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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... »
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Backlog Freshening
Friday, March 18th, 2022
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
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
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... »
Redqueening, Inbox Zero, Backlogs, and Fluid Dynamics
Wednesday, October 23rd, 2019
If you’re a fan of Mark Forster (as we certainly are) then this whole post amounts to giving a name — “redqueening” — to step 2 of his »
Startups Not Eating Each Other Like Cannibalistic Dogs
Saturday, May 18th, 2019
Huge thanks to Malcolm Ocean, Christina Willner, and »
Beeminder ♥ Toggl
Friday, September 7th, 2018
We have so many opinions about time tracking! To start, there are three fundamental ways to track your time: Manually Passively Stochastically For passive tracking, you should install RescueTime (and hook it... »
Beeminder ♥ Todoist
Friday, January 6th, 2017
Picking the right way to organize your to-do’s is a big decision. Paper & pencil, smartphone app, calendar, blank playing cards, or the old “in your head” method. A lot of folks use Todoist. While Todoist is fantastic for keeping track... »
What Is Willpower?
Monday, March 21st, 2016
Our previous post, “Ego Depletion Depletion,” generated a lot of discussion and I found I was contradicting myself on the question of what willpower is exactly. First a recap, hopefully in plainer English, about what all the fuss is about. A big finding in... »
Ego Depletion Depletion
Wednesday, March 9th, 2016
This is crossposted on Mark Forster’s Get Everything Done blog. The big news in psychology this week is that Baumeister’s Ego Depletion model is bunk. At least it has failed to »