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shanaqui's Beeminder Journal: 2021

Life
#1

[Previous Beeminder Journal thread]

GROUND RULES: Feel free to join in and ask questions, poke me and give me accountability, chip in with your experiences. I’m game. If something’s out of bounds, I’ll just say so.

NB: I am very frank about my physical and mental health, particularly the latter. I have GAD or PTSD, depending on which medical professional you listen to; that will be referenced in these posts as it affects my goals and daily life.

So here we are in 2021. And as promised, here’s a new Beeminder journal thread, since my previous thread got a biiiit overwhelming.

Derailments:

  • /writethosereviews - They got on top of me, argh! I’m actually including incentives for writing/sharing reviews in time in my Game of Books for 2021, so that should be helpful.
  • /hidrate - I don’t think this is actually legit, but the jury’s out right now until someone else can take a look, so I’ll include it now while I remember just in case. I’ve been down to the wire on this one for a few days, alas.

New goals:

  • I’ve got a bunch of goals for the new year, but instead of big resolutions, I’ve gone with trying to create goals that are more like nudges, doing some small thing that pushes me toward what I want. So small that hopefully I can do it every single day, no matter what.
  • /litsyupdate - This one is for participating on Litsy, but instead of being “review every book I read” or “read my feed and comment every day”, it’s just “post what I’m reading every day”. No requirements for length or any further participation… but probably the act of going to Litsy to post my quick status update will prompt checking my feed on many, maybe most, days.
  • /pillowfort - Similar idea: for this I have to do any kind of participation on Pillowfort, e.g. post, reblog, comment…
  • /justonestitch - I could’ve gone for some kind of “finish all those blankets lying around in various stages of completion”, but again, I went for a really small version of the habit that will hopefully pay off. I joined 6-7 motifs to a blanket from 2019 yesterday, because I’d started with my one stitch, so yay!
  • /mit - This one is linked to TaskRatchet, and requires me to set an MIT every day. Beeminder holds me to adding the MITs to TaskRatchet… TaskRatchet holds me to completing them. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before!
  • /gameofbooks2021 - My Game of Books points for this year are set up with similar ideas, including a point for posting on Litsy and a point for writing a review within 24 hours. The spreadsheet is open!

TaskRatchet Fails:

  • None in the last week!

Changes to existing goals:

Other comments:

  • Nothing really to report this week, but of course, blwyddyn newydd dda i bawb!
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#2

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • /xmasbacklog - Handling the backlog for one of the sites I work for (not Beeminder) after it got a bit bananas over Christmas. I identified 43 emails that I need to deal with, and decided I want them done by the 12th. In the meantime, I have to keep up with the new emails that are coming in, or add them to this backlog if they sit for more than three days. So far, so good.
  • /backlogzero - I had a gmailzero goal recently, and it failed because I always stalled over answering the last few emails after getting it down to the threshold. No more! A specific batch of emails have been tagged, the Gmail integration tracks how many, and I’ve gotta get rid of them all by the 13th. I’ve done a lot of the easy ones, so some grind remains even though my progress looks good…
  • /confusion-backlog - Beeminder has a big ol’ spreadsheet of user issues to help us identify common issues, and while training our new workerbees, I missed a bunch. I’m aiming to be caught up by 19th Feb; newly tagged emails go into this backlog too to ensure they get dealt with.
  • /booksellerstale - A reading goal of the usual sort, for finishing Martin Latham’s The Bookseller’s Tale.

Changes to existing goals:

  • /lshtm_biology - I’ve completed all the main course reading! I’m still working on the assignment, and reviewing my anki cards for it, so I’ve flattened my goal out to 2 hrs/week… It will get lowered further once my card reviews get spaced further and further apart, and this first assignment gets written. (Then I’ll spike the rate up again for a while when my next assignment is due!)

