Hello Beeminder world I’ve popped in once again. I am always doing self improvement even while away but I try different things. The Streaks app, the Reminders app, Habitica, Fabulous, various habit apps etc. etc. etc. Always something in combination though. Since the Reminders app’s improvements over the years it has gone well along with using Streaks.
So what has brought me back to Beeminder? With my mom having health issues and having more things to do in my routines plus the worry of it all my routines have fallen off. I’ve lost my flow and my mojo lol. And I know from experience that sometimes the rewards in Habitica do not cut it. I recently rejoined Habitica also btw but I know that along with the carrot I need the stick. At least for my keystone habits because I know they affect all else. So that’s where Beeminder comes into play. Yes, staying on track of the line/road is rewarding, but I also need that extra push at this point using loss aversion. Plus I like the tracking.
So here I am maybe randomly logging my progress in this thread. I won’t even say at a consistent pace or that it will be for any extended period of time because I have tried a couple of times before. So for now, I’ll just say it will just be as I add goals at a minimum.
My approach has been different this year though. It seems that when I approach things in extra small bits and bites, I’m consistent and do more. Less procrastinating. The book Atomic Habits by James Clear was a life changer for me (along with Cal Newports Digital Minimalism). That is how I’ve been progressing pretty much with everything. From 7 minute workouts, squeezing in repeated 3-5 minutes of steps here and there throughout the day, repeating micro pomodoros, decluttering 1 thing at a time (after larger sessions over the years), etc. My routine lists are now loaded with atomic habits.
Today I’m setting up:
Daily/weekly Step count goal
Morning routine (part 1) daily deadline
One other… Maybe an ‘in bed by x time’ goal.
I’ll be just focusing on the key stone habits for now. Here’s to minding atomic actions
The usual pomodoro productivity method is the timed 25 minutes of working and 5 minutes break. Traditionally it’s four rounds before a longer break. I was doing something like this before I read the term pomodoro. I can do this with admin tasks. Home routines is another thing altogether as far as me trying to make things a habit. So I might do minimum 5 minutes of something and take a 5 -10 minute break of getting steps in, reading, etc. Used to be youtube watching. Keep repeating. I would tell myself 5 minutes but usually do more. A micro amount just to take away my brain’s mental resistance in getting started. So I made up the term ‘micro pomodoro’ when I wrote the post. lol. The amounts and minimums might vary depending on energy level and how I’m feeling that day. I just like to have forward movement.
Beeminding 8500 steps a day. In actuality, my goal is 10000 steps 6 days a week with a day’s break. This is going well. I selected this goal because of the many health benefits. Also good for mental wellbeing. I’ve been a ‘stepper’ for a few years.
Exercise 150 minutes a week.
This includes a 7 minute workout that I started the beginning of the year. I struggled to become consistent. Then I was consistent and added very light weights. Then I became less consistent again. I want the 7 minute workout to be more of a priority.
I’m over my exercise minutes because of the walking so will probably put a cap on safe days at first rather than bump the minutes up. I also will have a subgoal for the 7 minute workout somehow.
30 minutes productive home minutes. This is specific to tidy/cleaning. For a couple years now I have repurposed the mindul minutes logging in ios health and use a meditation app that has a timer/alerts to track my productive minutes. It’s automatically pulled into the ios health app. I go to the health data to see my progress over time.
It’s easy for me to put the morning tidying off so I’m adding beeminder in the mix for tracking.
Other things I’m thinking about/possibly next:
Beeminding glucose for weight loss and carb/snacking control and basic metabolic health. Im not diabetic but do already log this in the mornings but beeminding it will add extra accountability of keeping the numbers below 100.
Even though I have added 30 minutes for morning cleaning. I will be adding the full goal of average 60/70 minutes of home routines to be done by the end of the day. This includes the current/seasonal/monthly projects. Also thinking about making the morning 30 minute deadline earlier.
Adding my nightly brain dump and freeflow journaling because it helps with sleep.
I had big plans to implement the 12 Week Year in 2023. Well that didn’t happen so another thought is to beemind it in 2024. Having beeminder keep the score will help out a lot. I just need to set end dates in beeminder for my seasonal goals. So I will review my past notes and come New Year (or winter’s start) start for the third time.
Beeminding 8500 steps a day:
Still going well. It has made me pay more attention to my steps again. I used to be so focused on getting my step goal daily but a change in my routine caused me to lose focus on this. With my steps/fitness lowered along with my being less conscious about what I was eating, my Health metrics had started trending downward. So this is not really a hard goal for me…just something to beemind to help keep daily movement towards the forefront of my mind.
