In terms of difficulty, Beeminder goals exist on a spectrum from “I would do the thing anyway; the goal just forces me to log it” to “I would never do the thing, but it sounds cool, so let me see if I can make Beeminder force me to do it.”
Too many unautomated I-would-do-the-thing-anyway goals lead to a cluttered dashboard and administrative overhead.
Too many hard goals lead to derailing, anxiety, stress, and a feeling of failure. Perhaps instead of calling them hard goals, we could call them “unauthentic.” I added some thoughts about this at the bottom [1].
The sweet spot is in the middle: where we are already somewhat doing the thing and recognize that it is valuable to our “self.” This is where Beeminder can help create consistent behavioral change.
I found this thread helpful in trying out different things and finding where on the spectrum they lie.
In January, I noted that my meditation sessions didn’t go as deep as I wanted. I created /meditation-retro and /morning-calm to incentivize deeper meditation, but the reality is that Beeminder can make me sit down for an hour, but then it’s up to me whether I daydream or do serious practice. The goals failed, but I have since succeeded in deepening my practice by reflecting on why I started it in the first place. Alignment instead of force.
In February, I tried to replicate the /freggies goal that many community members utilize successfully. For me, it failed because I didn’t have fruits and veggies around when I needed to eat them. This is interesting because there’s no Akrasia involved. If somebody (hi mom) chops the freggies nicely, puts them on a plate, and places them in front of me, I love eating them. But doing all that myself is just too much work. I tried /freggies-prep to address this, but how do you prep freggies if there aren’t any in the house? There’s a fundamental issue where I dislike getting groceries, cooking, and everything in between. The way forward is to do inner alignment work and then stack goals: freggies-buy, freggies-wash, freggies-chop, freggies-prep, freggies.
In March, July, and October, I tried goals to counter my caffeine addiction. I think I should drink a little less, but it’s also not that bad. It mostly bothers me because it feels like I’m lacking self-discipline, but I don’t feel it harms me in any way, so the alignment between the selves isn’t there, and the part that craves the hit and flow the caffeine brings just wins.
Two things I was dabbling with but didn’t pursue seriously were Fatebook and Advent of Code. Since creating the Fatebook goal, I’ve made over 300 predictions and really enjoy using it. I no longer log every prediction; this is an example of a goal that has done its job and should be archived, unless an integration becomes available and it stops causing overhead. Advent of Code meant catching up with problems from the last ten years, which I would have done eventually (because I enjoy solving them) but definitely not at this pace. Similar to my legendary /sicp goal, this is an example of a goal that I would authentically do anyway, but Beeminder helps with pacing.
One thing I apparently don’t want heavily (hahaha) enough is to /lift. It’s interesting because I actually enjoy lifting, but two issues discouraged me: I traveled more than usual this year, and bringing my shoes and equipment is too annoying. I recognize this is a lame excuse, but it’s just enough friction to kill my authentic motivation. Secondly, using chalk isn’t allowed in my gym. I love doing heavy (for me) deadlifts, and without dry chalk, I simply can’t do them; even liquid chalk doesn’t work. It sounds like an excuse, but these trivial inconveniences aren’t always trivial.
Some more successful goals: /daily, which is a one-sentence daily journal; /review, which asks me to review my digital notes; and /pushups. I enjoy doing all these things, but when in doubt, watching a YouTube video is easier. That’s the middle ground I’m talking about - we clearly want to do these things, and we already do for the most part, but Beeminder provides great value in achieving consistency. They are all still active.
I would probably do another year if others are interested. Thanks for organizing it @shanaqui.
[1] As a slightly related aside, the concept of Akrasia seems less and less useful to me the more I think about it over the years. There’s the wise planning me that knows my best interests, and then silly me eats the cookie? Yeah, like that silly me went through millions of years of adaptation to make it so that my “planning self” is even around today. Show some respect. The way is to acknowledge, respect, and unify these selves, not to fight them. By the way, a good example of a “hard” goal is my /tagtime goal, which I failed to accomplish in the yearly thread. Somehow, for some people, tagging their time provides value, and that’s why I wanted to do it - because it sounded cool and not because I had a concrete idea of how it would help improve my life or time management or whatever.