# How to build a habit of finishing things? **URL:** \ **Category:** Akrasia\ **Created:** [January 23, 2019, 7:41am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/how-to-build-a-habit-of-finishing-things/4816 "2019-01-23T07:41:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![oulfis](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/oulfis/32/229_2.png) [@oulfis](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/oulfis)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2019, 11:14pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/how-to-build-a-habit-of-finishing-things/4816/21 "2019-02-11T23:14:15Z")
One input that briefly had some success for me was “running through a pre-work checklist”, which was meant to make me record in a google form exactly what I was going to do and why… but staying on task is only one reason I track outputs; the other is to have an accurate picture of whether my inputs are _working_. What if the pre-work checklist isn’t keeping you focused on completion? How would you know? I also tend to find tracking outputs really invigorating, because it helps me get creative about all the ways that I _can_ influence the output as directly as possible. If I just track inputs I get too complacent and can overlook obvious wins. So for my ongoing “dissertation output metrics” quest, I have made another goal (whittle-down of a Trello to-do list). I am now using all of the following goals to push myself to write my dissertation: 1. [https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/real-work](https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/real-work) - input, general: tracks Toggl entries tagged with “Real Work” 2. [https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/writing](https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/writing) - input, general: tracks RescueTime usage of writing software 3. [https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/terry](https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/terry) - input, diss: tracks staying in contact with one of my committee members 4. [https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/the-diss](https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/the-diss) - **???** , diss: tracks commits to my dissertation GitHub repo 5. [https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/write-the-diss](https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/write-the-diss) - **???** , diss: tracks the current wordcount of my diss draft 6. [https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/rough-diss-chapters](https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/rough-diss-chapters) - output, diss: tracks the submission of complete chapter drafts to my committee 7. [https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/finish-diss-intro](https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/finish-diss-intro) - output, ch 1: tracks completion of a Trello to-do list I also have the following goals meant to increase the general quality of the diss: 1. [https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/read-papers](https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/read-papers) - input, breadth: tracks exposure to new research in my field 2. [https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/check-anki](https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/check-anki) - input, depth: encourages memorization of key dates and facts in my period 3. [https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/cambridge-histories](https://www.beeminder.com/oulfis/cambridge-histories) - input, depth: tracks progress reading a dense history of my period Part of what this conversation has made me realise is that both “commits to a GitHub repo” and “total word count” _feel_ like they are outputs, but actually it’s possible to increase those numbers forever without getting closer to the _true_ output of “finished chapters”. With word count in particular, deleting words is often crucial to finishing, and adding words can get a draft _farther_ from done: it’s necessary to track, but it _can’t_ stand in as the sole metric of “completion.” ---
**Author:** ![apolyton](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/apolyton/32/1965_2.png) [@apolyton](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/apolyton)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 12:00am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/how-to-build-a-habit-of-finishing-things/4816/22 "2019-02-12T00:00:20Z")
I do track an input (time spent on project) and also output (planned tasks that are completed). The input goal is useful when a task needs a lot of effort which can be demotivating. The output goal is needed to drive focus on delivering value to the client or finishing that document instead of endlessly doing research. ---
**Author:** ![apolyton](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/apolyton/32/1965_2.png) [@apolyton](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/apolyton)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 12:03am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/how-to-build-a-habit-of-finishing-things/4816/23 "2019-02-12T00:03:38Z")
> [@oulfis](#): > > Part of what this conversation has made me realise is that both “commits to a GitHub repo” and “total word count” _feel_ like they are outputs, but actually it’s possible to increase those numbers forever without getting closer to the _true_ output of “finished chapters”. Yeah, it’s often said that focusing on the wrong metric can lead to failure as you try to satisfy the metric and miss the actual goal. ---
**Author:** ![oulfis](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/oulfis/32/229_2.png) [@oulfis](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/oulfis)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 9:43pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/how-to-build-a-habit-of-finishing-things/4816/24 "2021-02-03T21:43:33Z")
I’m reviving this thread two years later because I am still struggling with this! All the things that get a first draft to exist work great (beeminding wordcount, time spent, quality-increasing habits, etc). And if I have a firm external deadline that I believe in, beeminding a to-do list of editing tasks is a great way to make the revisions less stressful-- I work at a steady, focused pace instead of doing all the edits the night before. But if the deadline feels self-imposed/fake, I just… push back the goal deadline or even archive the goal. If I look at _everything I have submitted in the last two years_, absolutely _all_ of it had a hard deadline enforced by someone else. This has sort of worked-- I did submit two journal articles, to special issues with firm deadlines. When I noticed that I only finished my first two dissertation chapters thanks to the eligibility requirements for some departmental grants, I enlisted my mother to help make the other chapters happen; she is a professor, so she was hearteningly willing to turn my birthday presents etc into the Oulfis’s Mother Doctoral Completion Grant. That got my third chapter done on time and is looking good for chapter 4. But I can’t go the rest of my career asking my mother to pay me to submit my writing. I want _Beeminder_ to do that. Writing this out, maybe I need to make the stakes much, much higher in Beeminder…? And have a much longer akrasia horizon? I’m also wondering if I could just… exclusively publish in special issues and other journals with deadlines. But it would be _better_ if I could make my own deadlines in a way that felt real enough to be motivating. ---
