[Cor]

I really like the Seinfeld method. It works surprisingly well for me.

I first came across it when I started using 750words.com, a journaling website. The website prominently displays your streak at the top of every page, and there are achievements and rewards for building up longer and longer streaks. At the moment my streak is at 572 days, which is testament to the effectiveness of the method.

Unfortunately, the Seinfeld method, in my experience, isn’t perfect.

For me, it’s only really good for small activities that can be done daily for small amounts of time. I’ve tried using it for work projects on several occasions (for example, doing 2 hours of extra work a day) and I’ve failed every time.

I recently came across a fix, though - http://beeminder.com

Beeminder is essentially a more configurable version of the Seinfeld method. I first tested it on a goal that I’ve tried (and failed) to do several times before - ‘read and make notes on business books for one hour a day, six days a week’. Not that hard, but for some reason, I’ve always fallen off the wagon with this particular goal.

With Beeminder, I found it effortless. There’s something strangely satisfying about adding data onto the website. I ended up completing 30 days without much difficulty.

Since then, I’ve added a ton of extra goals with Beeminder, and I’ve been accomplishing them surprisingly easily. I’ve been gradually ratcheting up the difficulty on each goal (for example: I recently started with the goal of ‘spend 3 hours working on own projects every week’, and I slowly increased the goal requirements at a rate of 3 hours extra per week; currently, I’m doing an extra 24 hours a week without much difficulty on my part), which I find works really well.

I’ve also started using Beeminder for other goals like ‘meditate for 5 minutes every morning’, ‘go to the gym 3 times a week’, ‘cook at least 5 new recipes every week’, 'spend 30 minutes cleaning the apartment 3 times a week', and it’s worked incredibly well for each of them.

Beeminder has inspired a massive change in me in a surprisingly short amount of time. I’ve always thought I had a procrastination problem, or that I’m simply lazy, but Beeminder is showing me that this isn’t the case. I recommend giving it a go.

[dreeves]

Thank you so much for the kind words about Beeminder! (I'm a cofounder.) We do indeed view it as a more flexible version of the Seinfeld hack.

I agree that the Seinfeld hack (aka, "don't break the chain") can be incredibly powerful -- but only once you have a long chain to not break. So there's a catch-22 until then -- you can sometimes keep failing again and again indefinitely, never building up the motivating chain. And that problem repeats every time the chain breaks. So you're always in a precarious situation where one bad day can precipitate many more bad days, where you go down a slippery slope of "one more day won't hurt; I'll get a new chain started tomorrow".

(Extreme bias warning) With Beeminder you can commit to maintaining a certain average, like 3 posts/commits/pages/whatever per week. So it's not all-or-nothing like the Seinfeld hack. You can build up a safety buffer and then take some time off, without the danger that that will lead you down a slippery slope of sloth. With Beeminder's yellow brick road you've precommitted to not let your overall average dip too far.

If the rate you want to maintain is exactly 7 per week -- 6.9 is unacceptable -- and if you can sustain that long term, then "don't break the chain" is probably perfect. For everything else, there's Beeminder!

[Cor]

Oh, thank you, sir! Didn't expect to get a reply from the cofounder of Beeminder.

I don't think it's possible for to fully explain how big of a difference Beeminder has made in my life. I was much like some of the folks in this thread (as in, starting projects but not finishing them; struggling to get stuff done), but since implementing Beeminder in my life, my productivity has gone through the roof. It's also given me a lot of self confidence in my abilities, which is pushing me to take on more ambitious projects and ambitious tasks.

The focus on averages is definitely what I like most about Beeminder.

On more than one occasion, I've fallen asleep without writing my daily 750 words, only to wake up 20 minutes later in a cold sweat, rushing to my laptop so that I can quickly write my words so I can get back to bed.

With Beeminder, that's not a problem. I usually have reserves built up, or, alternatively, I can simply put in some extra time the next day.

Case in point, last Friday, I went to the doctors for a routine asthma checkup and they gave me a flu shot that completely knocked me out. It effectively ruined my plans for the day. Instead of worrying, I went home, rested, and put in some extra time on Saturday instead. It's simply not possible to do this with the Seinfeld method.

One thing I forgot to mention in my earlier post is that I heard about Beeminder through Nick Winter's book 'The Motivation Hacker'. http://www.amazon.com/The-Motivation-Hacker-Nick-Winter-eboo...

It's cheap, it's a quick read, and it's got some great information inside. I made some notes while I was reading the book - I've uploaded them here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9f6xofet38ka1x2/Nick%20Winter%20-%...

If anyone's on the fence about buying it, it's definitely worth picking up, in my opinion. There's a lot of great stuff in there that I didn't cover in the notes.

Cheers again, man.

[dreeves]

Wow, your notes on Nick Winter's book are amazing! I should note (for others) that the book is also fun and fascinating to read even aside from the technical content and concrete advice which you've expertly distilled.

I'm fascinated that you can get so much value out of Beeminder without the commitment device aspect! For us personally that's really key. Maybe for you the commitment device is that if you derail you'll be forced to put in a credit card. :)

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on this if you want to move this to an email discussion. Ooh, or check out the Akratics Anonymous google group. You'll probably love that.

