I love the “finish line” idea @shanaqui ! Sounds like a great way to continually move forward with finishing books instead of being somehow constantly 40% through 30 different books (guilty). I might have to steal that one for a future NMR!
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I’ve finally caught up and added May’s goal to my entry. It’s physio for my knee, which I neglect horribly because it’s so painful - especially when I haven’t done it for a bit, which is right now. I know it need to do it, and future-me will be ever so grateful, but today-me doesn’t like it! Which makes it practically the canonical Beeminder goal, I guess 
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January 
February 
March April
The May goal for writing some conference presentations and other pieces of academic prose has been going with mixed success. (I still need to think of how to conceptualize a goal setup around the fact that I always write a longer first draft and then have to shorten it for the final version.) Will keep that for a while, as one more conf is upcoming that this goal is supposed to help with prepping.
I have already created the June goal tbr_10oldest_pages, so reporting on it already, although the actual slope won’t start for another week (until actual June). This will be another experiment with my TBR list — the one that included not abstract “wants” but titles I have actually acquired in one way or another, planning to read. (Other people call this “physical TBR”, but there’s little physical about it in my case.) This goal will be looking at the sum of read pages in the 10 oldest items in the list[1], gently nudging me to actually read them. (Trying and DNFing is also acceptable, of course, the idea is that I have to actually interact with the book that I was once excited enough to purchase — it’s mostly purchased that remain in the start of the list, as the reading of ARCs and library items is supported by the accompanying deadlines.) It’s just 3 pages/day now, just to keep those books in sight rather than impose any impressive progress. Might set up autoratcheting or increase the rate if this goal turns out helpful at all.
For full disclosure, the script is set in the way that if the item no.10 shares the acquisition date with however many next items, all of them are also counted in immediately. ↩︎
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May’s focusmate goal has been going swimmingly; The power of coworking has really been kicking my butt into gear, and doing more sessions means more time that I spend doing what I intend to do, rather than what’s in front of me. April’s cleandesk goal has also been really great: desk is staying clean, and I’ve increased my “clean” area to include the top of the freezer, and the kitchen penninsula. The snowball effect of being able to clear off all these areas in less than 5 minutes (and use the extra time on a different clutter hotspot) is surprisingly powerful. 5 minutes is, it turns out, a lot of time. I’m going to increase the slope for both of these, since they’re really making a noticable difference (and I’m keeping up with them easily).
June’s goal is going to be spending intentional time with my spouse sans child; our child was away for the long weekend and it was delightful to go to dinner, see a movie, and just hang out as two adults. I’d like to do that more often. Starting the slope at 1 evening a week, and we’ll see how it goes: josietime – lanthala – beeminder
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I ended up archiving all of my Latin goals this month (hopefully temporarily) because health stuff is making it really difficult to keep on top of learning Latin right now, and it was just turning into an enormous source of guilt. So the Latin comprehensible input videos goal for May sadly didn’t make it til the end of the month.
For June I’m thinking that I’ll make a goal to keep me on track with stuff I need/want to do for my mum’s wedding (on Halloween). I have a speech to write, I’m designing temporary tattoos for wedding favours, I have some alterations to the groom’s suit to do, want to handmake a wedding gift, and of course I need to make my own dress too. It feels like I have plenty of time but I know it will sneak up! So I’ve made a best person goal with a rate of 10 minutes a day (for now).
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My tabs goal is going very well—so well, in fact, that I ratcheted today. I’m not sure it’s making much difference in my life, but at least I don’t have to be embarrassed by the number of tabs I have open 
I’m feeling a bit full up on goals right now, but I don’t want to give up on resolutions! I am thinking of doing something with mending… I really need to get some mending done but the only reason I didn’t today is that I ran out of time. I’m not sure adding another Beeminder goal will help me find the time, but if not that, what will? I’ll take a day or two to come up with a good way to structure it.
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My May goal went well. All the BoLs in my possession dated through the end of March have been verified as complete and archived.
