Long time since last post. Haven’t been doing great. Was kind of keeping up okay with goals till around end of February (besides sickness issue discussed below). Then a major negative event happened in my life that was unexpected. Ended up adding fake data to try and cover about 30 days. I should have contacted support but at the time I was too depressed/stressed to care.
Though last six months or so I had been on and off anyways. As I seems I am constantly sick usually at least one or two weeks every month so would have a lot of pauses in Beeminder.
So it seems for me Beeminder is not as effective as it used to be for me. Because even when I do try to use it I keep getting sick and causes me to get off track and cancel my goals eventually.
So I guess my question boils down how can I get back on track and structure goals that will still work even when I am sick?
Also how should I handle the fake data I entered? Should I try to calculate the amount I would have paid and charge via API? Or should I just let that go and start back up?
I had thought of using something like Forfiet which requires proof (AI checks have gotten pretty good) but I just prefer the Beeminder interface/community.
Ok, first a couple thoughts on what I have done when it feels like beeminder has stopped being effective. No idea if they really work for anyone else, and looking forward to seeing suggestions from others as well.
For goals with fake data, I see two good options. Honestly, I favor just letting it go. But if you really don’t want to, you can just manually derail yourself by adding negative data yesterday.
My feeling is that the way to remove the bad habits causing beeminder to not work is to start by radically turning down the pressure. I would archive almost all goals, and start trying to get back into the groove with one or two easy ones before gradually bringing more back in.
As for how specifically to structure goals so that they work well when you get sick sometimes… I guess firstly the question is to think not about tools, but about what you want to do. Are most of your goals actually things that you want do be doing at the same intensity even when sick?
Depending on the goal, it may make to consider goals with fine print that treat sick periods (if they can be unambiguously defined) differently from normal periods. But obviously whether it’s possible to do this really depends on the nature of the goal.
So let me try to invent an example… well, for example, I do remember you had a goal to use intend at some point. That could work perhaps, if you tell yourself that on days you are too sick to do much that it’s ok to have just a couple small miscellaneous intentions. Or a workout goal could have a clearly defined lower standard for what counts as a workout when you’re sick.
Trying to contact support in the future is also an option, although if it’s going to be frequent it isn’t necessarily the best idea.
My 2 cents would be versions of 2 questions I ask myself:
What keeps me from accepting that the ‘appropriate’ rate for me is x% of what I have now? (Based on e.g. your conviction that you are off 1-2 months every month.)
If I’m entering fake data to get out of paying, could it be that I need to rethink stings as a motivator? (Another useful way of thinking about stings for me is as a reminder. “I pledge 5$ to be reminded when I go off-track and reassess.”)
Ultimately I end up “resetting” and starting seriously with my answers in mind.
One adjustment I made is that if I’m tempted to enter fake data, that for me is a good sign that something’s not adding up and I need to revisit my approach to my beeminded goals.
For me, I have a bad week approximately once a month (yay, hormones!). What that means is that when I set up my goals initially, I do so with the assumption that I might not be working on them at all for 25% of the time.
For example, I have a goal to play Just Dance. Do you think that when I’m depressed and hormonal, I’m going to want to get my spandex on and embarrass myself to some Britney Spears in the living room? I’d literally rather walk out the front door and be one with the sea creatures.
So! For my Just Dance goal, instead of saying “hey, I wanna do 3 dances a week”, I’d go “right. I want to do 3 dances a week, which is 12 dances a month. I doubt I’ll do any dances during The Bad Week, so to avoid the guilt and stress, I’ll assume in advance that I won’t do it. That means I’ll set my goal at 9 dances a month.”
If I then feel up for it when I’m unwell, then great! I’m ahead of the curve! But if not, then no sweat, cause I already planned for it.
If you’re the sort of person that works by tackling the Beemergencies, that’s the first thing you gotta work on. You have to train your brain to recognise that if you don’t have time banked for when you’re inevitably going to be unwell, then that’s as good as a Beemergency for future-you.
Oh, shandog’s idea is a good one. It’s probably worth considering trying hard to build a buffer in the good periods, that can be burned through in the bad ones. At various points I’ve even gone so crazy as trying to keep a week buffer on most of my goals, so the buffer is enough to turn it down despite the akrasia horizon. Well, I’m still working toward that.
I like this idea, maybe my rates are too high and I need to adjust to add buffer. As they way I had been doing it usually for most goals I had to complete 10 days or more to add one buffer day.
Only issue will be if my procrastination kicks in.
Now, I know everyone does things differently (and have different priorities of tasks), but I practically have the opposite of that.
I’ve got lots of tasks but they’re set to like 5 minutes per day. The intention there is if I’m having a good day I can spend 30 minutes doing the task (language learning, drawing, tidying, exercise, whatever it is) and then be clear from that one thing for like a week.
If I had to actually do all of my beeminder tasks every single day, all it would take would be one day that I’m not feeling great for it all to unravel.
Yep, add some buffer and make the slopes less ambitious.
You might be able to combat this with… more goals!
For my ignorable-low-slope goals, I often pair them with a ‘meta’ goal that makes me enter data on the primary goal every few days. e.g. pjh/anki with a modest 1/day slope for learning cards, and pjh/anki-meta that makes me sync my anki 3 times a week. On bad or busy days, I don’t even need to make any actual progress, just engage with the app.
The classic version of this idea uses a single goal with a modest slope and uses the autoratchet feature to enforce progress on a regular basis.
Another idea is to use a custom goal type that aggregates as non-zero to count any data entry as a +1 for the day, while the (exportable) data points include the underlying data. My reading goal does this, with number of pages in the data value, but aggregated to enforce number-of-days-of-reading
The key, of course, is to not overthink it. Try something low pressure, adjust as needed to find the right balance of making progress without overwhelm. Naturally, that balance point will change over time, so don’t beat yourself up.
Semi unrelated but I have been working on reducing screentime again. Not connected to a Beeminder goal currently. Also easier to do now as I have separate work and personal phone so I can heavily restrict my personal phone without it messing up work repeated things.
Every time I reduce screentime usage I find I am much happier. But seem to never stick with it. Maybe this time I will find the happy balance.
Some people use Beeminder’s RescueTime integration to manage their screen time. You can also use the open source ActivityWatch, but you’ll need to wire those together through their APIs, as it’s not a native Beeminder integration.
I feel like I really struggle with this oscillation between feeling upset at myself that my goals are too easy (and not pushing me to be the person I want to be), so I up them, then they’re too hard, so I derail a bunch, so I lower my slopes, then I get upset at myself that my goals are too easy… and on and on.
I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on how they manage that fight (if it is a fight for you!).
the autodialler can be helpful. It sets a slope based on what you’ve actually achieved in the past 30 days, and in strict mode it only makes it harder.
It can be slow to ramp up, so a manual slope or ratchet can help. On derail I put it back to actual
I can say what I’m trying to do. I try to get up to a week of buffer on each goal, and then increase the slope when I get over a week of buffer. Then, when I derail, I consider making the goal easier.
That being said…recently I have kind of been letting a lot of goals stay at a small amount of buffer, and not really pushing myself. So this strategy still requires actual motivation to push harder. But I think I still am going to keep trying to do it this way a bit. I guess it’s ultimately not that different from the autodialler solution—either way the motivation to push yourself has to come from within, but then the slope goes up to try to maintain the progress you’ve made.
EDIT: I already said some of this above earlier in the thread, I am an idiot. I think this post still adds useful information.