Beeminder +7: Beeminder is my main tool. I’ve been using it successfully on a variety of tasks for a year. My beeminder goals are a mixture of quantifiable goals (e.g. work X amount of hours per day) and binary goals (e.g. open Anki and look at at least one card) depending on the importance of the goal and judgment. For things which are “nice to have” I generally will start with a binary goal, while things that I consider very important will have a quantifiable goal. I’ve also used Beeminder to curtail things like excessive soda consumption by setting a daily limit. I believe it works for me because I am averse to lying in business transactions, I have enough money that losing a goal doesn’t cause me any real harm even if it’s large, and yet I’m probably more stingy than logic would dictate is necessary. The downside of Beeminder is like others have said some tasks tend to bunch up until right before bed. Also, it’s very hard to convince others to use it even though it’s really awesome, because it’s so unusual.
TagTime: −4. I tried using “TagTime” from Beeminder people in accordance with a goal to work a number of hours and it was awful. I give it a −4 (with a −10 is that it almost killed you, which seems like a relatively extreme benchmark) since the randomness of it caused me intense stress and annoyance. The randomness didn’t add an element of “oh this is a fun game” it added an element of “I’m your capricious boss and you are going to have to work an extra three hours today with no credit.” I now use org-mode to track my time the old fashioned way, by clocking in and out of tasks, and it is much better.
Pomodoro: +4. I have used pomodoro in the past but I no longer use it because its value has been subsumed by Beeminder and my social contract techniques. It was moderately effective for me, I think because of the timeboxing effect. It’s easy to work on something when you know you are only going to have to work on it for 25 minutes.
Social precommitment: +3. I mean precommitment in the sense of telling people that by a certain date you will have achieved a certain goal. This has been somewhat effective for me, but I actually use an enhanced version which is more like +6. I send an e-mail every day to three of my friends with a complete log of my work tasks and a link to my Beeminder page. I’ve already told them what my goal is in terms of hours worked. This is highly effective for me, and I think this owes to the fact that I have historically been very successful at things, and so completing tasks that are within my control is part of my identity. For people whose friends already think of them as consummate failures I don’t think this would work that well. I think in terms of raw effectiveness, the daily task e-mail is more like +6, but it has high overhead, relative inflexibility, and inability to scale. I’m also worried that it might wear off, although I have been using this mechanism for a few months and have worked more hours per day than in the prior year. The daily commitment e-mail makes “far” social commitments into “near” social commitments, similar to Beeminder does with general tasks.
Stacking commitment mechanisms: +3? So far as I know this doesn’t have a formal name, but I was introduced to the concept by Nick Winter’s “The Motivation Hacker” and I consider it the key novel (to me) insight in that book. I give it a +3 on it’s own because it doesn’t do any real work. Its power depends on what you are stacking. The general idea is to use multiple commitment mechanisms on each of your goals. I use both Beeminder and the social precommitment e-mails on my hours worked each day and I think the combined effect is more like +9, but only for that narrow task. The Less Wrong study hall uses pomodoros and social pressure I think to achieve similar effect.
GTD: +0. Was ineffective for me. Meta-akrasia or something made it difficult to keep up with the system and it just generally fell into disuse. I think if I were using Beeminder on my GTD tasks it perhaps could be effective, but I didn’t know about beeminder last time I tried to use GTD.
Internet blocking (a la LeechBlock): +3. Blocking Internet time sucks is handy. I actually don’t use this all the time, but I use it pretty regularly. I use a script which blocks the Internet for a configurable period only after a configurable delay. If I realize I’ve been browsing too much and need to start working, I’ll give myself 20 more minutes of Internet followed by a three hour block. Once I’ve gotten into the groove of working I find I don’t need it for the rest of the day though. Stacks nicely with other mechanisms.
Daily schedule: +0. For a while I was trying to follow a daily schedule where I had set aside exact blocks of time for each of my tasks. It eventually fell into disuse though, due to lack of flexibility. Also, I couldn’t think of a way to Beemind deviations from my schedule that wasn’t ridiculous.
Self conditioning (a la CFAR): +0. Doesn’t seem to work for me. I always realize after like three days that I’ve been completely forgetting to reward myself. This could be an implementation issue though, like, if I Beeminded self-reward or something, maybe.
Meditation: +1. I’ve been meditating 20 minutes a day for a year or so. I read an article on mindfulness being used to be more productive by using mindful awareness when you aren’t working, and I realized that I can also do this. This has been occasionally effective for me although I didn’t discover it until after I had dialed in Beeminder/precommitments. It loses points due to it’s relative lack of flexibility and the extreme time investment involved as compared with this particular payout. If you are already a meditator I give this +3 for the effect.
I’m sure there are more things that I’ve tried that I’ll probably think of later.