TaskRatchet Fails:

  • N/a, although I almost got caught by not ordering batteries for my smart water bottle. Did it at the laaast minute. So far my MITs have been fairly easy to achieve, in line with my feeling of being a whisker away from burnout, but they might start getting a bit more demanding… or I might set more than one a day.

Other comments:

  • I’ve been a little frazzled this week by the feeling of constantly needing to catch up, but I think those backlog goals will help. I might add another couple of backlog goals, but we’ll get these out of my way first.
2 Likes
#3

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • /thereandbackagain - According to a Habitica challenge, it’s 920 miles to the Lonely Mountain from Hobbiton [edit: depending on which challenge you do, which apparently I picked the 920 one, not the 967 one]. Think I can get there by the end of the year? Technically, I shouldn’t have called this ‘There and Back Again’, as the trip does not take into account the journey back, but shoosh.
  • /aworldbeneaththesands - A book-reading goal, with the usual rules (odometer goal, rate of 5 pages a day, autoratchet) to finish Toby Wilkinson’s A World Beneath the Sands.
  • /abaddonsgate - Getting back to reading the Expanse series! Usual rules here too (instead of the bigger 50 pages/day I had on the previous two goals).

Backlogs:

  • Splitting these into a separate section just for this week!
  • /backlogtabs - I had a lot of old tabs open, having lost my habit of tab zero. Now I’m back there, woo! This only took two days once I had the motivation…
  • /addressbacklog - One of the things I do over at Postcrossing is moderate addresses. There was a bit of an influx right when I didn’t have time to do the task, and it’s got on top of me. No worries, I’ll chip away a chunk a day and soon get back to normal… and, done!
  • /backlogzero - This one’s all done too! I followed @dreev’s method of isolating the backlog and beeminding that, which meant I had to get this down completely to zero… instead of constantly having more trickling in and just chipping away the newer stuff. Again, once I had the motivation in the form of a Beeminder goal, the emails melted away. And I’ve kept it that way so far.

Changes to existing goals:

TaskRatchet fails:

  • Cleaning the bathroom after an already frazzling day trying to catch up with backlogs… turned out to be a nope!
  • Sorting through my mail – apparently chores just aren’t my thing this week.

Other comments:

  • Nothing else to report, I think!
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#4

I think Mark Forster gets the credit for that idea! See the intro of “Redqueening, Inbox Zero, Backlogs, and Fluid Dynamics”. Also nice work on getting back to inbox zero! I’m doing unusually well at that myself at the moment with bmndr.co/d/gmailzero.

#5

Derailments:

  • /screensoff - Lisa’s off work this week, so we’re holding high revel and failing to go to bed on time.
  • /teeth - Siiiiiiigh. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to remember to clean my teeth in the morning. I managed to make it a bedtime ritual I never ever forget – why is this so much more difficult?!

New goals:

  • /paperpatternindustry - For finishing Joy Spanabel Emery’s A History of the Paper Pattern Industry, a fascinating study of the development of sewing patterns. Usual rules on book-reading goals! And… I finished and archived this already, too.
  • /changepasswords - I’m going through my password manager and making sure my passwords are all secure, and changing them up when they’re not or when they’re really old. It’s… gonna take a while.
  • /mischiefandmayhem - I’m testing out whether to just start a new goal for every book I start, even if I seem to be reading it really fast. So I only started this one today, but I’ve set up the goal – with the usual rules.

Changes to existing goals:

  • /treadlightly - Had to have a break put in it because my treadmill’s borked.

TaskRatchet successes:

  • Since I’m putting my MITs in TaskRatchet, there’s a lot to mention if I do all the successes… but sometimes stuff needs flagging up.
  • Like the fact that TaskRatchet got me to do one project invoice and then (a few days later, with a rather bigger penalty) another.
  • And it nudged me to do reading for my essay, and forced me to get something down on the page even though it’s really difficult.

TaskRatchet fails:

  • Invoice project 1 and project 2 (managed project 1, not project 2); fee $5.
  • Hoover office; fee $1.

