Tag Archive

Beeminder Making You Do Self-Indulgent Things

Thursday, January 26th, 2023
Beeminder Making You Do Self-Indulgent Things

This isn’t a new idea but I keep noticing how great it is to have Beeminder make you do something fun. Ahh, Beeminder… hearteyes-emoji! Here’s how Bee put it in a »

Announcing RSSminder

Thursday, November 10th, 2022
Announcing RSSminder

It’s official! Beemind anything with an RSS feed! This is a slightly nerd-oriented integration but copying and pasting URLs around is really the only skill you need to set this up. And then once it’s set up, you don’t need to do anything at all ever (except for the thing you’re beeminding of course). That being... »

Beeminder vs CBT

Thursday, September 15th, 2022
Beeminder vs CBT

Nathan Arthur (aka narthur, of TaskRatchet fame and who we’re now proud to also have on the Bee Team part-time) had such an amazing response to some Beeminder skepticism in a »

Troubleshooting My Toothbrush

Thursday, June 9th, 2022
Troubleshooting My Toothbrush

Working in Beeminder support, it’s hard to avoid noticing that folks sometimes feel a bit embarrassed about their goals. Or at least of the fact that they need to beemind learning how to juggle goslings when everyone else is born knowing how. So let me put it right out there: my most socially embarrassing goal is... »

Both Sides Now

Thursday, May 12th, 2022
Both Sides Now

Way back in 2014 we blogged about how people who wanted to mind both sides of the red line (called the Yellow Brick Road in those days) were all wrong to want that. We’re still pretty opiniated and still aren’t adding this as a feature, but... »

Alliterative Alimentation

Wednesday, April 13th, 2022
Alliterative Alimentation

Want to hear my latest weirdo approach to diet? Probably you do, out of morbid curiosity at least. My goal in concocting this was to implement something a bit like intermittent fasting as a weight management strategy, and also to nudge my eating in a healthier direction. Also I like alliteration. More to the point, I really thrive on... »

Backlog Freshening For Humans

Thursday, March 31st, 2022
Backlog Freshening For Humans

This is a sequel to the previous post on Backlog Freshening. It’s been gratifying to hear testimonials from you all about how valuable you’ve found this — for tasks in TaskWarrior, songs in one’s piano... »

Backlog Freshening

Friday, March 18th, 2022
Backlog Freshening

Last time we talked about the control systems approach to backlogs. Quick recap: make a manual do-more goal where you add a +1 for completing something and keep adjusting the slope of the bright red line such that the backlog keeps steadily shrinking. This works not just for clearing a backlog but for winning the red queen race — dispatching things at roughly the rate they're coming in at and preventing another backlog from accumulating.... »

Control Systems For Backlogs

Saturday, March 5th, 2022
Control Systems For Backlogs

Saying “control system” makes this sound fancier than it is. We mean it in the simplest sense, like how your thermostat is a control system. The temperature dropping makes your heater turn on, which makes the temperature rise, which makes your heater turn off. Slightly fancier is if the heater dials itself up gradually... »

Nicky’s Secret To Beeminding Studying: It’s About Time

Friday, November 12th, 2021
Nicky’s Secret To Beeminding Studying: It’s About Time

We are overdue for a blog post about using Beeminder for school and studying. In the very early days of Beeminder, we had a brilliant guest post from Gandalf Saxe when he was a wee undergrad. Now he’s an engineer at Apple, working on Siri. We’re going to go ahead... »