So before I give up on beeminder I wanted to discuss this on the forums. I have ADHD (well, ADD, I”m not very hyperactive, just a hyper-forgetful spaz), and am intermittently medicated to avoid developing tolerance, which has been a problem.
What I’m finding with beeminder is that it’s simply become totally ineffective. I am constantly being charged because I simply forgot to enter entries, (or because I have interrupted my routine for legitimate reasons like deadlines at work or holidays - and yes I know there’s a feature for that - the problem is remembering to use it). Allowing myself to be charged hasn’t helped - money isn’t something I think about much. I spend roughly what my peers spend, check my bank balance once or twice a month. When I was charged I felt like shit about myself for a while and then completely forgot about it, as happens with the many other ways my absent mindedness costs me money (I estimate I lose 100-200 euros per month on lost/broken items, missed plane tickets, charges I forget to cancel, etc etc). When that isn’t happening beeminder simply doesn’t exist for me - like everything else constant in my life, it just becomes part of the background. This is at least partly because i have my phone on mute, but this is kind of necessary for professional reasons, and to stop me constantly getting distracted. It’s also because my phone is constantly running out of battery (I forget to charge it) running out of coverage (I live in germany and travel a lot) or getting lost.
Anybody else had this experience, and been using beeminder for a while? (It worked great on me for the first few months - but that’s the case with most organization systems.)
Hmm. Are there any reminders you think you could create that you wouldn’t tune out? Can you tie checking Beeminder to something you ALWAYS do, like eating breakfast or dinner?
Thanks for asking about this! I know from the forum here and other places around the internet (google.com/search?q=adhd+beeminder) that a lot of folks with ADHD swear by Beeminder. But you’re right that it definitely involves finding a way for Beeminder’s reminders to get through to you, or else to make the Beeminder dashboard an integral part of your personal workflow. Like to the point where there’s no such thing as going to bed without noticing goals in the red.
Another idea is to use the SMS bot if you can make that an exception to muted notifications (sounds like not in your case though).
As for money, the theoretical answer is to let the pledges hit a truly scary amount! (Also, I checked and you’ve averaged $16/month to Beeminder. Not sure if that sounds high or low. We’ve written a lot about reframing derailments so they feel like you’re actually buying something that’s worth the money – http://blog.beeminder.com/beenice – but of course that won’t feel that way if you derail due to sheer inattention so I agree that that problem has to be solved!)
Last thought: The criteria for the legitimacy of derailments is up to you to decide, so you could reply to legit checks like “not legit! i failed to notice the reminders!” and we’ll accept that and cancel the charge (do reply well within 24 hours though otherwise the charge automatically goes through and although we still can refund it if necessary, that’s something of a pain on all sides).
If that turns out to defeat the point of Beeminder then you can check the “weaselproof me” checkbox.
