How can I automate not doing something in Beeminder?

I’ve just signed up for an account here so I want to make sure I get my first goal set right (found out about here through focusmate). If I have a goal that involves not looking at something (news sites, YouTube, reddit/social media, and adult sites), is there a way to automate this? I spend way too much time refreshing news sites, going down rabbit holes on reddit and YouTube, and I want to kick the habit of going to adult sites entirely. I’m wasting a staggering amount of time on these things and it’s upsetting me so I want to change. I plan to keep up to date with essential things, like critically important news, via RSS feeds of critical news and having other people tell me if something is urgent. I don’t know if I trust the me in 20 or so days time to be honest about whether I am using these time-sucks so self-reporting is not an ideal option. Want to start doing what I should do and not what’s easy in the moment. Hope this is okay to post.

4 Likes

Sounds like Rescuetime is a good place to start! That can track the websites and apps you use, and report it to Beeminder. I find it pretty easy: once it’s set up, you can leave it running and everything will get tracked automatically.

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Just to add, welcome from focusmate! I mentioned beeminder there a few times before the holidays, and my focusmate goal says I need to do one sometime in the next week, so maybe I’ll see you around! If you’re not already using the new integration to track your sessions, see if that’d be useful!

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I second Rescuetime, biggest tattle tale of all.

+3 from me. Rescuetime the panopticon that will snitch on you.