How to do something you should, you can, but you don't?

A post about Beeminder, and how you can use it with trydeepwork.com

TLDR: trydeepwork.com integrates with Beeminder. If you already know about Beeminder, you can try out the integration at https://www.beeminder.com/trydeepwork. If you don’t know about Beeminder, keep reading.

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Many times we find ourselves in a situation where we know we should do something, we are capable of doing it, but for some reason, we just don't. It could be a task, a goal, or a habit that we want to develop, but we struggle with maintaining consistency. Thankfully, Beeminder is available to help us overcome this challenge.

What is Beeminder?

Beeminder is a goal-tracking and accountability platform designed to help you stay on track and reach your objectives. Its unique feature lies in its commitment contracts. When you set a goal on Beeminder, you also set the consequences (money!) for not meeting that goal.

However, these words alone fail to fully capture the utility of Beeminder. Each of its features has been thoughtfully designed, incorporating reverse psychology to provide additional motivation. For instance:

• Humans set grand goals, but don’t think about the daily quantum to achieve them in the long term

  • Beeminder creates a path for you so you do things every day to achieve the grand goal. This becomes your daily contract with your future self.

• Humans are much more averse to loss than they are enthused about profit.

  • Beeminder uses this to create a temporary loss for you if you go off-track, so you stay on track to achieve your true reward. This creates a powerful motivator daily.

• Humans often act against themselves in the short term, sabotaging their long-term goals.

  • Beeminder creates an “Akrasia” horizon, where even if you decide you don’t want to do something you committed to earlier, you are still on the hook for 7 days before you’re truly off-hook.

This is just an elaboration on a few of its features, and there are many more thoughtful ones that you probably don’t even notice (like the lack of “streaks”). And, if you are into data, you can nerd out with all their stats.

People have been using Beeminder to lose weight, finish their PhDs, build their companies, get a better job, or just floss regularly.

I have used Beeminder to:

1. Get a better job

2. Keep track of finances

3. Keep in touch with my family and friends

4. Build trydeepwork.com 🙂

What does this have to do with trydeepwork.com?

In relation to trydeepwork.com, the team at Beeminder has generously agreed to integrate their tool with trydeepwork.com. This integration allows you to set a daily deep work contract with yourself, and Beeminder will ensure you accomplish it.

Here are the steps to set up this integration:

1. Create a username at https://trydeepwork.com/profile, if you haven’t already

2. Create a Beeminder account and visit https://www.beeminder.com/trydeepwork to set up a contract with your future self

3. Choose whether you want to track deep work in "hours" or "sessions"

4. Finally, utilize trydeepwork.com and beeminder.com together to achieve your most important goals, faster.

Note that this integration is still in beta, so you might encounter a few rough edges.

By combining trydeepwork.com and Beeminder, you can enhance your productivity and ensure that you make progress towards your objectives. Stay focused, stay accountable, and accomplish what matters most.