Other comments:

  • My backlogs are staying under control, though I’m still grinding away on the spreadsheet backlog. But having so much feedback is a good problem to have!
#6

Derailments:

  • /teeth - Twice, but one was not legit because I hadn’t realised due to a stale page.
  • /lshtm_biostatistics - I really needed a break. It was still at $0 anyway, so…

Reading goals:

  • /genuinefakes - Both made and completed this week, for reading Lynda Pynes’ Genuine Fakes.
  • /endofeverything - Ditto, for reading Katie Mack’s The End of Everything.
  • /borrowedtime - Ditto, and this one must be some kind of record, because I finished it the day I started it, and the graph’s a bit comical as a result. This was for Sue Armstrong’s Borrowed Time, a book about aging.
  • /abaddonsgate - This one took me a while, but I finished James S.A. Corey’s Abaddon’s Gate too!
  • symphonyinc - Since I’m clearly in the mood for pop-science, here I go with Robert Hazen’s Symphony in C.

Changes to existing goals:

  • /clockoff - This goal got a bump for a single day because I needed to cover for another workerbee, which meant working a bit longer than usual.

TaskRatchet successes:

  • Remembered to buy my mother’s birthday presents!
  • Followed up on the ugh-y issue of my broken treadmill!

TaskRatchet fails:

  • N/a

Other comments:

  • I think I need to do another slimming down and overhaul of my goals. I’m feeling a bit exasperated by how often I fail and just by the sheer number of goals I have to diligently log data on every day, and there are some that could be consolidated… I’m not going to do it today, but soon!
#7

Derailments:

  • Quite a few, as goals I’m archiving derailed at $0 and I archived them. I’m not going to go through the list this week.
  • /confusion-backlog - This one was legit and at $5. I didn’t separate the backlog from the new items coming in, so it was proving a struggle to keep up. I’ve lowered the rate now.

New goals:

  • /cemeteryboys - For reading Aidan Thomas’ Cemetery Boys. Also a standard reading goal.
  • /thebiscuit - For reading Lizzie Collingham’s The Biscuit, a microhistory about, well, biscuits. Already finished and going to archive tonight.

Changes to existing goals:

  • /aworldbeneaththesands - Finished and archived! Oof that was a chunky book.
  • A lot of goals got archived all at once, as a result of talking with my current CBT therapist… who feels very much that I need to learn to relax to help cope with my anxiety. Partly that’s breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation, to learn to cope with stress as it happens… and part of that is reducing some of the things I have to stress about to give me a bit more coping room for the anxiety itself while it’s bad. I’m not going to list all of them, but some notable examples…:
  • /vitd and /iron - Pretty much covered by the fact that I now have a pillbox (and a goal for promptly filling it).
  • /hourofreading - It’s pretty clear that by now I’ve established more space in my day for reading, and have been taking advantage of it. The goal itself has been somewhat motivating, in that I’ve enjoyed watching it swoop up like that. At the same time, tracking my reading time via Toggl makes it all a bit transactional and disincentivises just picking up a book and enjoying a couple of pages here and there. It’s been a good experiment, but I think it kind of proved that it was never necessary… what was necessary was stuff like my /clockoff goal, which helped me make the time for reading.
  • /riseandshine - This goal might come back someday, because I do feel the need for a morning routine, but… it was really disheartening to start my day and know I’d already failed at this goal. There’s a bunch of goals like this that I’ve archived now because I’m just tired of the constant small failures each day (even when I don’t actually derail, I still see my leeway dropping). Not the time for it.
  • /beemergencies - This was a great goal in so many ways, and I hope I don’t lose the good part of what I got from it, which was reducing my tendency to edgeskate. However, it made any failures really stressful, especially on goals with 1/day rates or close to it – failing once on a 6.5/week goal would leave me racking up beemergencies for two weeks, and it left no room at all for error. If more than one goal slipped at once, the derailment would be unavoidable – even though I’d see it coming a week in advance.