[GhotiFish]

WOH-HO Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope. That is just a flat out recipe for massive credit card charges and a boat load of pain.

They have a monetary incentive to interpret your data as failing to meet your goals. That is a huuuuuuuge amount of trust to bestow on a random company.

[dreeves]

It's really important for us to understand this reaction, so I'm glad you expressed it! It does seem super perverse on first blush. We've written about this a lot, actually. Eg, http://blog.beeminder.com/perverse .

Another counterargument is that any company has a monetary incentive to take your money and then under deliver on what you paid for. Beeminder, like most companies, is staking its reputation on providing some value that you'll be happy to pay for and tell others about (like the grandparent post here; thank you again!) and keep using. In Beeminder's case that value is making you more productive (or more fit or weigh less, or whatever graphable goal you have).

Eager to hear if that's convincing!

[GhotiFish]

I'm glad you guys actually recognize the perverse incentives at work here and...

  "Speaking of perverse incentives, we’re often asked about
   our own. 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 
   is a fair fee for Beeminder’s service..."

  "in other words, Beeminder is putting itself on the map 
   for exactly one reason: it makes people more awesome.

   But that can lead to the opposite complaint — that 
   Beeminder’s sting is so valuable as to be 
   self-defeating. In other words, it’s hard to be 
   motivated by the threat of having to pay Beeminder if 
   you feel that Beeminder has already earned that money!"

... Ok that only serves to scare me more.

This is a nasty psychological game beeminder is playing. So is GymPact. When people feel they have failed or they are at fault, a part of them wants to provide recompense for that failure. Beeminder and GymPact are not the first to fit this business model. Cable companies do it with wildly obtuse rules, ugly restriction, and massive overcharge fees, all with the line "Well it was your fault, it's written in the rules right here!"

That's what I see to be the problem. Beeminder puts itself resolutely in place as the 'go to' to seek punishment, striking where humans are at their weakest. Of course, rather than hail Marys, the punishment is money.

The fact is, because beeminder makes its money through my failure, it has a monetary insensitive to bring about that failure by any means, real or perceived. http://darkpatterns.org/ exists for exactly this reason! On what grounds do I have to believe beeminder would be immune to such an influence? Because beeminder loves me and wants me to get better?

That is how I saw it, from the outside looking in. I liked the idea, I really did, but with beeminder standing to benefit from the pledge, rather than say, a charity of some kind, I could never trust them.

[Cor]

If they do misinterpret my data, I'll simply go elsewhere. If there isn't an alternative, I'll try to build my own.

I haven't had to input my credit card details into Beeminder yet, so I don't see how they'd be able to take money from me, anyway. I don't use the pledge feature, and I've yet to fail any of my goals, so I've not had any problems on that front.

[GhotiFish]

it's optional? I can't believe the video said you needed a pledge to get back on track! It shattered my confidence in them.

[dreeves]

The way we think of it is that Beeminder is a goal tracking service that you pay for, except that if you never need Beeminder's kick in the pants -- if you keep all your datapoints on the yellow brick road -- then the fee is waived.

[GhotiFish]

...

So... not optional.

I find the way some people are thinking in this discussion to be very off putting.

It's like you're saying the demographic of people constituting your primary source of income are exceptions. That I can think of it is a completely free service since I am incapable of failure. How insane is that?!

[dreeves]

I'm confused but I think I mean it the other way around: most users will pay Beeminder occasionally. There are some exceptional people who never ever fail who will never pay Beeminder (and those people apparently didn't really need Beeminder's kick in the pants anyway).

[mryan]

Pledging is optional - I used beeminder for a long time without entering my credit card details, for exactly this reason.

[GhotiFish]

their introduction stated that if you slipped, you would have to pay to get back on schedule, and not on your terms either.

you would have to pony up a credit card number on the grounds that they could charge you if you slipped again. Basically if anything happened, $5, $10, $30

Oh no, my father was killed in south Africa, gotta go! $5, $10, $30, $90, $270, $810, $2430, Oh you were busy? Oh sorry.

If the video was wrong. Well OK. That seems like a horrific thing to lie about.

edit: now with actual numbers!

[dreeves]

We do have safeguards for that sort of thing. Like there's a deadman's switch for if you disappear completely. Similar to our auto-canceling subscriptions for our premium plans: http://blog.beeminder.com/autocancel

When people derail at higher amounts we always ask them if they feel like they got that much value out of Beeminder up until the point they derailed and pretty much invariably the answer is an emphatic yes.

We totally understand that this kind of crazy lifehackery is not for everyone though. For one thing, not everyone even has the problem that we're solving, known as akrasia, or acting against one's own better judgment. We also agree that there are many better ways to hack one's habits -- if they work. Beeminder is kind of like the nuclear option if other lifehacks (like the Seinfeld calendar) don't work and you really need to just force yourself to toe the line.

[baby]

thanks for pointing out to 750words, I just wrote my first 750 words and I'll see how long this will go on for :)