shanaqui's Beeminder Journal: 2023

Akrasia
21

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • I’ve put breaks into my work/studying goals for the week off I’m about to have.
  • /lshtm_viralinfection & /lshtm_mrsa will finish and be archived tonight, as I’ve gone over all course material and handed in the assignments.

Project Bookminder:

  • I need to add some goals for books I have on the go that I haven’t been making good progress with – I still want to keep up using 5 pages/day goals while I’m taking a break from having a backlog.
  • /greenfordanger - Finished this almost a week ago now, and now the goal’s finally archiving. It was an interesting read, but perhaps not quite what I was looking for at the time. Pretty depressing.
  • /thewoodage - Finished this book too. Bit slow and just… too much/the wrong kind of detail for me.
  • /chosenbeautiful - And… this one’s done too, and also wasn’t my thing. Sad face, since I love Nghi Vo’s other work.

Notes:

  • I think that’s about it for the week!
2 Likes
22

Derailments:

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • N/a

Notes:

  • Nothing doing this week, as you see! I still want to add some more reading goals for in-progress books, but I’ve been using my holiday to get through some of those, so we’ll see what’s still on the stack next week.
2 Likes
23

Derailments:

  • /te6_babylonsashes - Yikes, two derailments on this in the last week. I’m just really not feeling reading this book, apparently!

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • N/a

Project Bookminder:

  • /twiceroundtheclock - Standard reading goal (5 pages a day with autoratchet to one day of buffer) for reading Billie Houston’s book of this title. I’m enjoying it so far.
  • /thebuttonbox - Same deal for finishing my stalled reread of Lynn Knight’s The Button Box.
  • I have some other stalled reads, but I think I’ll start gently by just adding one and getting up to speed with that.

Notes:

  • Nothing else comes to mind – I’m all back on track after my holiday!
2 Likes
24

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • /breakfast - I keep trying to do various things to sort my life/stress situation out, but starting too many hares at once and finding it all overwhelming. Let’s start small: I need to eat a proper breakfast at least 4.5 days per week on average. I started with only one day of buffer, even though I tend to prefer to have several days of buffer, so I can’t slack on this goal while I’m getting started with it.
  • /esomeprazole - I need to take my maintenance dose of my acid reflux medication promptly every day, so, tada! This is a 6.5/week rate, with only one day of buffer (just because I really don’t love being in the red). I can thus miss one dose every two weeks, maximum, which should be enough compliance to control my symptoms!

Changes to existing goals:

  • N/a, I think?

Project Bookminder:

  • /twiceroundtheclock - Finished and archived! It was quite fun, very classic crime in style/direction.
  • /blackwoodlibrary - A standard reading goal for reading The Last Heir to Blackwood Library by Hester Fox. I read the first few chapters quickly, got busy, forgot to make a goal, and now I’m determinedly picking it back up again with a Beeminder goal to make sure that doesn’t happen again!
  • /deathontheriviera - Same, for John Bude’s Death on the Riviera.

Notes:

  • I have a bunch of ideas for other goals along the same lines as the new /breakfast goal, but I’m trying to keep myself to one new thing at a time, in hopes that’ll help me stick to it.
1 Like
25

Derailments:

  • /blackwoodlibrary - Didn’t feel like it, just let it derail.
  • /thebuttonbox - Same. Which is happening a bit too much and needs some thought. It was twice on this goal, just this week, for instance.
  • /fastfood - We had a craving and decided it was worth the derail.

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • N/a

Project Bookminder:

  • /babylonsashes - Finally finished! Feels a little scattered compared to the other books… too many POVs, I think.
  • /premonitionsbureau - I made this as a standard reading goal and finished it within the same week! Fascinating stuff about old studies on people who say they are clairvoyant.
  • /deathontheriviera - Workmanlike, but entertaining, and exactly what I often want when I pick up a British Library Crime Classic.

Notes:

  • Busy week, looking forward to the weekend. Not sure what’s coming up for the next week – hopefully not much!
1 Like
26

Derailments:

  • /thebuttonbox - Twice. I’ve broken Beeminder for myself a bit, actually; these goals are meant to be low-stakes and easy to complete, so I’m reluctant to put up the pledge… but the threat of losing $5 isn’t stinging enough to bother me.

New goals:

  • /lshtm_pastpapers - There are 44 past exam questions available for my two upcoming exams. I’m working through all of them, but my pace is slow, because it’s easy to just sit down and do an hour of noodling to fulfil my time-based study goal. So, to sharpen up my focus, this goal requires me to finish all 44 questions by the day before my exam. Right now it has weekends off, but I’ll probably stop having weekends off after a couple more weeks.

Changes to existing goals:

  • N/a

Project Bookminder:

  • I’m pretty much pausing this until I can figure out the problem mentioned above with derailments.
  • /blackwoodlibrary - Finished! Enjoyable but some questionable decisions made about the narration.

Notes:

  • Not much to say except “oof, glad it’s the weekend”.
2 Likes
28

Derailments:

  • N/a – a relief!

