Snoozing is losing - losing $810!!

[zedmango]

Restarting my $810 proj240 goal this week! This will be the third round - the first two were very successful and I got a ton of work done!

BUT - last time I ended up snoozing till 6am, and for a few days I was staying up till 6am every night! Essentially, if snoozing is allowed, 6am is the “real” deadline, so an edge-skater like me will eventually push it right to the 6am edge. @dreev

So, to prevent this from happening this week, I am adding a new rule - snoozing is losing! If I snooze even by 1 minute I lose! And - I have to finish all the work by 11pm each day!

Hopefully putting this in writing on the forum will help me commit to this!

[zedmango]

I made a reminder for myself on my phone, look!

[linux535]

Wow this is one impressive goal!

[zedmango]

This is going well so far! I got everything done by 11 every day, and today I moved it a little earlier, so it’s due at 9!

[zedmango]

Moved it back to 11 for today. I had hoped to make it by 9 today but I got a late start. I couldn’t sleep last night and then went back to sleep. I also have a physical therapy appointment and I’m running late for it so I probably won’t get home in time to finish by 9.

I don’t consider this to be losing snoozing - but I’d like to hear people’s take on this @mary @dreev @narthur @phi @marcmarti @shanaqui @adamwolf and anyone else who wants to buzz in! (Related: Accomplishing the goal but not the rate (aka when derailing might not be "fair") )

[dreev]

I have to abdicate due to conflict of interest!

PS: I just read it more closely and I think if I were allowed to adjudicate you might have some wiggle room on not snoozing it past the deadline you originally committed to. If you’d wanted to rule that out it would’ve made sense to explicitly reaffirm the commitment when you moved the deadline to 9pm. Since you didn’t do that, there’s some reasonable doubt, maybe, I’m not sure…

[zedmango]

I’ve already made the call that it’s not losing snoozing, since the original intent was

@zedmango

I have to finish all the work by 11pm each day!

and I’m not going to change my mind on that.

So you can freely opine secure in the knowledge that it won’t actually affect revenue. Besides, this is a good test case for the larger debate.

[marcmarti]

Hey! I have not properly read your comment with enough context to understand it until now, but I think you have already have found a solution

[zedmango]

Not totally sure that I have

[marcmarti]

How so?

“I’ve already made the call that it’s not losing snoozing”

[zedmango]

I mean I’m not sure I have a general solution to the problem of making myself do things at specified times.

[zedmango]

Like if I don’t snooze, I pre-check. If I don’t do it on this goal, I do it on others. I don’t know how to fix this!!!

[marcmarti]

@zedmango

Like if I don’t snooze

What is pre-checking?

[zedmango]

Like if I have a deadline at 2:30, I’ll check the goal off at 2:30 but don’t do it till later

[marcmarti]

I believe that you are overthinking everything. Set a realistic, possible, doable deadline 99+% of the time, whatever suits you, create your rules. Then stick to it, and pay if you derail.

[zedmango]

@marcmarti

Set a realistic, possible, doable deadline 99+% of the time

You lost me there!

If I could set a deadline and stick to it 99% of the time I would be a very different person and I wouldn’t need Beeminder!

[lanthala]

Oh man I do this exact thing (pre-checking) on a couple of my goals, and I can’t decide if it’s A Problem I don’t think it’s really a Problem for my toothbrushing goal (I check it off before I go upstairs for bed, because as Beeminder support can testify, I never ever remember to check it off once I’m upstairs!) because if I pre-check but don’t actually brush my teeth, I make sure I derail the next day. It’s also a pretty low priority goal

But for my “bedtime routine” goal, the actual time of the deadline is important, and I keep skating the edge by checking it off and THEN doing my routine. I started doing it when my daughter started taking hours to go to sleep, so I legit didn’t have time to do the whole routine by 9:30pm, but the habit has stuck even on nights when she falls asleep quickly, and even after I shifted the deadline to 10pm I’m thinking maybe I should just lower the slope to something where I can meet the original deadline even with the more-than-occasional “bad night”.

[adamwolf]

If it’s not a problem now, and it becomes a problem in the future, you’ll regret not taking the smidgen of effort to fix up the deadline before it became a problem!