For June, I want to revamp my plan in Tody. Tody has become a bit of a mess for me. I haven’t been consistent about marking things off as I do them for a while now, and I have some chores listed there that were default suggestions from the app that simply don’t work for me. So, a week into May, I decided to stop checking things off as I did them so that my June goal could be to zero it out. Some tasks might get deleted or delayed, but by July, I want a fresh start with a manageable chore chart for my children and myself.
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My May goal was basketball, which I think overall went well. I was traveling a fair bit and did derail once when traveling, which I probably should have avoided with some calendialing, but overall I think it’s working well and I’m getting outside which is great. I’m going to keep this one for now.
My June goal is Hebrew. This is a shared goal with my fiancee - we’re both intermediate/advanced 2nd language hebrew speakers and speaking every week would be a pleasure. Excited to see how this one goes!
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May: /finishline
This has worked okay. 15 minutes sometimes feels unsurmountable with a book I’m struggling with (even though it’s fine if I can only get started) while being very little for a book I am enjoying, so it’s a bit rough to balance that. Maybe it should be just five minutes, to lower the activation energy?
For now it’s maintained as is, but I’m pondering it.
June: /tidyingsnacks
I don’t have a lot of free time or mental bandwidth at the moment, but I always think better if I can keep my desk clear at least. So, ‘tidying snacks’, just five minutes a day. I plan to always start with my desk, but expand the circle if that’s tidy, and maybe use a few as an opportunity to put away some lingering stuff in other rooms.
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I can’t think of a way to make the mending goal work, or any other goal that I’d like to try in June, when I will be away from home for a week. Meh. Maybe I’ll be able to come back in July.
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Catching up and adding June to the list. May’s goal was to do my physio, and I derailed three times, I think, which is entirely reflective of how much fun it was (not).
June’s goal is to work through my Google Photo stash. There is just gigabytes of stuff in there, which I would never review. I think if I pay just a month’s attention to it, I can maybe halve the size of the pile, which is something at least.
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June’s spouse-time goal went fine; I finally set up the replacement hot tub so we could use it, and we started a new TV show.
For July, I’m actually starting a new full-time job, so I don’t want to add too much to my plate. I’m going to go for another unstructured doc goal – this time, a brainstorming doc to map out what I want to start moving forward in my new role (which is a lot more freedom/control than I normally get). I’m good at next actions, but I’m not as naturally focused on long-term goals. workplan – lanthala – beeminder
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bestperson has been going well! I helped my mum draft wedding invitations and now I’m working on designs for temporary tattoos for wedding favours. I did have one derail: UK heatwave hit HARD. But back on the wagon now!
I jumped the gun a bit with my July resolution and made it prematurely, but the goal is croprotation: rotating my plants every week.
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June goal was a success. As if this morning, I got the huge Tody to do list to 0. I know more will pop up tomorrow technically still in June, but the point of this goal was to make Tody manageable, and it is now, the handful of items that pop up tomorrow shouldn’t be unmanageable. All the default chore suggestions that made no sense have been deleted, intervals on several chores have been changed, so I should no longer have a daily number that seems insurmountable and list of cans that have been kicked down the road too far.
For July, I have set a goal to plank for 15 seconds per day. I’ve done a version of this goal in the past, and it worked well for my abs, and it’s a habit I’d like to get back to. I’ll also be traveling in July, and I figure it’s not hard to plank for a few second in the average hotel room.
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June: /tidyingsnacks
This has been working really well. I’ve done some tidying I needed to do for ages, got my medication/supplements/inhalers all tidied up in such a way that all are easy to access, put a little time to some other organisationy stuff… and it really does clear my mind if I can at least get my desk tidy.
I did keep it very much the bare minimum during the killer heatwave in the UK, though.
July: /ffxiv-login
This month I needed something smallish and very actionable – something that could be checked off a list easily in 20 minutes max. I haven’t been logging into FFXIV lately except to raid, and I’m feeling a little disconnected from it, soo… I decided to do that!