Exercising 150 minutes a week:
I had been more off the rails with this vs my daily steps before deciding to beemind it again. I can get a lot of steps in and its still not exercise as far as moving my heart rate enough for it to count in a higher exercise zone. Because my walks are longer I have been going over the 150 minutes a week with no problem. It’s only about 20 minutes a day. I recently lowered the safe days to just two days. I will probably use IFTTT to add some type of location trigger along the way of my longer route that I walk so that I have to walk that way at least three days out of the week. And I still need to set up a separate seven minute workout because that’s some of the training with weights that I need.
*New Morning glucose logging:
I will say that this goal has helped me with my discipline the most so far as far as requiring more discipline from me even thought I know the benefits. I have cut down on my night snacking and I’m mindful of what I eat during the day. This is because I know that I have to do that glucose measurement in the morning. It’s hard when you have a boyfriend who has a whole snack shelf and snacks as a nightly ritual
I set my original daily goal limit higher than what I actually want because I know that it can takes days (or longer depending on how off you are) for my body to adjust. I also gave myself a nine day head start before it counts… the most I could give. My number is trending downward so hopefully I’ll be below my 105 posting count. If not that’s OK because I start all my goals off at $0 as a ‘girl get it together’ pass lol.
Other: I would say the goal that is next priority that I have not started on is beeminding my ‘in bed by’ time. I posted about that not too long ago. Because of other life happenings, I had to set that aside for a moment. I’m using the shortcuts app for that one and was stuck on an area that would give the wrong time if I went to bed the previous night after midnight… it would use that. There was a limitation with shortcuts but I consulted with chatGPT this morning and believe I have a workaround. Hopefully
With this accountability logging I decided since I am approaching everything else atomic actions style I will do the same here. This is easier for me and I’m less likely to put off doing smaller updates vs trying to give a full update on everything.
Thank you! It is right on time. I’m also using December to add tweak and automate as much as possible those goals I have been doing/attempting (some very inconsistently) and moving over to beeminder for that extra push. Then yes… adding in the new which is really where I’m trying to go. So I will be joining.
My bright idea to beemind ‘in bed by’ with an automation that goes to beeminder has become a pain. No fault of beeminder. I spent time on and off fiddling with the Apple shortcut because I’d ran into a snag. It just wasn’t working right and was pulling wrong times. I even consulted chatgpt which tried to give me a couple of variations and even what it gave me was not working right. I added the quick look action throughout the shortcut to see what was going on and come to find out there is a bug in the shortcuts app… when you subtract a day to get the previous date for sleep for some reason Apple resorts to 12 PM the previous day. Not just the date which I had instructed and not the previous day at 12 AM which would be logical. So that throws off all other calculations. I’m not a dev so it took me some time to figure it out. I just thought everything that I was doing was not right. I’ll be reporting feedback since I’m in their beta program for updates.
That’s the second bug that I found by the way that affects how I want to automate a goal using shortcuts.
Then there’s the logging habit count on a do more goal. Sending automated habit completions from my Mac caused me to spam the beeminder support because the bot didn’t like that extra character my mac was throwing in there (sorry about that y’all) But at least I know the culprit now. sigh I’m telling myself the time spent upfront with setup will pay off later.
Digital Minimalism and Beeminder?
I’m changing the title of my post to also reflect my continued aim for digital minimalism as I set up and use Beeminder for self improvement. This is why this ongoing post involves a lot of Apple Watch and shortcut setups. My app selection and process is geared towards what can be ran first off-line on the Apple Watch. Second with just the Wi-Fi connection on the watch. My third choice is what can be done with the Bluetooth connection to the phone and lastly, I’ll use the phone. Of course admin work will be phone iPad or Mac but I’m speaking mainly of my daily routines and self improvement type things. I’m still thinking and figuring out ways to pull Beeminder into tracking various habits and goals. I have some things I’m testing and will continue to share in bits as I go along.
Because of family/health challenges over the past couple of months I’m temporarily archiving most of my beeminder goals. Im keeping a couple that are easier to handle. In the meantime I’m back to simple apple reminders for habits for other routines. Just less pressure from possible derailing right now. Hopefully things will get back on track.
I’ve popped in once again. I am always doing self improvement even while away but I try different things. The Streaks app, the Reminders app, Habitica, Fabulous, various habit apps etc. etc. etc. Always something in combination though. Since the Reminders app’s improvements over the years it has gone well along with using Streaks.
! And check out this timely thread from Nicky: