I’m still in it for my workout resolution. I’m doing 3x/week. I recently took a trip to Paris, though, and counted a couple of days where I walked ten miles as workout days due to being generally exhausted by jet lag and still doing a ton of physical activity. I think that still counts for the spirit of this goal.
2 Likes
In November, I haven’t been really skating the edge for this tagtime-gamified goal of mine, because I was mostly pushed by external, real-life stimuli to put in time to project-related activities. First third of the month I was still at the library, where I needed to use the most of their working hours, then I had to do some last-minute preparations for the conference. The goal had the scheduled break for the last two weeks: one for the conference (it makes no sense to use tagtime-based metric when I am coming to scheduled sessions), then for a vacation. But I still counted for this goal the time that I spent on my conference papers in the mornings and evenings - technically, something I should have been finished with before coming to the conference, but hadn’t been.
The first week of December is the second half of this small vacation, as far as the flat spot is concerned.
Because of all that extra time put in earlier, I will emerge from the break with 9 days of accumulated buffer. Which is good, because I will be staying with friends (and moving between different friends’ houses) until early January, so having some buffer for days when real life will intervene with my plans to work is crucial.
Oh no! I’ve fallen at the last hurdle. I’ve been having some difficulty with stomach upset and couldn’t find a time today to eat the yoghurt.
4 Likes
Looking back at 2024, I wanted to push code 5 days a week in my personal projects and I failed. However, I made about 440 commits last year anyway, so it looks like the effort was simply not spread evenly. In fact I removed this goal during 2024.
This is basically the same amount of commits I made in 2023, following my normal rate of 3 days a week.
If I zoom in, I made nearly half of commits in 2024 in just two months down the rabbit hole of one problem I found fascinating.
It took me 113 days to make 440+ contributions. This is less than 3 times a week.
What does it mean? I don’t know yet.
After over 2 years with tracking commits on beeminder, I simply no longer need the goal. It’s the best outcome I could get from beeminder. The goal should never be to get up on time, but to get rid of the alarm clock 
Btw there are many dataviz projects to enjoy your contributions on GH:
2 Likes
Here’s the December update and year results for my goal where I used an elaborate tagtime-based metric to start working on my post-doc research project earlier in the day.
December was one of the least active months in terms of total time input, starting with a short vacation. Then I had a lot of distractions, such as helping my husband with his project in the library/archive - gladly I had some buffer from before to allow for that. Only now that most people are on holidays, for the last week of December, I finally got into full productivity mode, when I was able to put in the full daily amount of effort.
Overall. This goal definitely helped a lot to stick to my plans. The accompanying raw time-based goal derailed several times, but to the rate imposed by this one, I stuck, knowing that it’s a no-derail goal. So, I worked on the trains, and I worked at 4 am, and I worked to additional hours on the days when the pings just refused to come. A lot of that wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for this accountability group. Thank to everyone who read my monthly banter throughout the year, sorry I am too wordy, but it really helps feel like I am doing progress.
In terms of how these pings are mapping onto the real-life criteria of the project implementation - I think it’s okay. I did two library visits, participated in a conference, and got one article accepted for publication. At least, now, with 11 months under the hood and 13 more to go, I can hope to meet all the project milestones promised to the grant institution and maybe even work a bit on where I hope to bring it further for myself.
@shanaqui, I am honestly still not sure if I have been considered a real participant all this time, since I only started in March and was never added to either of the “halls”. What do you think?
3 Likes
The creatine goal was fairly successful! Over the past 391 days since I started it during the December Dry Run, I took it 283 times which averages 0.72 per day, close to the 0.8/day I was originally aiming for. It has been a good, low-friction Beeminder goal, as long as I take it with me on trips or consciously choose to take a break when I’m away from home for a while. I’m planning to keep this goal going! For me, creatine causes a small increase in body weight, improved exercise recovery, and forces me to drink a large glass of water every night which probably isn’t a bad thing either!
