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We’ve talked before about how paying is not punishment because derailing is not failing, but fellow workerbee Clive pointed out that we could flip that negative formulation around. Derailing isn’t... »
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Psychological Pricing
Thursday, September 29th, 2022
The other day (a Very Other day, because I’ve pulled this from the bottom of Quite A Pile of blog post drafts) we were musing idly amongst ourselves about what the psychological effect would be if Beeminder pledges were amounts like $4.99. The answer is it doesn’t matter because I can’t stand so-called »
Beeminder vs CBT
Thursday, September 15th, 2022
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 »
Is Beeminder Self-Blackmail?
Thursday, June 23rd, 2022
Troubleshooting My Toothbrush
Thursday, June 9th, 2022
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... »
Paying Is Not Punishment
Wednesday, February 9th, 2022
UPDATE: See follow-up post announcing No-Excuses Mode. An under-appreciated fact about Beeminder is that it doesn’t force you to do anything. It just puts prices on things and you continue to do whatever you feel like doing, factoring in those prices. Just like you might buy... »
Book Review: How To Change
Wednesday, December 15th, 2021
Earlier this year we completed a lovely Beeminder book club to read behavioral scientist Katy Milkman’s new book, »
Make A Plan To Forget
Thursday, August 26th, 2021
This is going to sound painfully obvious at first — “Don’t assume you’ll remember things! Create reminders!” — but bear with me. There are two useful, nonobvious things here: Sometimes you think of something you need to remember while, say, driving, or talking to someone. You can’t always email yourself or write something down but you can still do something like... »
Is Beeminder A Crutch?
Wednesday, April 21st, 2021
Beeminder creates a series of intermediate daily deadlines, working towards some desired long-term goal. As you probably know, it does that with real-money commitment devices. It’s common to come down to the wire on those deadlines every dang day. It’s powerful motivation. But is it… too powerful? If you’re a strong believer in the concept of self-discipline then Beeminder may... »
Contra Positive Reinforcement: Why Beeminder Is A Glutton For Punishment
Friday, March 26th, 2021
Previously on the Beeminder blog: debating negative vs positive reinforcement and, in case you care about using these psychology terms correctly, clarifying that »