Keegs’ beeminder journal:
Hi! I introduced myself over in the other introductory thread.
New stuff:
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nocomputer: I mark this as +1 if I woke up with no computer in my room. I have a newish habit of keeping my non-work computer completely disconnected and packed away in the closet most days. If I need it, I get it, but this goal prevents me from getting used to it being there. So far so good. My smartphone usage is already tightly controlled with a Brick, so I’m closing in on having a highly disconnected non-work life, which is great.
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alcohol: My first do-less goal. Got in the habit recently of having a beer most evenings. It’s fine. But I don’t want it to grow, so I’m setting a 1.5/day limit. Probably will taper this down to 1/day to encourage a nicer cycle of sobriety & celebration.
Stuff that cost me money:
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withdraw: I got paid and decided I wanted to buy a whole bunch of stuff, so I bit the bullet and spent some savings. Savings tax now at $10!
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alcohol: I just didn’t set it up right at first. Figured it out. Happy to pay the small fee. Alcohol tax now at $10!
Other thoughts:
I have 14 goals! Most of them manual. Feels like a fine amount. I like that if I do all my goals I am on top of my life: it means I’ve done some solid work while at work, I’ve studied all the things I love to study, my kids are learning stuff, and I am getting stronger! I should probably add something good-husband-y.
My anki goal was feeling boring so I started memorizing all the countries in the world and now it’s fun again.
4 Likes
Retired the alcohol one almost immediately. It was a holiday week and it became very clear that the limit in no way supported my preferences/needs/etc.
Pumped up my Hebrew studies a bit for the second time. I will have to stop squeezing it in just before bed, but it’s really motivating to see the cumulative hours tick up. Each one of those hours also corresponds to many, many hours of listening time on runs, too, so I feel accomplished.
My educate-my-kids goals are functioning as intended. I keep getting surprised and being like “we haven’t studied sight words in HOW long???”. Perfect.
Continuing to enjoy not having a computer in my room. I also moved my Brick into the basement, so I have to bother a possibly-sleeping housemate to activate any entertainment functions on my phone. My phone time is basically zero since that switch.
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Hi, just wondering.. I notice that you’re using a Brick. How hard is it to bypass? I’ve used almost literally every app I knew to control my screen time, but one way or the other, it’s too easy for me to sabotage.
I love the computer goal btw, I have a similar goal for my iPad (it’s always downstairs unless I have a very good reason for it - but before I sleep it goes back downstairs again).
Good luck on all of you goals!
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Hi! The bypass is too easy for someone who is highly motivated to bypass. Some people report being able to uninstall the app and have that bypass it, and there’s a built-in emergency bypass that you can only do a limited number of times, after which you have to literally call them and ask for more bypasses, I think.
The phone call part is my hard boundary – I despise phone calls, and I have an arbitrary self-respect barrier around not uninstalling the app, so that part isn’t a problem for me.
If I didn’t have those boundaries, I’d need a more serious mechanism, like a long-term high-stakes bet with a serious friend or something, but I’m sure you’ve considered stuff like that already.
Definitely worth trying, though! I love my Brick! One major improvement to their app has been the ability to auto-brick at certain times, so whenever I wake up, I’m already bricked. That has been the difference between an hour of screen time and zero screen time most days, for me.
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Thanks for the comprehensive answer. It’s very helpful. I considered a serious bet indeed, but that doesn’t work either. Brick would work for me if there is no sabotaging possible after activating brick mode - except for the emergency bypass. If it’s just sitting there on non-bricked times I won’t uninstall.
There’s also a “strict mode” that I haven’t played with on the Brick. It doesn’t seem particularly well documented on the site (see screenshot). Here’s a reddit user reporting on their experience with it.
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Thanks! The instructions inspired me to create a different shortcut that works with an other app I already own. Not the same - but the shipping costs are huge for the Netherlands. If this doesn’t work as I want, I’ll try a brick or something similar.