I did derail twice during the year, and put in a break for this holiday season, so I did not officially “Ride or Die” but it was worthwhile anyway. I will happily take my place in the Hall of Recognition.
2 Likes
I’ll post about wrapping up this thread hopefully by the end of this week!
I’m in a bit of a crunch time with study stuff, but I’ll hard-commit to picking the winners and sorting out the prize pools by the end of Monday (GMT), even if I can’t get to it this week.
2 Likes
Okay, first up! With the rule of “posted within the last month” for winning, these are the people from the hall of fame who are eligible to win, by my understanding:
@scarabaea (who should’ve been in the hall and just never got added, my bad)
If I push it a bit and say posting in the latter half of November counts, we can add:
As for the hall of recognition, those who seem to be eligible by the defined criteria are:
And if we assume “in the last month” to include an update just after the new year began:
So, my first question is – for the three identified as being Hall of Famers, did you stick to your goal all the way, with no derailments or changes to your rate? If so, I can go ahead and draw with you three in the metaphorical hat (probably via a Slack bot, unless people are keen on me offering one of my rabbits three identical labelled treats to choose between).
The hall of recognition is more straightforward, since we only had to keep participating and post in December, but I’ll draw both at the same time.
2 Likes
I did! I made it through NYE with about 5 days of buffer on this goal, and a few times earlier in the year when the road was made harder with an autoratchet after I got above 7 days of safety.
3 Likes
I did - I ratcheted a bit at the beginning as I had too much buffer, then regretted that a bit later when I got really close to the red line, but eventually got in a groove with the required activity.
I’m not in the UK so if I get picked feel free to credit me some honey money instead.
4 Likes
Yes, I confirm that I did stick to the original goal description: I didn’t derail or decrease the rate, and I only added the flat spots within the originally outlined limits (June - vacation, July - summer school, November-December - conference + vacation), even for fewer weeks than initially declared.
4 Likes
I used Slackbot in the Beeminder Slack to do the draw.
The winner of the grand prize is @bwiderski!
The winner of the participation prize is… myself. 
So there are two things that need to happen now:
-
Anyone who wants me to distribute any money they pledged for the main prize pool needs to send it along to me. In which case, you can send it via my PayPal link (it will show you a very old picture of me, include my deadname/legal name, and a note mentioning the names Nicky, Eirian and shanaqui – if you see anything else, something’s gone wrong).
If you’d rather send it directly to @bwiderski, that’s entirely OK by me (possibly even a little preferred!). Please message her to confirm how she’d like to receive it, in that case. -
@bwiderski needs to let me know how to direct the prize. I can certainly do so in H$, but I’m also happy to buy an Amazon.com voucher or similar, or send via PayPal. You can let me know in this thread, or via private message, whatever you prefer.
I will forfeit any prize myself and redirect the funds I’d set aside for that into my monthly donation to the local foodbank. I’d originally intended to buy a book with it if I won, but I got spoiled for Christmas… (Not that new books ever go amiss even so, but it feels weird. )
2 Likes
I hung tough on my reading goal but forgot to update here - capped off the year by finally making it through John Crowley’s long fantasy novel Little, Big, and now I’m pining for this gorgeous-looking reprint of the book. Already re-upped a fun-reading goal for 2025 with a slightly steeper curve. Congrats and happy new year, everyone!
3 Likes
Thanks! If you can do an Amazon.com voucher in US$ (or usable as such) that works. I’ll DM you my Amazon registered email address.
Anyone else, my Paypal name is @bwiderski, my Venmo is @Betty-Widerski
2 Likes
Yay, congrats to both @bwiderski and @shanaqui for winning the categories!
I have just paypal’d my contribution to the prize pool to you, @shanaqui. Sorry for checking in here a couple of days later only, I am stuck amid flights, which ended in my failing this year’s challenge 
and also prevented me from routinely checking the forum.
Thank you! I’ve got that. I’m waiting on knowing what at least one other person does before doing the currency conversions etc, hoping to send the Amazon voucher on Monday.
Paypaled 30 GBP to you