another one is to use two different apps. I’ve already found a perfect time tracker (called Time Meter, and it’s the only one I know that apart from meaningful statistics can share automatically to Google Calendar, which makes it much easier to compare “how I want to use my time” with “how I actually use my time”). And there are plenty of apps that can track numbers.

@bluetulip I can’t follow you here – what makes you think that such a product would aim to “stealing the beeminder customers that aren’t willing to pay money”? Its customers would be “quantified-selfers”, which is most likely a much broader group than “self-improvers” (I don’t have any statistics here, but it seems that almost all self-improvers are interested in quantification, but not all the quantified-selfers are interested in self-improvement).

Anyway, thanks to everybody for participating in this discussion – at least it is clear that such a product does not exist and I can stop searching:-)

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It depends on the goal. Some of them I just need to be reminded about, others I need to track ‘30 minutes per day’ (or whatever) in order to get anything meaningful done.

Most of the time, I’m going to read more than one page, floss more than one tooth, and so on. But some days are unpredictably manic, and I’ll do the minimum, which is better than deciding to let a more ambitious goal derail. And of course I’ll get reminded again the following day…

I’m pretty good with spreadsheets, but every time I try to use a simple list or custom tracker, I forget to keep it up to date. At least with Beeminder I’ll be prompted to enter my data…

EDIT — Related: can do more make you do less?

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Amazing discussion here; thanks everyone! To clarify what I think @bluetulip was saying to @ndanda: not an issue of customer stealing (see the second half of our competitors blog post about how even direct competitors help us more than hurt us) but it’s true that companies that try to do this seem to have a high failure rate, probably because it’s hard to make money that way.

For @ndanda, you’ve been beeminding for years so we’ll be happy to give you a significant discount on the Beemium plan if you decided that were worth it for pledge-less goals. (Just email us at support.) And I do understand that you’re looking for not just pledge-less but goal-less tracking. In the future it may make sense to have advanced settings to, for example, turn off the yellow brick road altogether or have more customization of reminders. But as others have surmised, that won’t be a priority for a while. (Btw, another perk of Beemium is real-time support so we could help set up things like making permanently zero-rate yellow brick roads and other ways to approximate a goal-less Beeminder.)

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Thanks a lot, @dreev, this is a generous offer indeed, I’ll think about it seriously. I stopped using Beeminder when subscription plans were introduced – for me they feel totally counterintuitive (“If I am a good girl I don’t have to pay anything” worked perfectly, but “If I am a good girl I’ll have to pay anyway, just a bit less” does not motivate at all). However I keep an eye on how things are developing. Really looking forward for the possible future products, like a to-do list based on GTBee, or “Statminder=Beeminder without goals”:slight_smile:

Thanks again.

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Hi Beeminders. This has been an informative discussion. One piece of input and one request.

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I use IFTTT, but not SMS reminders since they are very limited for those outside the North America.

Your approach to emotional reactions is very interesting, but probably too culture/country specific. I think I would tear my husband apart into little pieces if he tries that “reflexive listening” thing on me;-)

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@ndanda I know how you feel. :slight_smile: That was for fun.

One of my favorite videos from Derek Sivers on TED talks about how to start a movement. It starts with just a few. So, I appreciate your feedback.

I am after helping people who want to work on specific habits. But, there are thousands of habits. Since you responded and made a good point that it may be too culture/country specific. So, let’s give it a go. Give me a list of 5 habits that you really want to form in the next year and I will make an RSS feed for you based on one of them that I feel semi-qualified in. It may take me a while.

I also would like to hear from some others as well: @dreev , @philip, @bluetulip

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@nickarino I personally feel that my habits are my private matter. That’s one of the reasons why Beeminder is so brilliant – it lets you change your habits all by yourself. I am sure that other people might think differently about it and need your help.

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OK. Thanks. No worries. I will see if anyone else will give it a go.

@ndanda, I just came across Strides. Is it potentially the ungoaly Beeminder you’ve been looking for? (I haven’t tried it yet so I’m eager to see if they have ideas we should learn from.)

@nickarino, thanks for the work on habits.life and for getting us in on the beta testing! I never seem to have success with getting bugged about habits. I seem to quickly tune out the reminders unless they’re tied to real-world consequences. But I’m eager to hear case studies from folks who try this. Sounds like another thing Beeminder could learn from!

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