Other comments:

  • That was kind of a lot, so I’m ending the review here for this week! It’s a bit of a thumbnail sketch, but hopefully my leaner goal selection will lend itself to easier reviews and more meaningful thoughts about the goals that remain!
#8

Derailments:

  • Another bundle this week, because my day off keeps throwing me off and making me think I have no goals due. The ones derailing at $0 I let stand, but I called not legit on the others.
  • Obviously the above is a problem; I plan to add more leeway to my goals again to get back to the state where everything had at least a day to go.

New goals:

  • /lshtm_statsprogress – I’m not making good enough time with one of my courses, so here’s the additional pressure. I’ve actually entered datapoints for each unit already, on estimated dates, with 0 values, so I can visualise better about what lies ahead.
  • /onesmallstep is about making incremental improvements in my home environment – not the routine stuff I was already keeping up with, but the stuff like taking out some recycling that sort of just found a home in a corner, and clearing a laundry backlog of stuff that needs a special separate wash and thus got neglected.

Changes to existing goals:

  • I think this was n/a this week.

Other notes:

  • Nothing coming to mind this week!
#9

That’s a neat idea for setting a roadmap out. I am stealing it! :smiley:

I have a similar goal to your onesmallstep one that I started about a year ago. Mine’s on a much shallower slope than yours but it has been really useful. Sometimes I tidy up an entire room and drag a load of stuff to the recycling centre, other times I just organise a drawer or look for one of those piles of things that have become invisible and make them actually vanish. Overall it’s worked really well.

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#10

@k1rsty I actually missed some of the details about my onesmallstep goal that I meant to talk about! It’s intended to be a short term booster to help get backlogged tasks done. They don’t take too long, but they’re additional to the routine or ugh-y in some way (like going through a backlog of mail that needs sorting and shredding/filing). I’m hoping to end the goal in a couple of months (can’t remember now what end-date I put on it) and go back to having a five-minutes-a-day type goal for general tidying.

My wife and I have both had a mental health slump the last month or two, and it’s, um, it’s not done good things for our living environment, that’s for sure. The bare minimum has been done… but it’s a very bare minimum.

#11

Sounds like a good plan! Mine’s more of an ongoing commitment to save myself from being swallowed by the ever increasing entropy of the universe. I’m never going to turn myself into a tidy person but I can try and pretend a bit. Also, I should also do some shredding!

#12

Derailments:

  • I had a bunch this evening again, which I called non-legit on, because I just didn’t keep it in my head a) that it was nearly midnight and b) that I had goals I needed to enter data on. I did better than before, in that I actually had a data entering blitz earlier in the day, but I missed some goals that were in the red. Anyway, called not legit on those, and continuing to take notes to avoid this better in future…
  • /teeth - Narrowing down my problem with this goal, it’s basically that I don’t have a morning routine… and by the time I’m settled down to do other things, this one gets put off and put off because it’s not convenient right now.

New goals:

  • /wishyouwerehere - Should’ve started a goal for this last week: reading Rita Mae Brown’s Wish You Were Here, which I hope to review for Postcrossing. Usual book goal rules (rate of 5 pages/day, end-total of the last page number, autoratchet to 1 day so the buffer never builds up for long).
  • /theaddressbook - Also a book I want to read for Postcrossing, actually: Deirdre Mask’s The Address Book. Again, same rules.
  • /kushielschosen - I think I forgot to mention starting this, for Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Chosen and the Read As Thou Wilt readathon. I’m actually behind because I’ve tripped up on this goal on Saturdays two weeks in a row now.
  • /thedukeandi - Another reading goal, for Julia Quinn’s The Duke and I (no, I didn’t watch Bridgerton… my wife did, though).
  • /backlogzero - Here we go again. I slipped in keeping up with inbox zero, and it fell on top of me again. Rate of -25/day, though I expect it to go much, much faster than that at first.
  • /backlogtabs - Same! Hoping to be done by the end of February.

