Tag Archive

Everything is Amazing, Even Gratitude Journaling

Thursday, January 24th, 2013
Everything is Amazing, Even Gratitude Journaling

My first reaction to the idea of gratitude journaling — which I didn’t realize was a thing, until people started beeminding it — was, well, I’ll spare you my snark. Then I tried to articulate my knee-jerkery and came up with this: It seems to have a protesteth-too-much vibe. I mean, what’s not to be grateful for? Everything is amazing! Even the poorest of us live in historically unfathomable luxury. Hot showers, personal carriages to transport you anywhere in the world, practically swimming in food. Mattresses and fluffy pillows and heat and air conditioning. Seriously mind-boggling luxury; I’m not being at all sarcastic.... »

Pledge Short-Circuiting

Saturday, December 8th, 2012
Pledge Short-Circuiting

Until now you haven’t had much choice about how much to pledge (put at risk) on your Beeminder commitment contracts. It starts out free, then $5, then each subsequent time you derail from your yellow brick road you’re encouraged (though not forced) to jump to the next pledge level for your next... »

Emergency TV Day

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012
Emergency TV Day

“I’m akratic about how little TV I watch.” I might be the single most bizarre akratic on earth but I’ve noticed that I waste tons of time on stupid little distractions, yet rarely watch movies or TV. Sitting down to do so seems like such an extravagant... »

The One Must-Do Task Each Day

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012
The One Must-Do Task Each Day

This is a guest post by Alice Harris. It is crossposted on Mark Forster’s Get Everything Done blog which we’re »

Failing your Goals with Beeminder

Thursday, September 13th, 2012
Failing your Goals with Beeminder

This is a guest post by Paul Fenwick (@pjf), founder of Perl Training Australia and internationally acclaimed public speaker and expert on mindhacks. We’re exceedingly proud to have his endorsement, which, belying the title, really is an endorsement! In point of disclosure, Paul is a... »

Beeminder is S.M.A.R.T., Overcomes Bias

Thursday, August 23rd, 2012
Beeminder is S.M.A.R.T., Overcomes Bias

Katja Grace, long praised by economists and now collaborating with one since joining Robin Hanson’s OvercomingBias blog, just wrote a pretty amazing article about how much Beeminder improves her life. She made several important points, one of which is particularly reblogworthy, especially if we take the liberty of rephrasing it like... »

Perverse Incentives and the Paradox of Beeminder’s Sting

Sunday, August 19th, 2012
Perverse Incentives and the Paradox of Beeminder’s Sting

People often complain about Beeminder’s perverse incentives. We started to address that at the end of our recent blog post comparing ourselves to GymPact: It seems that from the perspective of those paying us, Beeminder is providing a ton of value and a ton of motivation and the occasional cost of derailment... »

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... »

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