Study Wizardry

Tuesday, February 21, 2012
By guest
If you don't study, You Shall Not Pass!

[This is a guest post by Gandalf Saxe.] Having been a university student for some years now, I've come to appreciate just how important it is to spread out your studying over the whole semester. It's the single most important aspect of good study technique. I'll even go so far as to advocate the opposite extreme of the typical student's modus operandi... »

Layaways and Lamentations

Monday, February 13, 2012
By dreeves
'Delayed Gratification' by James Surowiecki in the New Yorker

Say you have a hard deadline in a month and you know you’ll end up down to the wire. You check the exact time of the deadline and see that it’s 9am. Groan! That portends a brutal all-nighter. Why (oh why) couldn’t they have made it 9pm the previous night? (Same story for deadlines that... »

Get Everything Done

Saturday, February 4, 2012
By dreeves
Beeminder task list as part of the AutoFocus system

If you’re a connoisseur of productivity porn then you probably already know about Mark Forster and his Get Everything Done blog. Or you might know his various time management books, the most well-known being “Do It Tomorrow”. He’s also the inventor of the AutoFocus system, which has been featured more than once... »


Jamming with Jake Jenkins

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
By guest
A guitar

[This is a guest post by Beeminder superfan — and self-quantifier — Jake Jenkins who tells us the story of how Beeminder made all his dreams come true. Well, one particular dream, which will have come true in another year or so of hard work.] When I was 9 years old I went to a beach party. As the sun set and the bonfire was lit a guy broke out his guitar and started playing familiar songs. People gathered close to the fire, but closer to him, and broke into song as the music moved them. At that moment I realized that I wanted to learn how to play guitar.... »

Aiding and Abetting

Saturday, January 14, 2012
By dreeves
Collage of Beeminder and its competitors

I just blackmailed myself with a silly photo thanks to our competitor Aherk.com, who publishes “compromising” photos of you to Facebook if you don’t pony up (i.e., get shit done). I guess it will... »

Trackers vs Lifehackers

Friday, December 30, 2011
By dreeves
Crowded City Sidewalks by Sandra Silberzweig

Beeminder makes pretty graphs of your progress. But if that’s your only reason to use Beeminder you might find it frustrating when your graph freezes because you deviated a bit from your »