Changes to existing goals:

  • A couple of goals got breaks added to help me get back to operating with safety buffer.

Other comments:

  • I really need to be careful not to bite off more than I can chew with having lots of goals, which the above new goals section makes me worry about a little. Though it’s not so bad when they’re fairly low goals (like the reading goals) and have a defined endpoint.
1 Like
#13

Derailments:

  • N/a!

New goals:

  • /noddingoff - For reading Professor Alice Gregory’s Nodding Off: The Science of Sleep. Usual reading goal rules: 5 pages/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety.
  • /therestaurant - For reading William Sitwell’s The Restaurant: A History of Eating Out. And again, usual reading goal rules! It works, so why change it.

Changes to existing goals:

  • /thedukeandI - Finished and archived. Boy, the crisis point of this book was gross.
  • /cemeteryboys - Finished and archived too! This one took me way longer than I expected because I wasn’t quite in the mood, but Beeminder kept me on track.
  • /backlogzero - Got to the bottom of it faster than expected, whew!
  • /backlogtabs - Same.

Other comments:

  • I am once more feeling better and a bit less overwhelmed, though it’s worth noting to myself that I only just yesterday got out of being in the red every day on my goals. Definitely not time to be ambitious again yet.
#14

Derailments:

  • N/a! I almost feel like a functioning human being.

New goals:

  • /kindred - For reading Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art (Rebecca Wragg Sykes). Usual reading goal rules apply! (5 pages/day, autoratchet to one day of buffer.)

Changes to existing goals:

Other comments:

  • Keeping quiet over here, and giving myself more time than I feel like I need to get over that burned out feeling. Being frank, I don’t expect the calm waters to last due to particular mental health stuff (which is too personal for even me to share here, though I know I tend to be wide open about this kind of thing), so it’s best I keep things very very lowkey.
#15

Derailments:

  • /onesmallstep - Derailed at $0 after I’d decided to archive it for not really getting at the right thing. Ah well, chalk it up to experiment.
  • /kushielschosen - …I forgot to read. No good excuse.

New goals:

  • /wordbyword - A goal for reading Kory Stamper’s Word by Word, with the usual reading goal rules. Already finished and archived, too!
  • /secretlifeofbooks - For reading Tom Mole’s The Secret Life of Books. The usual rules apply!

Changes to existing goals:

  • N/a.
#16

Derailments:

  • /teeth - Insert much wailing and gnashing of 'em here.

New goals:

  • /longlivelatin - For reading Nicola Gardini’s Long Live Latin, with the standard reading goal rules, except this one also gets weekends off because it’s the book I’m currently reading during work breaks…
  • /mapofknowledge - For reading Violet Moller’s The Map of Knowledge. I should’ve started this goal last weekend, but kept procrastinating. But hey, I’ve started it now.

Changes to existing goals:

  • /kushielschosen - Finished and archived. Still such an epic series. :blue_heart:
  • /wordbyword - Also finished and archived. Loved it; Kory Stamper is great.
  • /secretlifeofbooks - Also finished and archived. Bit more meh on it.
  • /clockoff - I’ve upped the threshold for the hours I can work in a day to 7/day. I hope this is a temporary measure and I can drop it back down soon.

Notes:

  • I forgot to add breaks for during the four-day intensive course I’m on about COVID pharmacoepidemiology, so this might be an interesting week ahead… Wish me luck.
1 Like
#18

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • /animalsatlockwoodmanor - Reading goal with the usual criteria! But finished within 24 hours, because I steamed right through the book, The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey. So this is also already archived.
  • /andonlytodeceive - For reading Tasha Alexander’s And Only To Deceive; reading goal with the usual criteria.
  • /angelofthecrows - For reading Katherine Addison’s The Angel of the Crows. Usual rules!
  • /considerthefork - For reading Bee Wilson’s book of this name, aaaand again, the usual rules.

