From: Dan Goldstein dan@dangoldstein.com
Date: Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 17:26
Subject: Re: one-more-day syndrome
I was just at this “Behavioral Economics and Health” symposium at Penn
and met the StickK CEO (David, he said that he knew that you knew
Karlan and Ayres). Anyway, after this I went to StickK to see how hard
it is to set up a contract. It was really easy - they have these
templates for common goals (e.g. weight loss) that boil it down to a
few questions. The longest part was entering the credit card, but once
they have that, you can make new contracts in about a minute. These
kind of “Do It or Double Down” contracts could be a special template,
and be really easy to set up (When does the penalty start? Who is the
referee? Done).
However, it is true that since seeing the doctor is little more than
the ‘next action’ of picking up the phone to make an appointment (*),
then you would indeed just get it done before even making a contract.
Sooo, what you need is to tie it to the calendar entry. You set a
calendar entry far in the future (which is low cost because it is easy
to make promises in the future), and once that date passes if you
don’t check off the alert as “completed”, the doubling down begins
automatically. Requires your credit card to be already in the system.
If more palatable, it can begin with one penny (it still reaches $10
million in a month).
(*) Example taken from Getting Things Done
On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 6:09 PM, David Reiley david@davidreiley.com wrote:
Is this really an akrasia thing? Or is this just difficulty paying attention, and organizing one’s to-do list to make the soon-overdue task increasingly important?
David
On Mar 28, 2011, at 3:08 PM, Daniel Reeves wrote:
Yeah, good point. (But Dan is an extraordinary akratic in that I think
he actually can self-enforce.)
This kind of a binary commitment doesn’t seem so well-suited to
Beeminder and a yellow brick road.
And stickK seems way too high-overhead for simple things like this.
(It’s easier to just freaking call the doctor than to set up a stickK
contract.)
I need something like integrated into my calendar where I say I’m
going to call the doctor by this date and everything with the penalty
(I like Dan’s idea of starting with a dollar and doubling each day) is
automatic.
(Btw, there aren’t many of you on this list yet. You’re kind of the
super elite as far as the akrasia aspect of Beeminder is concerned, so
I’m especially eager to hear what you all think of the idea of a more
streamlined way to self-bind on trivial things like calling the
doctor.)
On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 16:50, David Reiley david@davidreiley.com wrote:
So just set up the fine contract with another person. I figured that was implicit in Dan’s proposal.
Note that, unlike most Beeminder contracts, this one seems relatively easy to enforce (hard to cheat). “Did you go to the doctor yet? Yes or no.” Harder to lie, or round your weight down, or whatever.
David
On Mar 28, 2011, at 2:48 PM, Daniel Reeves wrote:
Oh, because a commitment to another person is completely different
than a commitment to my past self. That past self doesn’t even really
exist anymore. Who the hell cares what he thinks?
On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 16:43, David Reiley david@davidreiley.com wrote:
Why would you have any more problem paying the fine on this contract than on any other Beeminder contract you’ve done?
David
On Mar 28, 2011, at 2:42 PM, Daniel Reeves wrote:
How do you get yourself to take the fine seriously? My future self
just rolls his eyes at me and says screw that. Or maybe he feels bad
about it but he’s certainly not going to do something so immediately
painful as pay a fine. Maybe tomorrow he’ll pay it.
(Serious question.)
On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 16:21, Dan Goldstein dan@dangoldstein.com wrote:
Just fine yourself $2 if you procrastinate one day, $4 for two days,
$8 for three days, $16 for four days, and so on.
You’ll do it within a week.
On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 5:16 PM, Daniel Reeves dreeves@umich.edu wrote:
Here’s a classic example of akrasia. You really need to see the doctor
or the dentist (or your lawyer, etc etc) soon (or maybe just
soon-ish). But each successive day you don’t – after all, it’s
literally true that one more day won’t matter. But a year matters a
lot, and that’s just 365 of those one-more-days in a row. How do you
akratics deal with that?
–
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Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com
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http://dreev.es – search://“Daniel Reeves”
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com
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–
http://dreev.es – search://“Daniel Reeves”
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com
–
My home page: http://www.davidreiley.com
–
http://dreev.es – search://“Daniel Reeves”
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com
–
My home page: http://www.davidreiley.com
–
http://dreev.es – search://“Daniel Reeves”
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com