New goals:

  • /scarsheets - It’s been suggested I try wearing silicone scar sheets to promote good healing/scar reduction (given I’m a skin-picker and have eczema). Buuut I’m definitely going to forget to apply them. Remembering to wear them for at least eight hours (12 is better, 24 is fine with breaks between each block of 24) is good. Also before I add the +1, I should make sure I’ve washed the previous scar sheet and set it ready for next time, since they’re reusable.
  • /starthydration - I’ve tried over and over again to have goals for drinking enough fluids, and they don’t stick. So I’m trying thinking about it in a different way: what if I just beemind the time I start drinking? I’m normally really bad at it and only grab a drink in the afternoon when I’m thirsty. What if I get a nudge to start earlier in the day? So here we go. I’ve started with it on “easy mode”: I only need to drink by midday, and though the first week of the goal is at a rate of 1 per day, it goes down to 6/7 per day so a goof doesn’t ruin everything forever and ever. I’ll dial it up in two ways over time: first, by moving the deadline earlier, and second, by requiring 6.5/7 per day later on, or even more.

Changes to existing goals:

  • /breakfast - After a couple of weeks of this, I’m comfy upping the rate and adding an autoratchet. The rate is now 6/7 per day, i.e. I need to eat a proper breakfast six days a week, and for now I’m keeping the autoratchet at a week of buffer.
  • /thebuttonbox - Finished and archived, since I finally finished rereading this book. I found it fascinating the first time, but maybe non-fic isn’t great for rereading… or I just noticed the flaws more (so much namedropping without context) this time. I know who Madeleine Vionnet was, but some readers could use more context, and the only Naomi Mitchison I know of was a friend of J.R.R. Tolkien’s and I’m not sure if she’s the one being referred to here…

Notes:

  • I’m struggling a bit with my /teeth goal of late. The problem is not that I forget, or don’t want to, but that I now use a high-fluoride toothpaste (because of my acid reflux) and I’m not supposed to eat or drink for an hour before/after brushing my teeth (according to my dentist) to allow the remineralisation process some time to work. However, because of my acid reflux, I need to eat often, and my throat feels better when I drink plenty (and I can’t drink plain water, because that seems to set it off). So timing brushing my teeth is quite difficult, especially at weekends where we don’t keep our usual sleep schedule. I think the answer might just be More Schedule, but my wife has ADHD and finds that absolutely tedious and unfair. (We can’t really go to bed/get up at separate times, due to our tiny flat.) Gotta keep thinking on this.
  • I kinda miss having book goals for keeping up with reading at least a bare minimum of specific books, but I wanna leave it a bit longer to reset before I start those up again, to see if I can get out of the rut with just allowing them to derail.
2 Likes
29

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • I added a couple of breaks since I’m taking a couple of days off next week, though mostly I’m trying to stay on track!

Notes:

  • Mostly at the moment my big focus is my exams. The /lshtm_pastpapers goal is working a charm to get me answering questions at something like the pace I’ll need in the exam.
  • I know that next (academic) year I want to add a goal for doing background/extended reading in the topics I study that week. Putting it here so maybe I won’t forget!
2 Likes
30

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • With my exams coming up so soon, I’m putting small breaks in my goals to keep things chill.
  • /tody - I put a big break in this one, since the chores are one of the highest stress things. It’s not that I intend to not do any, but zeroing my list every day is too much. Obviously I agreed this with Lisa!
  • /lshtm_pastpapers - I’ve turned off weekends-off, since I need to speed up to meet the target and I’d rather spread it out than have to find more time on weekdays.

Notes:

  • I thought I was being very conservative with my settings for my /starthydration goal, but nope! Turns out it’s actually an effort for me to start drinking any fluids before midday, and today (close to end of day as I write this) I haven’t actually drunk anything yet (though there was milk with my cereal). I’m close to derailing! I haven’t dialled it down yet, but I’m going to think about it.
2 Likes
31

Derailments:

  • /starthydration - Oops. It’s just not a thing I think about in the mornings, yet.
  • /inhaler - I just got careless here, I think.

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • Nothing yet, I think, but by next week I need to add breaks for my exams!

Notes:

  • It’s been a long week and I’m losing safety buffer on a lot of goals. So next week, or maybe the week after, I’ll probably do a review and put some breaks in to help me regain safety buffer, on goals where I prefer it. I don’t want to do that by default though – some goals I might actually be better off having less buffer on. So we’ll see!
2 Likes
32

Derailments:

  • /writethosereviews - Didn’t put in enough of a break before exam crunch time, and didn’t want to try to keep up with it. I’m rather behind on reviews now… we’ll see when I get chance to catch up, after my exams. I made sure before I derailed that I’d have some safety buffer.

