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Here’s a blindingly obvious insight: if you drive blind you’ll probably drive off the road. Less obvious is that that applies almost as certainly to your Beeminder yellow brick road. Michelle, who has very thick skin (figuratively speaking!) and agreed to let us feature her here, illustrates the point...
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Case Study: Martin's Renovating
2011-04-10 • by dreevesThis is an interesting case study. Martin put $5k at risk on a very conservative goal — spending at least 8 hours a week on a house renovation project for a total of 249 hours by May 5. He actually signed the contract on Oct 21, right before he started shooting up above his yellow brick road. He maintained...
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Productivity Hack: The Sedimentary Filing System
2011-04-01 • by dreevesA lot of people are at one extreme or the other when it comes to organizing papers on their desk. Either it’s an unmitigated disaster or it’s a model of anal retention that they seem to spend far too much energy on. For years I’ve been achieving a reasonable middle ground by sticking to three categories:...
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To Buy or Not To Buy a Gym Membership
2011-03-22 • by Jill RenaudThis is a guest post by Beeminder user Jill Renaud. I hate my current gym. It is a budget gym with no classes, machines in disrepair, and the other members can be downright rude. I can be patiently waiting for a machine and be cut off by a gym rat. A literal rat. (Kidding. It’s not quite that bad.) So...
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Little Debbie Does Dog Food
2011-03-10 • by dreevesI’ve had swiss cake rolls on my mind since Kevin McGowan’s delightful guest post last week. Then today I saw a special: four boxes of Little Debbie snacks for $5. So cheap! If only it were possible to buy them and not immediately start shoving them into my maw one after the other until stopped by physical...
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Food Habits
2011-03-01 • by Kevin McGowanContinuing the theme from our last post, this is a guest post by Beeminder beta user Kevin McGowan. I am not an expert of any kind and I have no training. I’m just a guy who used to be pretty uncomfortable (5’10” 230lbs) and now is a much happier 175lbs. Danny thought the lifestyle changes I used to make...
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No Preemptive Eating
2011-02-20 • by dreevesHere’s a simple yet powerful weight loss tip: Don’t eat when you don’t want to. I mean, maybe you shouldn’t always eat even when you do want to but at the very least don’t eat when you don’t want to. Like because it’s there, you’re bored, or to prevent being hungry later. If you have other tips and tricks,...
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Weight Loss: Really Easy, Really Hard
2011-02-02 • by melzaHere’s the bottom line on weight loss: unless more calories are being used than consumed, no weight loss will happen. There’s no magic. There is plenty of confusion and struggle, however. Simply eating less backfires and it’s because of hormones. Your body really doesn’t want your weight to change. Oh,...
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How To Do What You Want: Akrasia and Self-Binding
2011-01-24 • by dreeves[A version of this article was originally published at Messy Matters by Daniel Reeves.] Many of us have a problem following through on our intentions. And it’s more than just a difficulty in predicting our future desires. It’s not like “Gee, I thought I wanted to get in shape but it turned out there was...
About
Beeminder is goal-tracking with teeth. We plot your progress on a graph with a Bright Red Line (formerly Yellow Brick Road). If your datapoints cross that line, we take your money.
The Beeminder blog is a hodgepodge of productivity nerdery and behavioral economics written by the founders and various friends.
Start Here
Does Beeminder sound super crazypants? Just confusing? One of the first things you may want to check out is our User's Guide for New Bees. Check out other posts we're most proud of by clicking the "best-of" tag below. If you're a glutton for honey, the "bee-all" tag has everything we still think is worth reading. Other good ones are the "rationality" and "science" tags, if you're into that.
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Beeminder Community
Most of the action is in the Beeminder forum. Or if you want to be slightly social without risking getting distracted arguing on the internet, you can do pomodoros online in sync with other Beeminder users and productivity nerds in the Beeminder coworking room on Complice.
Akrasia
Akrasia (ancient Greek ἀκρασία, "lacking command over oneself"; adjective: "akratic") is the state of acting against one's better judgment, not doing what one genuinely wants to do. It encompasses procrastination, lack of self-control, lack of follow-through, and any kind of addictive behavior.