spearfish4400 Beeminder Journal

Life
1

Hello, I am new to Beeminder. I am starting a journal for extra accountability with my goals.

School Related Goals

These goals are all important since I will be resuming school on August 15th with one of my classes being Calculus II.

Daily Goals

  • drink water drink 96 fluid ounces of water
  • limit youtube to one hour or less
    • This is a simple yes or no (1 or 0) goal
    • Once I get to Akrasia horizon (July 14th) I will increase this goal to one hour and 10 minutes (the extra 10 minutes is for catching up on news). Although, I can change this at any time since I can edit the y-axis label or goal description. I will try to be honest with myself maintain the goal until the Akrasia horizon.
    • Another change I am making is changing the goal to 6 days out of the week instead of daily.
  • gratitude and accomplishment journal
    • Yes or no (1 or 0) goal
  • shut down electronics by 9:15pm
    • Yes or no (1 or 0) goal
  • wake up at 7:00am
    • Yes or no (1 or 0) goal
    • Once I get Akrasia horizon (July 14th) I will change this goal to “wake up at 6:30am” or “wake up at 6:00am.” I am leaning more towards “wake up at 6:00am.” Although, I can edit the y-axis label and goal description anytime…I will try to be honest and I will not change the wake up goal until July 14th.
  • important task first thing in morning
    • Yes or no (1 or 0) goal
    • My important task currently is Calculus.
    • I am having an issue where I begin my day with YouTube. I created this goal with the hope of starting my morning productively instead.

Exercise

  • AX-1 AX-1 is a workout program I got a couple of years ago that I have not finished. I want to finally finish it!
    • Complete 5 exercises a week
  • Jogging
    • Minimum of 60 minutes a week but ideally 90 minutes a week.
  • Pull-up sets
    • I suck at pull-ups and want to get better at them.
    • To start I have the goal of 4 sets a week. Next week, it will increase to 8 sets a week.

Programming/Computer Science

  • teach yourself CS is a self-taught computer science curriculum. I have a goal to try to log in 200 hours in one year.
  • cs61a is part of the teach yourself CS curriculum. I plan on logging 4 hours a week.
  • cs-primer This is a collection of CS related courses with a monthly subscription. The courses have an emphasis on learning via practice over lecture. I will complete the two courses I have started then I will probably cancel my subscription and look for free alternatives for CS/programming practice. The goal is two complete 3 problems a week (one module in a course).
  • game engine I currently have multiple components planned for my simple 2D pygame engine. I am currently working on an animation system. I need to write up the pseudocode at the moment. I am planning to spend 4 hours a week on this project.
    • I am planning on working animation component of game engine then archiving this goal to work on building a home server.

Drawing

  • I have always been off and on with drawing so I am hoping to be more consistent.
  • NMA this is a drawing school with a variety of online courses. I have been enjoying going through the courses. I currently have the goal set to go through NMA courses for 3 hours a week.
  • Drawing exercises @ 50 minutes a week

Misc. Goals

  • Language Transfer Italian Language Transfer is channel on YouTube who has a playlist for Italian. I want to make it a goal to go through the entire playlist. I planning on investing 50 minutes a week on this goal.

Final Notes

  • I tend to be someone who adds one to many goals so I am hoping the monetary punishment of beeminder helps keep me on track and prevents me from putting too much on my plate.
  • Finally, I have beeminder for this weekly journal as well: beeminder accountability journal
  • I am excited to use beeminder and I will probably write in the gratitude journaling and new months resolution thread.
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Ground Rules

  • Setting up a weekly budget of $20 as Honey. If I exceed my Honey amount then I need to descale my goals. Ideally, I should be keeping up with my goals so that I am not charged.
  • If three or more days in the week I am working late to keep up with my beeminder goals then I will descale or archive my goals.
  • Most of my goals have pledge caps of $5. Although, I will be transitioning all my goals to a $5 pledge cap. This will be less damaging if I miss multiple goals in a day.

Reflection

  • This week, I put $20 into my Honey balance. I currently have $5 left.
  • I struggle with waking up on time. I initially tried 7:00am to 6:00am although I derailed. When I transitioned to 6:30am, I was able to wake up at this time consistently. This week I tried waking up again at 6:00am although I have been derailing. My plan will be to gradually move wake up time earlier by 15 minutes every three days. I will also be transitioning shut off electronics earlier by 15 minutes - I was not doing this before.

