Month: August 2020

Revisiting my hypothesis for this trial, using BeeMinder as an accountability tool was more effective than I had expected. The outcome was largely impacted by adding stakes for long-term projects, as that area is where I’ve seen significant improvement. While I don’t know that I will use BeeMinder specifically hereafter, I plan to use it, or other tools, as accountability levers for any goals or habits that face frequent resistance.

Breaking the Dip

At the start of the trial, I knew focus was an area I needed to improve. While I’m not shy to start new projects, I have a hard time getting them to a level I’m satisfied calling “finished.” A couple weeks into the trial, I committed to a year-long journey of delivering a new finished project once a month.

In a prior post, I mentioned Seth Godin’s The Dip –  many of my abandoned projects were those I felt passionate and excited about, only to shelf them once enough hurdles were in the way making the results not feel worth the effort. Why battle through a challenge, when there is so much to learn in a new, more exciting project?

Setting myself up with financial stakes put some skin in the game. There were several times throughout the month when I nearly dropped my current project. Knowing I’d be out $100 kept me coming back. The important thing is fighting through The Dip. The moment I knew this was a project I wanted to see completed was after getting past a big hurdle earlier this week. I felt so elated I melted in my chair, stared at my computer screen, and said aloud to myself, “I’m so happy.”

The Other Goals

The other goals listed in my hypothesis were to regulate my sleep schedule and get drafts of these blog posts completed by Tuesday night. The latter has been going well, and getting a post written definitely reduces the stress of putting something out the day of. Last week, I started my standard process for publishing the post, even though it was only Tuesday. The habit of writing then immediately publishing was so ingrained it was my immediate course of action.

Regarding my sleep, I haven’t seen too much of an improvement. I’m waking up enough days of the week to not pay my penalty but not enough to develop a consistent schedule. I definitely need to revisit my approach here and see how I can improve.

Beyond Just Money

I think sparing use of monetary pressure can really help bring habits to the forefront of the mind. No one likes losing money for bad decisions, even if it’s only a small amount. The cost brings the habit to the conscious part of the mind.

While I largely saw benefits, there were times when I started to feel the stress of losing money. This was especially true with sticking to my project. Part of me was concerned with completing it by the end of the month and caused a lot of unnecessary stress. I commonly thought of changing projects to attempt a completed product in the short time I had left. Each time, I had to talk myself through the intention of adding that price tag to stick with projects I was excited about, not to stress out because of them. My hope is that projects in future months will have enough runway to limit the stressful moments.

Something I’m particularly curious about is if non-monetary stakes would have comparable compliance with less stress. I’d also be more comfortable recommending others use similar non-monetary stakes if the results would show. I’m lucky enough to be able to lose a hundred bucks in a month if I make some bad decisions and still be okay at the end of the day. It’s certainly enough that it would leave quite a mark but not so much it would ruin me.

BeeMinder – The Verdict

My experience using BeeMinder was a good one. Getting started is easy, and there’s definitely a lot more depth into setting up goals. The service has a lot of built in automation for adding progress, of which I didn’t really need to take advantage.

The original image I had for this trial was to be a review of BeeMinder itself, but the focus shifted to financial accountability in general. In the end, I see the latter being way more important than a specific service, app, or even approach. While the option to form an accountability group may not always be available, it’s good to know there are options to stay accountable.

If you find you can use some pressure to make progress in any area in your life, check out BeeMinder, and let me know how it goes for you or if you have recommendations for non-monetary stakes.

With another trial down, I’ve once again looked to areas I can improve. Revisiting this video by YouTuber CGP Grey, I will work on improving the condition of “Spaceship You.” The idea is that the physical space we inhabit has a serious impact on our focus. Creating designated spaces for different activities from sleeping to working helps to prime us in those areas. After I first saw the video, I made some changes to my bedroom where I sleep, relax, work, and workout, in an attempt to create the “stations” Grey discusses. It’s been a few months, and of course, those boundaries have collapsed. I’ll need to make some changes both externally and internally for this one, so it’ll be a fun journey to share.