Changes to existing goals:

  • /lshtm_statsprogress - Finished and archived! This format of adding 0 datapoints for estimated completion dates was really handy and I’ll be using it again.
  • /kindred - Finished and archived! This book (Rebecca Wragg Sykes’ Kindred) was really good, an amazing overview of what we know about Neanderthals.
  • /lshtm_biostatistics - This goal got a hefty ratchet after I entered roughly 28 hours of work this week, because actually I have an assignment due on the 31st and I do need a push to work on it. I’d like to keep about a week’s buffer, though, because darn, I earned it.
  • /lshtm_biology - I got a break on this goal because of the pharmacoepidemiology course I was on. The break deliberately ends in time to make me put in some solid work on my assignment, though – I hope to have it fully drafted by the end of the 28th.
  • /longlivelatin - Finished and archived. I would love to love Latin, but this book didn’t quite get me there; too much alluding to stuff I haven’t read and posting examples that mean nothing to me. Oh well, I did finish it, because the author’s enthusiasm was interesting in itself.
  • /mapofknowledge - Also finished and archived. A bit dry at times, but overall I’m glad I read it.

Notes:

  • I think that’s everything for this week! The course I did was as intense as predicted or more, but very enjoyable – and I kept up with almost everything. I’m pretty proud of that, too. I took it easy on Friday as a result, and Saturday is my usual day off, but I’ll need to get back to it on Sunday! May also employ TaskRatchet to force myself to abandon perfectionism and get the job done.
#19

Derailments:

  • N/a! Feeling pretty good about this lately.

New goals:

  • /howtoreadapaper - A book recommended by a tutor on the pharmacoepi course, for learning to critically analyse papers better. I haven’t set up one of my usual reading goals here; this is a chapter-a-day goal, with the units as chapters, and no auto-ratchet.
  • /hollywoodhomicide - Usual reading goal format, for reading Kellye Garrett’s Hollywood Homicide for a book club.

Changes to existing goals:

  • /lshtm_biostatistics - Added a break to give me some time off now I’ve turned in my assignment. Soon it will be time to run myself through the entire course again before the exam… but I get a few days off.
  • /angelofthecrows - Finished and archived! I love Katherine Addison’s work.

Notes:

  • I think I’ll soon be resurrecting /lshtm_statsprogress, with projected dates for the datapoints again. That was really helpful, and I have got to get faster before the exam, so I need all the practice I can get.
#20

Derailments:

  • The good streak was bound to end someday…
  • /hollywoodhomicide - Not a book I was enjoying, so I set this to archive and let it derail, as discussed in the reading goal dilemma thread.
  • /raybearer - I am not 100% loving this book, which probably explains how I came to forget all about it today during my day off. It’s not bad, just not really holding my attention; it’s a little young, I guess.

New goals:

  • /sciencefictions - A reading goal for Science Fictions by Stuart Ritchie, about fraud and bias in science. Very good read – so much so that I actually finished it in 24 hours. So this goal is also now archived.
  • /reinventingthewheel - For reading Bronwen and Francis Percival’s book on “milk, microbes and […] real cheese”. Interesting so far, but also snobby about what counts as “real cheese”. Standard reading goal rules!
  • /checkmatetomurder - Reading goal for E.C.R. Lorac’s book of that title; already finished and archived. Predictably fun, since it was Lorac!

Changes to existing goals:

  • /andonlytodeceive - Finished and archived! Pretty fun read.
  • /feedback-backlog - The one and only confusion-backlog goal, just renamed to match the tag I use in emails! And it’s done done done and dusted. Obviously categorising feedback is an ongoing task (which is in fact reflected in how long this took me – I didn’t isolate the backlog.

Notes:

  • The reading goal dilemma thread is a good discussion of how to handle goals that might be at odds with your larger goals (like, in my case, “only read when it’s fun”).
1 Like