Criteria for a +1: logged in and completed one normal difficulty duty, one EX/Savage duty not on the schedule with my usual group, or 10 cosmic exploration missions.
Rate: 5/week.
This should be relatively low time investment, but give me a chance to touch base with FFXIV friends, and maybe re-grab my interest – or maybe tell me more clearly that I don’t want to right now and maybe it’s time to step back and let my subscription lapse for a month or two once my group have finished raiding.
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January February March April May
The June goal went well! It was for making sure that I read from the 10 most ancient titles on my TBR. Something I was once excited about but never got to read - not because I changed the opinion but because something new and exciting showed up. I finished 5 books that qualify over this month, some started at halfway read, some were DNF’d, so it’s not 5 entire books, just 5 books that were sitting on the list for about two years, neglected and forgotten. Keeping it!
For July, I’ll try another gamification goal (tbr_oldest_cr) around my TBR, which will be taking care of the “currently reading” list on Storygraph timely rotating. I usually read a few different things simultaneously, but once it’s past ~6-8, the earlier started ones are easily forgotten. (For the same reason as with the previous goal, I guess. I am a magpie that loves new shiny things.) So the goal is to make sure that the least recently updated item on “currently reading” is a different one, at least 3 times a week. With an added autoratchet, that builds in some specific number of days[1] after which I will be nudged to return to this read or decide to “pause” it for now or DNF it for good.
Depends on the number of books in circulation. Because we don’t have API with storygraph, I decided against scraping an additional page for the info on what was the actual date when something was last “touched”. ↩︎
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My June goal was Hebrew. This has gone better than I could have expected. My verbal Hebrew skills have gotten a lot better and I’ve been enjoying speaking with my fiancee. We’ve also both been doing italki lessons which has helped.
My July goal is plant-repotting. I have a lot of plants that need repotting and I’ve been dragging my feet on it. The goal will be to repot one plant a week. I think in order to make this happen I should order a few pots and soil ahead of time.
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Well, my July goal went so well that my planning for my new job is fully completed and the goal is now archived. Success!
For August, I’m gonna try something new which MAY backfire spectacularly: I’m gonna try beeminding actual time asleep. Is this a terrible idea because this is definitely not directly under my control? Yes. Am I hoping that seeing these terrible numbers directly in front of my face will force me to address the problem somehow? Also yes. Basically, my new meds have ramped my chronic insomnia up into unsustainable levels over the last 6 months, and I’ve already tried pulling all the levers I have used in the past to address my sleep. I figure direct action is at least worth an attempt here. I’ll start with a reasonable goal of 6.5 hours a night, and see if I can manage that consistently; assuming my trip next week isn’t a disaster, I’ll be trying to bump it up gradually until I at least can hit 7. sleeptime – lanthala – beeminder
As an alternate goal, I’m also making one that’ll track how long I spend in bed (a sadly much different number): inbed – lanthala – beeminder If the former goal backfires, I’ll at least have this one (the reason I’m not going entirely with this goal is that I also would like to encourage myself to get up when I wake up early and can’t fall back asleep, and this latter goal contradicts that intention).
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July goal went well. I knew that with vacation and family events, doing full workouts would be hard, so keeping up with doing planks led to me also keeping up on other exercises I could do quickly in a hotel room.
For August, I want to focus on painting. Painting my nails, fake nails, watercolors, paint-by-number kit- doesn’t matter. I have plenty of painting materials that I rarely think to break out and use, so in August, I want to rectify that.
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My July goal to get on top of rotating my plants so they don’t grow towards the sun has been going well! It’s also meant that I’ve been more attentive to my plants in general, noticed a mealy-bug infestation early and quarantined the offending plant, and my plants are happier than ever. I also may have bought more plants…
For August, I just recently finished a reading related goal, so I thought I had room for a new one. Over the past few weeks I’ve finally got on top of logging my entire TBR list on bookmeter, and this NMR, tbrroulette is going to be helping me work through that list in a random order!
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