**Author:** ![zedmango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c67d28/32.png) [@zedmango](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/zedmango)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 12:04am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/how-to-build-a-habit-of-finishing-things/4816/25 "2021-02-04T00:04:09Z")
Interesting - I have a similar problem. One thing I found helpful was to set up a burst of time where I work a large number of hours by a fixed deadline, and beemind that. So when you set up a Beeminder deadline for a chapter or article, what happens? ---
**Author:** ![oulfis](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/oulfis/32/229_2.png) [@oulfis](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/oulfis)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 8:59pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/how-to-build-a-habit-of-finishing-things/4816/26 "2021-02-04T20:59:07Z")
> [@zedmango](#): > > So when you set up a Beeminder deadline for a chapter or article, what happens? This is an interesting question, because as I look at my goals, I very rarely seem to make a goal for a specific article or chapter. In my dissertation, it’s usually not a problem that the goals aren’t chapter-focused, since I only work on one chapter at a time, so a “dissertation” goal is also a “chapter 4” goal already. But for the articles I can (and do!) change my mind often about what article is “next”. It now feels laughably obvious that if I have goals that can be satisfied by working on _any_ article, I will spend my time _starting_ articles and just doing the fun stuff without ever finishing them. I see that I’ve done four goals focused on completing a specific article. For three of them, I didn’t reach the goal, and just archived it when it was starting to get difficult. (One of these was a wordcount goal an the other two were focused on following the “Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks” process with a particular article.) For the fourth one, where I wanted to reach a particular number of footnotes in the article, I did complete the goal, and this is one of my two submissions for the year-- but this was _also_ one where there was an external deadline. It feels likely that I could have met this goal and still never submitted the article, if there hadn’t been an external deadline. So I think I’ve made some progress here by identifying that I don’t really care about “finishing stuff” as a general category (there is absolutely no reason to go back and complete embroidery projects from high school), I care specifically about _submitting journal articles_. And I need goals specific to individual articles to make that happen. Now the two points of resistance I’m feeling are: 1. The akrasia horizon feels way too short for the time scale on which I plan journal articles. Beeminder deadlines don’t feel “real” if I can just archive them or snooze them indefinitely whenever I’m a month out from needing to finish. 2. It always _seems_ like a good idea to change which article is my “main focus” and switch to another one – the new ideas are more fun in part because they seem like better or more important ideas. I suppose to address #2, I could set up individual goals for _all_ of the articles I’m working on (which right now is… _ten_). I’ve been trying to identify one “focus” article and “push through” on just that one, but maybe the real trick is to make myself continue chipping away at the non-focus articles. I could also address #2 by temptation-bundling – maybe I need to earn time spent on “writing fun first drafts” via time spent on “polishing & submitting existing drafts”! But both approaches seem really vulnerable to me just… deciding to archive the goal, or extend the deadline, when I don’t feel like doing it. Especially since it usually _seems_ sensible to change my focus. External deadlines prevent me from snoozing the goal, thereby forcing me to use beeminder like I want to-- making manageable incremental progress over several weeks or months. But I want another way to make the deadline “real”! ---
**Author:** ![zedmango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c67d28/32.png) [@zedmango](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/zedmango)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2021, 9:41pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/how-to-build-a-habit-of-finishing-things/4816/27 "2021-02-04T21:41:11Z")
This seems like a case for… TaskRatchet! Have you used it? @narthur ---
**Author:** ![zedmango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c67d28/32.png) [@zedmango](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/zedmango)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 6:19am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/how-to-build-a-habit-of-finishing-things/4816/28 "2021-02-05T06:19:46Z")
> [@oulfis](#): > > But both approaches seem really vulnerable to me just… deciding to archive the goal, or extend the deadline, when I don’t feel like doing it. (to clarify that - TaskRatchet is like Beeminder but it applies to one-time actions and you can’t just archive a goal or extend the deadline, so I think it might be just what you need!) ---
**Author:** ![oulfis](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/oulfis/32/229_2.png) [@oulfis](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/oulfis)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2021, 5:31pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/how-to-build-a-habit-of-finishing-things/4816/29 "2021-02-05T17:31:47Z")
Oh, good idea! TaskRatchet has never seemed like a good fit for my usual approach to todos, but it could be perfect here… thank you! ---
**Author:** ![philip](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/philip/32/1505_2.png) [@philip](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/philip)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2021, 4:09pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/how-to-build-a-habit-of-finishing-things/4816/30 "2021-05-15T16:09:51Z")
Mark Forster recently described a system for building a habit of finishing things. Here’s the original post, and his next couple posts reflect on his experience of trying it out: > **[An Exercise for Building Willpower - Blog - Get Everything Done](http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2021/4/3/an-exercise-for-building-willpower.html)** > > “Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to un... [Previous page](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/how-to-build-a-habit-of-finishing-things/4816.md?page=1)