dreeves

7 ms·

31.
by dreeves 6y ago
Sounds highly beemindable! Likely relevant: Gitminder, our GitHub integration for committing to pushing more commits or closing more issues. beeminder.com/gitminder (I'm worried that I'm turning the comments into Beeminder Ev
32.
by dreeves 6y ago
I don't think the incentives are quite right that way. What motivates you to keep money out of the swear jar? (It's possible that the tracking alone will be motivating. Some people, for some goals, find that to be the case.) I&#x2
33.
by dreeves 6y ago
Awww, it's the inaugural post on the Beeminder blog! I'd be delighted to answer questions about this. I think the summary is that hyperbolic discounting is the cause of procrastination (and other forms of akrasia) and the solution
34.
by dreeves 6y ago
Ooh, can I hear why Beeminder didn't feel sustainable? (I'm a cofounder.)
35.
Upside-Down Support(blog.beeminder.com)
1 points by dreeves 6y ago|0 comments
36.
by dreeves 6y ago
Beeminder does have a charity option but it's a premium feature in the most expensive premium plan. Also when we / Beeminder derail on our own goals we pay our users. Not sure if either of those things make it feel ok. I guess we&
37.
by dreeves 6y ago
> Do you guys still stick to "one user-visible improvement per day"? We do! http://beeminder.com/changelog -- 3485 UVIs and counting...
38.
by dreeves 6y ago
Dang, this is extremely valuable feedback and a beautifully balanced review. Thank you! As for the friction of adding data, we have smartphone apps and an email and SMS bot to try to help with that. But ideally you automate it. There are do
39.
by dreeves 6y ago
Voila: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/11/03/what-developmental-mil... https://xkcd.com/1053/
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by dreeves 6y ago
Holy cow it feels good to hear that! Thank you!
41.
by dreeves 6y ago
Yeah, it's surprisingly controversial but I agree, your long-term self is usually the rational one. Commitment devices are all about forcing/incentivizing your short-term self to do what your long-term self deems best. Sometimes p
42.
by dreeves 6y ago
Thanks, yes! Here are all the other commitment device apps we know of: https://blog.beeminder.com/competitors/ But as I said to Maneesh above, I think anti-charities are anti-good. https://blog.beeminder.com
43.
by dreeves 6y ago
Hi Maneesh! I'm actually opposed to anti-charities because I think they're bad for the world and not necessary -- you can get equal motivation with a neutral (non-evil) 3rd party, as long as you make the amount at risk high enough
44.
by dreeves 6y ago
Oops, yes, I should've mentioned what Beeminder is! Thanks! We get that a lot ("where does the money go? wait, you do _what_ with it??") but I'm surprised to hear that pushback on Hacker News. Is the existence of Beemind
45.
by dreeves 6y ago
To elaborate on that: one interpretation of the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment is that learning to trust adults is a key predictor for success in life. Recall the experiment: kids who resisted gobbling the marshmallow in order to earn 2 ma
46.
by dreeves 6y ago
Agreed. I wouldn't say any of these astute points argue against commitment devices (as it sounds like you're implying but I could be misreading you). A commitment device provides an incentive, including the incentive to eliminate
47.
by dreeves 6y ago
Ah, I don't agree but that's an interesting point that I could see being true for some people. I think mostly there's plenty of short-term cost to derailing a Beeminder goal and getting the alert "we are now charging you
48.
by dreeves 6y ago
Back in 2015 we (Beeminder) wrote a blog post praising Scott Adam's "systems vs goals" insight which I still stand by: https://blog.beeminder.com/systems/ Excerpt (quoting Adams): If you do something eve
49.
by dreeves 6y ago
Related: https://blog.beeminder.com/willpower/ Excerpt: Here’s what I mean when I say there’s no such thing as willpower, despite having just defined it. Paraphrasing Laplace, I can explain all behavior simply in terms
50.
by dreeves 6y ago
Well said! I guess if some of Joel's points have become common sense then that speaks well of the test. And of our industry. :) I don't have a strong opinion about buying the best tools money can buy but it seems fair enough to in
51.
by dreeves 6y ago
Oops, thanks! Should be: 4. Do you have a bug database? [.9 points]
52.
by dreeves 6y ago
I thought it could be fun to compare how our own teams do on The Joel Test now. I estimate Beeminder gets a 68%: 1. Do you use source control? [1 point] 2. Can you make a build in one step? [.6 points for modernized version of this]
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The Joel Test for Software Teams is 20 years old this weekend(joelonsoftware.com)
17 points by dreeves 6y ago|6 comments
54.
by dreeves 6y ago
Ooh, Beeminder fits the bill, I think! (I'm a cofounder.)
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by dreeves 7y ago
I think the thing I'm least sure of in this post is the difference between a functional spec and a technical spec and when and why you'd want one vs the other. (And whether the whole concept of generalizing those to a whole contin
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How to Write Functional Specs; Spec Spectrum: Elevator Pitch to Production Code(blog.beeminder.com)
7 points by dreeves 7y ago|1 comments
57.
by dreeves 7y ago
Oh hi I wrote this! This one might be pretty obvious for the Hacker News crowd and is along the lines of Paul Graham's "dig a deep well" advice. Be laser-focused on the one thing you're best at, don't try to hedge b
58.
by dreeves 7y ago
Brilliant! As far as I know, this idea was first proposed by Randall Munroe in the hovertext of https://xkcd.com/862/ (2011-02-18): "After years of trying various methods, I broke this habit by pitting my impatien
59.
by dreeves 7y ago
This is (mostly) wrong. Sivers himself seems to have regretted how his talk was interpreted and posted this semi-retraction: https://sivers.org/zipit2 But identity-based goal or not, the conclusion that you make yourself le
60.
by dreeves 7y ago
Ooh, any way we could entice you to describe that in the TagTime forum? https://forum.beeminder.com/c/tagtime

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