So far, this experiment is turning out as expected. I’ve had more focus on hitting my targets each week and even procrastinate less often on long-term projects – though, it still may be a little too often. As the trial began, I thought back on the accountability group my friends and I had in a trial a couple years ago. So far, I’ve been left with the question, are punishments really the best way to stay accountable?

Changes Paying Off

Last week, I mentioned changes I made in the approach I was taking in my sleeping goal. Focusing on waking up has gotten me out of bed at a far greater rate.

I do seem to be in a strange loop in which I wake up on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at the goal time but struggle on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If I were to guess, it’s due to the impact on the prior day’s sleep that is affecting me. This is because on my early wake up days, I also get to bed sooner, leading to a few more hours of sleep when rising later. I would need to investigate further to really get to the bottom of it, but I think it’s a safe observation for now.

In regard to setting the sudden goal to put out a project once a month, I took more time to start than I expected to start. I spent some time coming up with projects to work on, and after picking one, it still took me a couple days to sit down and begin work. It’s a different direction from some of my current interests but has been sitting on the back burner for about a month now. I chose it over the aforementioned “current interests” because the latter requires a lot more skill development to even get started.

In the end, knowing I had a $100 pendulum descending on me, I finally got myself in gear and started the project. It’s a short text adventure game in the spirit of Zork or Adventure, but instead of typing out commands, the player is given a few action cards. Storytelling card games have long been a fun way to tell absurd, entertaining stories amongst my friends. One friend even came up with a “ruleset” for the ridiculously titled Ye Olde Card Game, in which the goal is to make up a story using a subset of the deck. There’s some other specifics, but I think we change them every time we meet up due to not remembering the exact rules.

Impact of a Dollar

On the subject of friends, this trial has me thinking about the accountability group I met with two years ago. While we met regularly for a few months after starting, eventually we stopped. Still, we were able to get a lot accomplished in that time – all to avoid the big breakfast bill.

It was a fun way not only to push myself to get goals done, but also to meet with friends and see them making progress as well. It’s astounding the influence even a small amount of money can have on behavior. To avoid paying a few bucks, some people will go above and beyond.

The Carrot Versus the Stick

While I’ve certainly seen benefits setting stakes for myself should I fail, I am interested in the idea of comparing the impact of tying rewards to certain goals.

A commonly accepted aspect of human behavior and psychology is that we are prone to avoid losses, even when potential benefits logically outweigh the loss. Not only does this apply to risky wagers, but also to performance. In a 2012 study, student test scores were seven percentage points higher when teachers were paid a bonus upfront and would have to return it when not meeting the goal of raising scores when compared to classes of teachers who were to be paid the bonus after.

There appears to be some debate in the effectiveness of using rewards or punishments for increasing performance. I’ve found some psychologists fighting on the side of rewards being more beneficial, though in this case it was specific to children. This does tie in with the commonly accepted habit loop introduced by Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit. The loop consists of a cue or trigger, a routine or behavior, and a reward. All of these elements are needed to create a habit, though I suppose one may consider the avoidance of a punishment a reward in this process.

I’m curious to hear from you. Do you find yourself motivated more by rewards or punishments associated with goals?

After a few weeks of tracking my goals with BeeMinder, I realized I needed to shift my focus in my sleeping goal. Otherwise, I have a goal in place that I hope will compel me to stamp out a long running bad habit of mine, a failure to complete projects I start.

Focusing on the Real Goal

One of the goals I set for myself for this experiment was to go to bed by 11 pm at least three nights per week. The pressure to get into bed would help me build the habit of getting to bed earlier, thus waking up earlier, my real goal.

After thinking about the goal further, I decided to focus on waking up instead. Changing the BeeMinder goal to wake up by 6:30 am will instead influence the real behavior I want to change. Now, not only is there pressure for me to get up when my alarm goes off, but I still need to get to bed earlier so waking up is easier!

Accountability can be used to influence either the desired outcome directly or the behaviors leading to that outcome. Different goals may need different approaches in accountability. In the case of my sleep schedule, even when going to bed earlier, I rarely woke up at the time I wanted. I realized that I needed pressure to get out of bed in the morning, not into bed at night.

