Stuck in a Beeminder Failure Loop

[linux535]

Hello everyone, been while since I have posted here. I have a general pattern of posting for a few weeks to a few months on here and then disappearing for awhile.

Since last time I posted here I went for a psych eval to see if I had ADHD and or ASD. I believe I had mentioned a few times I had thought I had ADHD. Well I got my results back recently and the results were ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) level 1. A lot of things in my life finally feel as if they have clicked in place as far as understanding myself. Beyond that my first baby will be arriving sometime within the next 30 days.

I am wanting to get back into Beeminder for a few reasons:

1. With a baby coming I want to make sure I am top of things such has making sure I am helping keep the house clean.

2. Make sure I am tracking data in the Huckleberry app for the baby.

3. Make sure I start routines with me and my wifes future child, such as reading a story every night.

The Round ABOUT PROBLEM

I run into a similar issue every time I do Beeminder. It will help 3 weeks till a max of around 2 months (minus the first time I tried it which went like 6 months) . Feels like I am in a loop as it happens again and again. Usually things break down when one of the following things happen:

1. A major negative life event will occur. At which point I just fully give up and just put in fake data until I archive goals.

2. I will get sick multiple times in a row usually really close together. This happened recently. In last two months I had 4 ear infections (doctors are not sure why), bronchitis bad for two weeks, another random virus that caused coughing, days with ear issues beyond ear infections that caused vertigo and dizziness, really bad eczema outbreaks that lead to skin infections and etc.

During one of these cycles I will put in fake data as I can’t afford to derail for weeks in a row. Usually leads me to just giving up.

3. I become hyper fixated on some other system or some other random thing. Usually this hyper fixation will last a few weeks to several weeks. Recent example I found a book series I liked. Within a 14 day period I read 1,700 pages. It was all I could think about day or night. I forgot to eat several times, was sleeping only 2-3 hours a night and I would need to use the restroom but would hold it for 3-4 hours until it caused pain I could no longer ignore.

My wife helps remind me to do basic things in the throws of my hyper focuses. On the Beeminder side of things I just enter fake data for my hyper fixation period or archive all goals.

4. There will be a lot of change in my life or a lot of social events near each other. I will become very dysregulated (Possibly ASD burnout when it persists). During these periods I can barely get myself to do anything.

I just want to lay in bed all day, if I have work my productivity is in the toilet. I dont want talk or socialize with anyone but my wife. During these times doing anything becomes extremely hard.

Even things I like eating become a fight during parts of the burnout period. Usually I will have major sensory issues during these. Example being my sense of touch will become extremely sensitive. If someone touches me it makes me want to puke and scream (cause sleep

Issues also). Sometimes can not even have blankets on me at night. Too much noise will put me in distress. Smells become abnormally strong. Because of all this my focus also becomes absolute garbage, and I will have persistent brain fog. I used to think these were depressive episodes but with the sensory issues on top of it I lean towards it being ASD burnout.

This can last anywhere from a single bad day to several weeks. During these times I will just enter fake data into Beeminder or archive my goals after entering fake data. As again I can not afford to derail for weeks on end. Prior to my ASD diagnosis I looked at these times as me being a failure/lazy person, but I now see it was just my brain becoming dysregulated and forcing me to take a break even if I didnt want to.

5.Inherently using Beeminder causes me near constant anxiety unless I have all goals done for the day. Albeit that is how it gets me to do things. Generally I am okay with this as long as the anxiety it is causing is less than anxiety caused by not doing the Beeminder goals. Example a dirty house can be much more stressful than using Beeminder. But sometimes it feels like the anxiety of using Beeminder increases too much. At which point I quit again.

Recommendations to help

With all the above do you guys have any recommendations on how to stick with Beeminder and not have me fall off the wagon every few weeks to a few months? As when it works its great I feel like I am being a very productive person. I just can not seem to maintain it. I have tried many other systems but none of them seem to last even close to how long Beeminder does in spite of my repeated failures to maintain it.

[cgamer1]

Super fair concern! I had similar worries when my daughter (now 2 years old) came along. I think the big wins for Beeminder were:

1. Essentially whatever you think you can do, cut it in half. Ha I was super worried about my hobby time the first 4-5 months but I just kinda rolled with the punches and read, played video games, etc when I could.