Ratchet Goals

Changes Since Last Post:

  • I deleted calculus-bootcamp and decided to dedicate more time into Professor Leonard Calculus, Calculus Practice, and Essence of Calculus.
  • I archived jogging in the future I will add a more generic cardio goal. This is because AX-1 includes conditioning days that still involve cardio that is not jogging.
  • 7/24/2024
  • 7/23/2024
    • Archive game-engine
      • I will return to this goal. I have another project currently that is more pressing.
    • Delete exercise at 9:30am goal
      • I found this goal a bit redundant and stressful.
  • 7/22/2024
    • Change calculus-practice
      • Time spent on practice problems in Paul Online Math Notes and Khan Academy
      • 45 minutes a week → 90 minutes a week
    • Add math experiments
      • Time spent answering questions that arise when watching lectures or testing scenarios that may arise when watching lectures
      • 60 minutes a week
    • These changes were made because I felt my Calculus Practice was going into testing scenarios that I thought of during the lectures or trying to work out questions I had.
  • 7/20/2024
    • Change cs-primer
      • 3 questions a week → 240 minutes a week (4 hours)
  • 7/18/2024

Ideas Moving Forward

  • In my next post, I would like to include more derailments and troubleshoot ways I can prevent derailments in the future.
  • I may add a goal where if I exceed Honey budget or work late on three days then I would derail if I increase the commit dial on one of my goals or I add additional goals.
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Ground Rules

  • I am removing the ratchet goals from my prior log. I initially did not not understand the commitment dial. I had my ratchet goals set to conservative values and I was accumulating an excess amount of safe days. I used the graph editor to adjust my commitments accordingly. At the moment, I feel like I am accumulating a good balance of safe days.
  • My new post-derailment amount is 2 days (was initially 0).
  • I still have the weekly budget of $20 for my goals. I have decided that I must descale or remove goals IF I spend the entirety of the budget NOT exceed it (this is a change from my last post). I can not add any goals a week after I spent entirety of my budget with the exception to urgent goals. For instance, I start school August 15th and I need to get school supplies then I would add a school supplies goal. The reason for this rule is to prevent overscheduling as a result these goals will fall outside of my budget:
  • If three or more days in the week I am working late to keep up with my beeminder goals then I will descale or archive my goals.

Changes

  • I also archived calculus-practice - it just entered my archive today. I wanted it to be more specific so I replaced it with Paul’s Online Math Notes Calculus 1which is a 4 hours a week goal.
  • 7/31/2024
    • Add “push-up” goal
      • 3 times a week
      • I added this goal since I consider it urgent. Every month ax-1 ends with a challenge. The current month I am on involves a challenge with a lot of pushups. I suck at pushups so I want to practice and hopefully be able to pass the challenge.
  • 7/30/2024
  • 7/28/2024
    • Archive “movie-videogame-app”
    • Archive “beeminder-sched-app”
    • Change “prof-leonard-calculus-1”
      • 8 hours a week → 5 hours a week
        • (8 hours a week was not applying yet since I did not understand the commitment dial)
      • This will change to 2 hours a week starting August 12th (week I start school).
  • 7/25/2024
    • Archive “cs-primer”
    • Archive “prof-leonard-precalc”
    • Archive “essence-of-algebra”
    • Change/Mistake “movie-videogame-app”
      • 7 minutes a week → 240 minutes a week (I entered my commitment amount incorrectly at start up)
    • Change “shutdown-electronics”
      • “9:15pm devices shut off” → “9:30pm devices shut off”
  • 7/24/2024
    • Change “morning task”
      • “7:00AM Start Drawing” → “7:00AM Start Drawing or Journaling”

Archived Goals I Would Like to Resume at a Later Date

  • CS Primer
  • Beeminder Scheduling App
  • Movie & Video Game App
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Transitioning my goals to paper

I have decided to do a major rehaul of my goals. Most of my goals will be tracked manually on paper. Some of these goals will have a due dates while others will be daily. Instead of paying beeminder I will be putting the money into a savings account. All expenses from beeminder/paper goals are taken from my free spending budget (this is meant for fun expenses such video games or movies). When I miss a goal I need to pay $5 for each missed goal (daily goals not completed or goals not completed by due date) OR if it is cheaper I can pay the penalty for derailing on “complete goals.” complete goals is currently set to $0 but has a pledge cap of $90. I can only decrease the current pledge amount at the end of the month. I will use beeminder for goals that are difficult (or tedious to track), for instance goals or tasks that are not weekly or daily.

  • QUICK EDIT: I have been enjoying to use beeminder. I am only making these edits because I want better flexibility with weekly goals. And, at the moment, I feel like I should start putting some money towards savings and this feel like a productive way of doing so.

