Thoughts on this policy? A derailment is not legit if I do the task by the end of the day

[zedmango]

@zzq

For instance, you lose the ability to do this, and the urgency that goes with it: intrinsically, having the flexibility to do it by the end of the day means that in the middle of the day it’s not urgent.

Sorry, I don’t understand your first clause - lose the ability to do what?

@zzq

Put it this way: if you expect that in some days you won’t do half the things, then you (upfront) have two choices. Either you decide that on such days you’ll pay $100, or you decide that you don’t want to do that.

The second option is a perfectly fine choice! $100 is a lot of money. You don’t need to decide to do things you don’t want to do. But you should be honest about it up front. You shouldn’t say “Oh yes, on such days I’ll pay $100”, if up front you don’t intend to.

So then why did you say exactly that to Beeminder? I have a good guess, that it’s because Beeminder doesn’t let you pledge less than $5 per goal (except $0), even if you are a Beemium user

No, $100 would be the correct amount for a legit (akratic) derail. But a lot of the time I’ll be derailing non-akratically, and those are non-legit, so I can’t bee paying $100 for those times. The pledge is for akratic derails.

I’m deciding (upfront) that on days where I don’t do half the things, I’ll pay $100 for an akratic derail, but if, say, I had client meetings or appointments or had to be in court, that’s not an akratic derail. And since the “real” deadline is the end of the day, if I do it by the end of the day, that doesn’t count as a legit derail either.