Long Term Focus

Something I realized about myself in the course of writing this blog is that I am a serial starter. I find it easy to dive in and try out anything and everything. The first few weeks are often a blast; I learn a ton and make some things along the way. A problem I have is that I am a terrible finisher. I have countless started drafts, projects, and ideas that never developed into anything further.

While not every idea or project has a definite complete state, or is even something I’m interested in pursuing, I have many ideas that I do want to complete and put out for the world to see. My major problem is a failure to finish. Getting through The Dip, as Seth Godin would put it. The project rolls up to a point where the effort needed increases and the results aren’t as immediate. At this point, it becomes easier to start something new and begin the process all over again – feeling the rush of the first few insights gained that really develop a new understanding. The problem is, this cycle has left a lengthy backlog of shelved, half-completed projects that I really do want to share with others.

In an attempt to fight this problem, I have set the goal to release a completed project every month for the next year. Instead of a small amount, a dollar here or there, I’m putting $100 down for each missed opportunity.

What will come out of this, I don’t yet know. I have a growing backlog of story ideas, game concepts, computer programs, and more. My experience in game jams has taught me that a simple idea and a limited scope can lead to interesting outcomes. For those unfamiliar, game jams are events that take place both online and offline where the goal is to create a game in a set period of time. Some jams last as long as a weekend, a week, or even a month. Others really push creators by limiting the time to one hour. The concept is simple, make and finish something.

While I’ve long struggled to complete my projects, I hope a little more pressure and a set deadline of the last day of the month will help. With $1,200 on the line, I guess I should get started on this month’s project.

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After years of trying out a variety of hobbies, habits, and routines, I am happy with many of the ones I’ve picked up along the way. The problem I’ve been facing recently has been maintaining consistency. Many of my habits have weakened over time. To rebuild them, I’ll be experimenting with the app BeeMinder.

Purpose – The Point

With many trials under my belt, I’ve found myself hanging onto just a few habits I’ve tried out. While some of these are still going strong, others have fallen into disarray. With recent travel especially, I found myself looking for a way to get back on track and stay there.

When thinking about what this trial would be, I didn’t want to start anything new. Instead, my focus would be better spent rebuilding the structure that was supposed to be in my daily life. As I wrote down ideas, the idea of trying out products, services, and software came up, and with that an accountability app called BeeMinder did as well. Using BeeMinder, I could focus on rebuilding my poor habits, while still experimenting with a system that may benefit me in the long-term.

Methodology – The Plan

For the duration of this trial, I’ll be sticking with the app BeeMinder. There are some other accountability options out there, but I’m most familiar with BeeMinder. Admittedly, there’s a steeper learning curve than I expected, so it may take some time until I get things set up exactly as I’d like. In the long run, I may look further into alternatives, but for now, my focus is getting started.

The core premise of BeeMinder is that you are charged money for not completing specified goals. There are a variety of options for how to set goals,  from the frequency to the threshold to the way BeeMinder gets updates on progress. Having the external pressure of losing real cash for simply not doing what I want will, in theory, get me to better execute on those goals. Loss aversion can be a real motivator.

As of writing this post, I made two goals in BeeMinder:complete the blog post by Tuesday night and be in bed by 11 PM at least 3 nights per week. I wanted to start small and work up to other goals over time. I’m also looking to add an additional goal to help me stay on track with long- term projects. Something to the effect of a number of hours worked, pages written, or otherwise, depending on where I decide to put my focus for the next few months. Reviewing my annual goals, I imagine it will be something in writing.

Hypothesis – The Goal

Willpower is a fleeting resource that cannot always be relied on. Rather than assume I’ll be ready to make the right decisions when needed, using an accountability app should help push me in the right direction.

My goals from this experiment are to increase my compliance in long-term goals, increase the consistency in my sleep schedule, and to have my blog post drafts finished earlier in the week. A friend of mine offered to help with editing posts, and a few weeks now I’ve gotten them to her late in the week. Dropping them on her so late wasn’t fair. If she’s helping me out, I want to do right by her.

I hope not only to see progress for the specific goals above, but to continue using BeeMinder to keep me on track over time.