Tag Archive

Beeminder’s Achilles Heel

Tuesday, December 15th, 2020
Beeminder’s Achilles Heel

Beeminder’s Achilles heel is that you need a meta-Beeminder to get yourself to create a Beeminder goal in the first place. (We sometimes call it Beeminder’s bootstrap problem.) Here’s a trick to mitigate that problem: Create a goal as soon as you think of it, but with an initial flat spot of a week or a month or... »

Beeminder: Like Pact Except All We Do Is Take Your Money

Friday, July 21st, 2017
Beeminder: Like Pact Except All We Do Is Take Your Money

As of last week, our esteemed competitor, Pact, is officially shut down. We’re genuinely... »

Bee Your Best Self in 2016 with Habitica

Tuesday, January 12th, 2016
Bee Your Best Self in 2016 with Habitica

We’re honored to have Team Habitica here on the Beeminder blog to tell you more about Habitica and about using Habitica and Beeminder together. They’re in some ways very different but also quite compatible! For new year’s eve we wrote a »

Cranial Silicosis and Paths of Least Resistance

Thursday, July 16th, 2015
Cranial Silicosis and Paths of Least Resistance

For those just tuning in, let’s review the Three Great Beeminder Epiphanies. The Yellow Brick Road — bringing long-term consequences near (and using the graphs as the basis for... »

What To Mind: Picking a Metric

Saturday, September 13th, 2014
What To Mind: Picking a Metric

We use the word “goal” a lot but, ironically, we agree with Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) who argues that goals are for losers. He points out that the most... »

Auto-Canceling Subscriptions

Friday, May 3rd, 2013
Auto-Canceling Subscriptions

“Well I’ve already paid for Netflix this month, so I might as well watch another episode of ‘Say Yes To The Dress’. I’ll get around to canceling later. You know, when I’m less busy.” — A slightly caricatured version of me. When you sign up for some subscription services they make... »

GymPact vs Beeminder

Wednesday, August 1st, 2012
GymPact vs Beeminder

If we were nervous about our competitors — and we’re not — we might be most nervous about GymPact. GymPact is currently an iPhone app (UPDATE: Android as well now) that pays you money for going to the... »

Synonyms for Self-Binding

Saturday, July 21st, 2012
Synonyms for Self-Binding

We’ve been collecting a list of synonyms for the crazy lifehack that sites like Beeminder facilitate. In addition to us being shameless SEO-whores, it seems like this list could be genuinely useful for humans, especially the kind of humans who read the Beeminder Blog. Here’s how... »

Hammers and Chisels

Wednesday, June 20th, 2012
Hammers and Chisels

We have a new competitor about to launch: Lift! Their (meta) goal is the same as ours. They want to “eliminate willpower as a factor in achieving goals”. Our approaches, however, are quite opposite. Or at least they have opposite sign. Lift emphasizes in their pre-announcement blog post today that they believe firmly in... »