Hi all
I am trying to work out a way of timeboxing with beeminder. Time Boxing is setting particular times for certain tasks. For example I want to make sure I am doing writing on draft from 11-12 but only between that time and not record or count before or after that time. Has anyone worked this out?
Thanks
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I don’t know of a way to do what you’re asking (I’ve wished for it, too). You can set your goal’s deadline to the time you want to do it by, but if you build up any buffer the deadline stops meaning much. You can use autoratcheting to prevent buffer buildup, but there’s still nothing stopping you from entering data too early.
You could, instead, decide to explicitly define the goal in terms of when the action should be taken. I’ve had good success doing that with an evening routine goal, where the goal is even named with the time by which I should start the routine. Beeminder still won’t enforce your time constraints, but at least you’ve made the commitment explicit, helping you to avoid entering data if you didn’t do the action at the appropriate time.
If you create a different timeboxed schedule daily (Cal Newport style), I’d suggest instead beeminding the creation of your day plan and, using a separate goal, how well you followed the plan. Or, you could use TagTime or a similar system to stochastically track how much of the time you’re following your schedule.
Good luck. 
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One option is to set a deadline at 12 with a 1-hour requirement. The deadline will prevent you from working after 12, and akrasia will prevent you from working before 11, when you absolutely have to start 
Another is to just write on your list of beeminder goals that only work done between 11 and 12 counts, and then when you enter data, just enter the work you’ve done between 11 and 12 - that is, do it manually.
Can you clarify the issue here - as in, how do you use Beeminder so that work you do before 11 might end up counting? I’m not sure I understand the issue. How does it happen that you enter the data before 11 when it doesn’t count?
I know IFTTT has a custom javascript option - you could use that, or write a script to parse data to feed to beeminder so that data sent at the wrong time gets deleted.
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With using Draftin.com, it just counts number of words written over a day so I could type in 50 words at 9am then 25 words during my allocated time then 30 words at 6pm.
The issue becomes if I want to complete the work and don’t do it at the allocated time the deadline will run later on into the night preventing sleep and then waking up later and the cycle continues
I would like it if I could just say only look at words written during a particular time or only accept data entry during a particular time.
Thinking both yours and @narthur ideas for defining the goal as must be done at particular time is probably best option I have. Although I am having issues with the changing deadline for some goals which i have created a separate forum post on.
Update: Just found LeechBlock chrome extension that blocks websites and allows access for certain time-blocks.
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