Due Dates for Goals

  • The following goals are due August 18th:

    • git commit Obsidian notes
    • complete 9 sets of pull-ups
    • complete 5 AX-1 exercises
    • work on NMA Drawing Fundamentals course for 4 hours
    • complete 9 sets of push-up exercise
    • fold clothes
    • finance/budget two times
    • video games 2 hours (excluding Saturdays - Saturdays tend to be my video game day)
    • watch 4 hours of movies or video essays
    • laundry once a week

  • The following goals are due August 21st (7 days to complete goals w/ Thursday to Saturday excluded):

    • Work on CS61A for 12 hours
    • Develop portfolio for 45 minutes
    • Drawing exercises for 30 minutes
    • Work on Essence of Calculus for 2 hours
    • Work on Language Transfer Italian for 1 hour
    • Work on Paul’s Online Math Notes for 5 hours
    • Work on Professor Leonard Calculus I for 5 hours
    • Vacuum home and/or room once
    • Work on MIT Open Courseware Classical Mechanics for 12 hours
    • Take care of recycling 2 times

  • My next beeminder journal entry is due on August 22nd.

Ground Rules

  • Changes to post-derailment amount: My default post-derailment amount is 2 days. These goals have post-derailment of 0:
  • Changes to descaling or removing goals or adding goals: If I miss five goals that are due on same day THEN I need to descale or remove goals. For instance, if I miss 5 of the goals that are due on August 21st OR if I miss 5 of goals that are due on August 18th. I also can not add new goals when when I schedule my next set of goals unless they are urgent.
  • If three or more days in the week I am working late to keep up with my beeminder goals then I will descale or archive my goals.
    • I added movie or video essays 4 hours a week and video games 2 hours a week to ensure I am getting enough freetime throughout the week.
  • Saturday is an off-day
  • Friday is an off-day IF I have an outing with family or friends OTHERWISE treat this as a working day.

Upcoming Challenges

  • I have been searching for a job and recently got accepted to be a temporary research intern at my school. I am also starting school next Thursday. I expect to have some issues keeping up with my goals during this transition time. I began job onboarding this week and that has already taken up a lot of time. Next week, I also anticipate to begin binging Professor Leonard Calculus 1 series to try to get as much prep for classes which may cause some neglect to my other goals.

History Log

  • 8/9/2024

    • Added goals
      • finance 2x a week
      • movie or video essays 4 hours a week
      • video game 2 hours a week (excluding Saturday)
      • mit physics classical mechanics 12 hours a week
        • an urgent goal to supplement the physics class I will be taking
      • recycling 2x week
      • laundry 1x week
      • check goals
        • check daily habits in journal
        • check weekly goals (goals w/ due dates) in binder
      • complete goals
        • described in “Transitioning my goals to paper”
      • No YouTube before 12:00pm
    • Archive goals:
    • Transition to paper:
      • git-commit-notes
      • morning task
      • gratitude-accomplish
      • shutdown electronics
      • limit youtube
      • ax-1
      • cs61a
      • develop portfolio
      • drawing exercises
      • essence of calculus
      • accountability journaling
      • language transfer italian
      • mentorbar
      • nma
      • pomn-calc-1
      • prof-leonard-calc-1
      • push-up-exercise
      • vacuum-home
      • fold-clothes
    • Change shutdown electronics
      • 9:15pm devices shut off → devices shut off when alarm goes off
        • Allows for better flexibility as I can set a later alarm for Friday and Saturday then earlier alarm for the rest of the days.
    • Change morning-task
      • “6:45am Start Drawing or Journaling” ->“Begin Drawing 30 minutes after I wake up”
        • Still keeps me accountable to drawing if I sleep in.
    • Change pushup goal
      • 3 sets a week → 9 sets a week
    • Change drawing exercises
      • 50 minutes a week → 30 minutes a week
    • Change NMA
      • 3 hours a week → 4 hours a week

  • 8/3/2024

    • Change pull-up sets
      • 8 sets a week → 9 sets a week
    • Change mentorbar - a project I was working on to 2 hours
      • Since I exceeded my weekly budget of $20
      • 480 minutes a week → 120 minutes a week
    • Change morning task
      • “7:00am Start Drawing or Journaling” → “6:45am Start Drawing or Journaling”
    • Change shutdown electronics
      • “9:30pm devices shut off” → “9:15pm devices shut off”

Archived Goals I Would Like to Resume at a Later Date

  • CS Primer
  • Beeminder Scheduling App
  • Movie & Video Game App
  • Math Experiments - I may add this again once I go through and take notes on all videos in Professor Leonard’s Calculus I series. This will allow me to go back through scenarios I wanted to test or work through questions that arise during lectures.
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