New goals:

  • /2023reading_ex - In FFXIV, high-end versions of the normal boss fights are called “Extremes”. This is my reading goal EX, wanting 365 books read this year. It’s an exact clone of the existing goal (all data, and the initial leeway) except that the rate is steeper. I’m pretty sure this is doable and that I’ll stick with this, but it’s a whole goal of its own so I can get rid of it if I don’t think it’s serving me well, and the original goal /2023reading will keep ticking along at the original rate (looking to read 300 books this year).
  • /2023reading_sav - Also borrowing FFXIV terminology, this is my 2023 reading goal on “Savage” mode (in FFXIV, even more difficult and complicated than Extreme!): 400 books this year. It isn’t quite a complete clone of the original goal, unfortunately, since I’m not currently on track, so it has more buffer at the start. I’m less sure I’m going to stick to this one, but it’ll be interesting to see if Beeminder can help me catch up and read that much!

Changes to existing goals:

  • I’ve added breaks to just a handful of goals for my exams; everything else, I want to stick with.

Notes:

  • Exams on Monday and Tuesday. I’ve got this!
1 Like
33

Derailments:

  • /inhaler - I’m so bad at this… my last inhaler is empty and I can’t be bothered to go fetch the new one from the medication bag.
  • /grandma - This is my goal for writing letters to my grandmother every week. I didn’t plan ahead, so I ran out of stamps. Sorry, Grandma!

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • None yet, but I should put in some advance breaks for the two day trips I’m doing soon, my surgery date, and probably also my other hospital appointment. Gah!

Notes:

  • Exams are over, and now I have a summer of somewhat freedom ahead.
1 Like
34

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • Putting some breaks in here and there for my upcoming trips/appointments/etc.
  • /2023reading_sav - I’m actually caught up on reading for my 400 book goal, according to StoryGraph. Beeminder doesn’t quite agree (I’d derail if I shifted the leeway back to the point it is on the other two book goals, never mind when the goal started), but I am starting to remove the initial leeway. I could just leave it as-is, of course, but it’d be nice for all three goals to match exactly.

Notes:

  • It’s been a really, really quiet week. Yay!
1 Like
35

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • N/a

Notes:

  • Yep, a really boring week for me in Beeminder terms! I’m OK with that, I could use a little boring here and there.
1 Like
36

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • /dailyfocusfinder - This is a concept that I used to find useful over on Habitica. You set up 3-5 “must do” tasks, 3-5 “should do” tasks, and 3-5 “nice to do” tasks. I’ve set this up to do that approximately every day (0.9/day to allow for accidents/days it just doesn’t work out), with weekends off.
  • /weeklyfocusfinder - Same idea, but weekly. I’ve set the rate to 1/week, since it’ll always be possible to catch up if I don’t manage it on Monday.

Changes to existing goals:

  • Finally added some breaks ready for my surgery next week.

Notes:

  • It’s been a quiet week and that’s really nice! I hope the next two weeks are quiet too, aside from my operation and another unrelated medical appointment.
2 Likes
37

Derailments:

  • /inhaler - This one always catches up to me in the end.

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • I think I’ve added a bit more time to a couple, because they’re less viable than I thought right now.

Notes:

  • My surgery was fine. My leg hurts quite a bit since it’s close to my knee and everything’s gone a bit angry around the joint. I’m hoping by this time next week I’ll be close to back to normal, though!
1 Like
38

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • A couple more breaks for stuff that was less doable than hoped after the surgery.

Notes:

  • Recovery going well, but trying to take things easy. So mostly just chugging along on most of my goals. However! I do have thoughts about a physio goal again. The problem with it is that it’s not “do this thing once in the day, before a certain time”. Instead, it’s something that I need to do multiple times a day, not at the same time… I really struggle with how to remind and motivate myself to do something like “physio three times a day”. Anyone got any ideas?
1 Like
39

just the obvious one: make three goals with 3 different deadlines for each day. (and maybe a meta goal additionally of you want to have it all in one place, too?)

40

Derailments:

*N/a

New goals:

  • /lshtm_bacterial - A new goal ready for the next semester! I’m starting early, so it’s time to get stuck in. I haven’t pre-planned the whole graph yet this time (with steps up at the end of each week for the number of modules I want to get done by that time), just for the summer – I need to decide which other module I’m doing before I can get fancy.
  • /lshtm_time - Aaand I’ve restarted my time-based goal as well. It’s not fully set up yet since, again, not sure how much time I’ll need.

Changes to existing goals:

  • N/a

Notes:

  • Nothing much to report this week – a remarkably chill time! I haven’t really figured out what I want to do about a physio goal, yet.
1 Like
41

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • /healthierchoice - I figure if I can make just one healthier choice each day, like wanting a snack and eating nuts instead of biscuits, or going for a walk instead of just playing FFXIV during my lunch, then cumulatively I’ll be making a bunch of better decisions. I’ve also set this to be autodialled (strictly, so it can’t get easier). We’ll see how that goes.

Changes to existing goals:

  • I added small breaks to a bunch of goals yesterday after some not-great family news made me feel a bit icky.

Notes:

  • Nothing much to say this week, I think.
2 Likes