2. Only have like 2-3 goals. Part of the reason the Beeminder spiral occurs because you may have like $80 dollars on the line for the day. If you only had like 3 goals set at $5 a goal that is max $15. Something that helped me was to have a baby points goal which gave me a ton of flexibility depending on my energy. Pretty much I got a point for a reading session, or taking her for a walk, or surviving a sleepless night.

[rubygagotoku]

Congratulations on your new arrival!

It sounds like there’s a lot of complicated things going on for you, but I just wanted to respond to the bit about the illness/negative life events. Do you have a goal for calendialing? (basically, looking ahead at what’s going on in your real life and scheduling breaks/adjusting slopes) If you’re feeling yourself getting ill then that’s a good time to schedule flat spots on everything until you’re sure you’re feeling better (if you make a miraculous recovery then you can always ratchet things to put the pressure on again sooner). Of course there’s still the one week akrasia horizon, but I’m honing in on the bit where you said “derailing for weeks in a row”.

Making a formal goal for calendialing means that it becomes part of your routine to look at what’s really going on for you and being realistic about what you can achieve. With the hyperfixation thing too, like when you feel that welling up inside of you, you could schedule some flatter slopes to let yourself embrace the New Thing. You have to work through your current commitments in the meantime, until the break kicks in, but doesnt that make it more delicious in a way? To know that you can enjoy New Thing guilt-free after you’ve kept the agreement you made to yourself?

[linux535]

What tends to happen to me is I start out with a few goals. It goes really well I get excited and create more and more goals not taking into account that yes right now I can handle all those goals but I have left no room for bad days (things I listed above) or a change in motivation. I get caught up and how regulating it feels to be in a routine. I probably need to maybe have a few family members keep me in check on the amount of goals.

[linux535]

I think awhile back I did calendialing but I honestly had forgot about that. That sounds like a happy medium. Maybe increase respite so I dont go broke along with fewer goals so I am not tempted to cheat the system due to fear of going broke when I have issues. But there is still a sting for not getting it done. Thank you for the suggestion.

[linux535]

Forgot to say thank you for the suggestion in my last reply.

[scarabaea]

I wanted to add a bit about repeatedly derailing when sick for weeks on end. But this is clearly an emergency and not the routine state in which Beeminder goals are supposed to work. We can outline in the fine print what are the accepted exceptions when the goal doesn’t apply and then ask the support to add emergency breaks if something like that happens. Or some things that seem to be self-evident. Like recently I had a terrible knee pain that restricted my movement severely, so the support kindly added breaks into my steps and physical activity goals that are incompatible with this outstanding situation. (Dear Support people, I am sorry I am advertising something that will be more work for you ) Unless you turned on “no-excuses” mode (or what it’s called), this is a good way to make sure we roll with the punches and Beeminder stays relevant and working for when it’s “normal circumstances” and lenient when it’s an emergency exception.
I understand this can be perceived differently when that weeks-long sickness is rather exhausting from day to day than something similar to acute injury, feels less of a justification to ask for leniency (for me, at least).

My own (I believe, ND-adjacent) solution against the overwhelm from all the goals is having a meta goal. The meta goal makes sure I contribute to my goals at the required amount on average, but I can decide which goals to focus on on most days, as not all of them are in the read. Also helpful in the way that as most goals have some buffer most of the time thanks to the meta goal, if I need an emergency break, it’s easier to add those. More on meta goals (in this meaning, as the concept also has a different meaning for one goal feeding on data from another goal).

[cgamer1]

No problem at all. If you can do a bit of programming or vibe coding something that has been incredibly useful to me is to assign the actual amount of time each goal takes and have an aggregated number.

For example this is a screenshot from an iPad app I vibe coded that is plugged into the Beeminder API. It essentially is an evolved form of the Urgency Load metric "urgency load" metric

As a parent having the exact amount of hours that I need to do to clear my Beeminder goals is amazing.

[linux535]

That is a great idea. I will look into it, also the baby has arrived

[cgamer1]

Congratulations!