That relies on me rememebering to turn it back on….and also assumes im within internet range ect and not supremely busy.
(I recently defaulted on a LOT of goals by having the time to do the goals…but not log it into beeminder….and then later derailing entirely)
-Jolly
From: akratics@googlegroups.com [mailto:akratics@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Philip Hellyer
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2012 12:50 PM
To: akratics@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: low-friction ad-hoc beeminding
I think the key phrase there is “in the future”. I’d also like to be able to tell Beeminder that I’m going on holiday and to pause my roads for a given date range. But it would defeat the purpose and benefit of Beeminder for me if I could pause the road immediately on a stressful day.
To manage this right now, I put a reminder in my calendar a week ahead of the event. I’ll put an equivalent reminder to dial it back up a week before the break’s end, but that’s less urgent. Not ideal, not particularly onerous.
Philip
On 14 August 2012 14:37, Apneet Jolly <jolly@ajollylife.commailto:jolly@ajollylife.com> wrote:
I’d really like a way to program in rises/drops in the road in the future. IE – I’m going to burning man this week, stop tracking my goals.
I’ve currently stopped using beeminder right now due to this or another easy way to pause goals
-Jolly
From: akratics@googlegroups.commailto:akratics@googlegroups.com [mailto:akratics@googlegroups.commailto:akratics@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Philip Hellyer
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2012 5:13 AM
To: akratics@googlegroups.commailto:akratics@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: low-friction ad-hoc beeminding
The akrasia horizon is asymmetric. It’s a useful enforced delay before dialling down a road, but can be a frustrating delay when I’m keen to dial up the difficulty straight away. (It can be a frustrating delay on the way down, too, but that’s the whole point!)
The Road Dial and the Akrasia Horizon | Beeminder Blog suggests that some of us will resist dialling it down because we’ll be convinced that we’ll have our act together by the time a week passes. For me, the ‘only another week’ energy burst only kicks in once I’ve adjusted the road and can see the future slope change. During the week, I might discover that it’s sustainable and want to maintain my (still current) slope.
It’s useful to have the option of a delay for slope increases, because sometimes I want it steeper today, or maybe I’m in the mood to force the pace from tomorrow, or the beginning of next month, or whatever. ‘Right now’ isn’t always the best option.
I also have some goals that warrant a “hip-hugging” road; one that encourages a minimum level of effort each week, and doesn’t let me build up too much of a safety buffer. If I want to do X at least twice a week, the fact that I managed it 5 times this week doesn’t change my desire to do another 2 next week. These goals are characterised by a weekly rate and an arbitrary end date, but not a goal total.
In terms of baskets of tasks, I might give the Reeves Must-Do method a try-out. I have 3 other mechanisms active right now.
First is tracking the number of cycles I do on my task list, using Mark Forster’s “final version” to process the list. This sounds spiritually akin to Paul’s use of RTM, without points-per-task.
Second is a bundle of 3 aspirationaly-daily activities; doing any one gives me a point, and I can get ahead or catch up by doing one of each. By bundling these into a single goal, I escape the problems inherent in beeminding a once-per-day–7-days-per-week activity. (Obviously, setting a slope of 21 per week would negate that solution; my current slope is 10.5, and I anticipate growing it to at most 17.5.)
Third is general time-tracking; must spend at least X hours per week on this focus area. As much as I hate using time as a proxy for progress, it’s relatively easy to measure, and is semi-automated using TagTime.
Philip
twitter.com/PhilipHellyerhttp://twitter.com/PhilipHellyer
On 14 August 2012 06:38, Melanie Reeves Wicklow <melzafish@gmail.commailto:melzafish@gmail.com> wrote:
It probably is overkill for all but weight loss or similar goals. Weight loss might even be fine with 3-4 days.
On Monday, August 13, 2012, Daniel Reeves wrote:
Yeah, this may be the key to the power of the One Must-Do Task!
And if it works it may mean that a one-week akrasia horizon is overkill.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 9:15 AM, Melanie Reeves Wicklow
<melzafish@gmail.commailto:melzafish@gmail.com> wrote:
Hmm, I think I like that better than my “getrdone” list. After a while, it
didn’t really guide me. I’d just see what I had done from the list when it
was an emergency day or close to it and record it, but the endlessly
procrastinated tasks still weren’t happening, only ones that had a deadline.
But with this, the previous day when you swear it’ll be easy to do x y or z,
you lock yourself in to that task. I’ve tried similar things like only
writing down the 3 most important tasks for the next day. But no system to
force them done.
On Sunday, August 12, 2012, Daniel Reeves wrote:
I’m excited to try Paul Fenwick’s scheme below, but in the meantime
Bethany and I are trying something dirt simple that may capture enough
of the spirit of this to be valuable.
The idea is to pick one task that you Must Do the next day. You have
to write down the task the night before and it counts if you actually
do it the next day. You then commit to some number of such tasks per
week.
How to do that with Beeminder (the idea is to use the previous day’s
datapoint comment to commit to the next day’s task):
- Create a Do More goal like mustdo – d – beeminderhttp://beeminder.com/d/mustdo
- Add an initial datapoint like
^ 0 “tmw: file tps report”
which commits you to filing your tps report tomorrow.
- The next day, if you filed your tps report, enter a new datapoint,
along with a new task, like
^ 1 “tmw: take over the world”
or if you didn’t file your tps report then
^ 0 “tmw: take over the world”
or if you didn’t file your tps report but still need to (before you
can take over the world) then like
^ 0 “tmw: ditto”
- Dial up your road to commit to however many tasks per week you want
to commit to. (I’m starting with 3.5/week – one every other day.)
- Rule: always enter your datapoint with a caret. You have to finish
the day’s task – and specify tomorrow’s – by midnight.
If you want to get ambitious you can enter compound tasks (“file tps
report and clip toenails”) and still make the datapoints binary.
My datapoint yesterday read “tmw: describe this system on akratics
anonymous” so after I hit send I’ll give myself a 1 for today and pick
a task for tomorrow!
On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 6:07 PM, Paul Fenwick <paul.j.fenwick@gmail.commailto:paul.j.fenwick@gmail.com>
wrote:
Daniel’s just told me I need to join AA for a discussion going on here,
and
I suspect this is it.
So, in a nutshell, I’ve linked my TODO trakcer (RememberTheMilk) to
Beeminder. I get points for completing tasks (joining AA just scored me
one
point), with things like work tasks, and ‘hard’ tasks being worth much
more.
(Points are configurable by list and/or tag). Of course, Beeminder lets
me
set how many points I score each week before I start losing money.
I also have the problem of some tasks never getting done, so I have a
few
ideas on how to encourage me:
- Dynamic point values. Tasks are worth more points the longer they
stick
around, so eventually I’ll be encouraged to stop procrastinating and do
the
task I’ve been putting off.
- As above, but tasks are worth less points the longer they stick
around.
This is dangerous, because eventually it becomes easier to scrap a task
than
complete it.
- Staleness penalties. Tasks start generating negative points if they
stick
around too long, even if they don’t have a due date. Some lists (eg,
–
Sent from my iPhone http://beeminder.com