Beeminder +7: Beeminder is my main tool. I’ve been using it successfully on a variety of tasks for a year. My beeminder goals are a mixture of quantifiable goals (e.g. work X amount of hours per day) and binary goals (e.g. open Anki and look at at least one card) depending on the importance of the goal and judgment. For things which are “nice to have” I generally will start with a binary goal, while things that I consider very important will have a quantifiable goal. I’ve also used Beeminder to curtail things like excessive soda consumption by setting a daily limit. I believe it works for me because I am averse to lying in business transactions, I have enough money that losing a goal doesn’t cause me any real harm even if it’s large, and yet I’m probably more stingy than logic would dictate is necessary. The downside of Beeminder is like others have said some tasks tend to bunch up until right before bed. Also, it’s very hard to convince others to use it even though it’s really awesome, because it’s so unusual.
TagTime: −4. I tried using “TagTime” from Beeminder people in accordance with a goal to work a number of hours and it was awful. I give it a −4 (with a −10 is that it almost killed you, which seems like a relatively extreme benchmark) since the randomness of it caused me intense stress and annoyance. The randomness didn’t add an element of “oh this is a fun game” it added an element of “I’m your capricious boss and you are going to have to work an extra three hours today with no credit.” I now use org-mode to track my time the old fashioned way, by clocking in and out of tasks, and it is much better.
Pomodoro: +4. I have used pomodoro in the past but I no longer use it because its value has been subsumed by Beeminder and my social contract techniques. It was moderately effective for me, I think because of the timeboxing effect. It’s easy to work on something when you know you are only going to have to work on it for 25 minutes.
Social precommitment: +3. I mean precommitment in the sense of telling people that by a certain date you will have achieved a certain goal. This has been somewhat effective for me, but I actually use an enhanced version which is more like +6. I send an e-mail every day to three of my friends with a complete log of my work tasks and a link to my Beeminder page. I’ve already told them what my goal is in terms of hours worked. This is highly effective for me, and I think this owes to the fact that I have historically been very successful at things, and so completing tasks that are within my control is part of my identity. For people whose friends already think of them as consummate failures I don’t think this would work that well. I think in terms of raw effectiveness, the daily task e-mail is more like +6, but it has high overhead, relative inflexibility, and inability to scale. I’m also worried that it might wear off, although I have been using this mechanism for a few months and have worked more hours per day than in the prior year. The daily commitment e-mail makes “far” social commitments into “near” social commitments, similar to Beeminder does with general tasks.
Stacking commitment mechanisms: +3? So far as I know this doesn’t have a formal name, but I was introduced to the concept by Nick Winter’s “The Motivation Hacker” and I consider it the key novel (to me) insight in that book. I give it a +3 on it’s own because it doesn’t do any real work. Its power depends on what you are stacking. The general idea is to use multiple commitment mechanisms on each of your goals. I use both Beeminder and the social precommitment e-mails on my hours worked each day and I think the combined effect is more like +9, but only for that narrow task. The Less Wrong study hall uses pomodoros and social pressure I think to achieve similar effect.
GTD: +0. Was ineffective for me. Meta-akrasia or something made it difficult to keep up with the system and it just generally fell into disuse. I think if I were using Beeminder on my GTD tasks it perhaps could be effective, but I didn’t know about beeminder last time I tried to use GTD.
Internet blocking (a la LeechBlock): +3. Blocking Internet time sucks is handy. I actually don’t use this all the time, but I use it pretty regularly. I use a script which blocks the Internet for a configurable period only after a configurable delay. If I realize I’ve been browsing too much and need to start working, I’ll give myself 20 more minutes of Internet followed by a three hour block. Once I’ve gotten into the groove of working I find I don’t need it for the rest of the day though. Stacks nicely with other mechanisms.
Daily schedule: +0. For a while I was trying to follow a daily schedule where I had set aside exact blocks of time for each of my tasks. It eventually fell into disuse though, due to lack of flexibility. Also, I couldn’t think of a way to Beemind deviations from my schedule that wasn’t ridiculous.
Self conditioning (a la CFAR): +0. Doesn’t seem to work for me. I always realize after like three days that I’ve been completely forgetting to reward myself. This could be an implementation issue though, like, if I Beeminded self-reward or something, maybe.
Meditation: +1. I’ve been meditating 20 minutes a day for a year or so. I read an article on mindfulness being used to be more productive by using mindful awareness when you aren’t working, and I realized that I can also do this. This has been occasionally effective for me although I didn’t discover it until after I had dialed in Beeminder/precommitments. It loses points due to it’s relative lack of flexibility and the extreme time investment involved as compared with this particular payout. If you are already a meditator I give this +3 for the effect.
I’m sure there are more things that I’ve tried that I’ll probably think of later.