The Beeminder team writes about commitment devices, willpower, and self-binding, plus notes on running their startup.
HN commenters call it an amazing blog and cite its long-running writing on accountability and commitment contracts.
> Did you ever feel like you were answering correctly, on close cards specifically, not because of an improved understanding but because you were associating the correct answer with the prompt/excerpt?
I actually suspect that associating the word with the context helps, as surprising as that might be.
Let's say I grab a few sentences from an interesting article, and I boldface a word. I'll mark the card as "pass" if I at least sort of understand it in context.
On day 1, I honestly might find the word fairly confusing. I can explain what it means, but maybe the grammar is unfamiliar. Ditto for the first few reviews. But then around day 8 or so, the card disappears until day 20 or 30. And the next time I see that card, suddenly the odd bit of grammar is completely natural and obvious. There's maybe some kind of medium-term memory consolidation mechanism occurring? Something happens when I'm not looking at it.
Seeing the word in context somehow allows my brain to grab on. The human brain contains some incredibly powerful language learning machinery. In adults, that machinery still exists. Even if it's a bit rusty. And that machinery seems to work best on semi-comprehensible speech in a natural context. So think of Anki less as a set of facts you must learn, and more as a tool to distill and concentrate natural language so that you can let your brain work on your weak points. (And as soon as possible, start reading lots of books and watching TV! I learned the hardest 10% of…
I haven't run into this, but considered a variant on it by connecting Yousician to Beeminder -- self-binding for piano practice (https://blog.beeminder.com/akrasia/). I encountered a couple things that made it not worthwhile for me:
- I enjoy practicing, so the benefit from self-binding is reduced.
- Yousician doesn't have a supported API, just unofficial libraries written by users, so my connection would be brittle.
- I could probably only have tracked minutes per day or week, and while that's not bad, it's not a great measure of actual progress (and over half of my practice minutes are not using Yousician).
If Yousician had an API and Beeminder had native support for it, I'd probably have linked them and made a commitment. Somewhere in here, there's something I'd use :-) I think the best element of what you described is that it's completely passive yet works for anything. If I have to do a lot of session setup (like telling it which bars I'm playing), or run it on a computer instead of a phone/tablet, I don't think the benefit would be worth the effort.
For me, I'd accept whatever tradeoffs were required in order to make it completely passive (other than starting and stopping the app for a practice session). Even if that meant I only got heuristics and had to trust its inferences, that beats taking my hands off the keyboard to mess with it. For example, maybe it estimates my tempo accuracy based on how much my recording changes when quantized, and infers that more…
Beeminder (https://www.beeminder.com/overview#how_beeminder_works) has been life-changing for me, taking me from zero to working out 3x/week and meditating 4x/week, and currently helping me learn to blog more regularly.
It's in the same category (habit formation) as Daisy and Streaks but with a somewhat power-usery focus. You commit to any number of quantifiable goals (e.g. "work out three times a week for the next 6 months"), it reminds you to stay on track, and if you fall behind, actually charges you money. The idea is to tie your long-term goal ("work out regularly") to your short-term sense of immediate priority ("work out today or it'll cost ya").
One of the reasons it works for me is that it fits with a flexible schedule. I don't have to work out at 8am every Monday; I just have to work out sometime early in the week. I can build up a "backlog" and "spend" it later. Conversely if I have a crappy week and let habits slide, it reminds me to make up for it the following week.
The Beeminder team also blogs regularly on the subject of habit formation and self-control - e.g. http://blog.beeminder.com/flexbind/ which goes into more detail on why they've designed the system the way they have.
Hadn't heard about this app before. I guess this can work for getting a good routine for exercise etc, probably the most beneficial just for the months you're just getting started with a new thing. Maybe for dares, like going skydiving.
But applying this to reading just feels like something out of a black mirror episode:
> Readwise Reader is a powerful tool for “power readers”. It’s like a supercharged read-it-later app, with first-class support for notes and highlights and tags. Now, you can keep track of your Readwise Reader items using Beeminder.
> You set a limit for a Readwise Reader location, like Inbox, Later, or Shortlist. If you’re already under the limit, great! You’ll have to stay under the limit each day or pay a penalty. If you’re currently over that limit, Beeminder will set up a goal to get you down to that limit, and then stay under it.
https://blog.beeminder.com/readwise
The author is talking about accountability, which the folks at Beeminder have been blogging[0] and implementing[1] for a long time. Their premise is to "tread the yellow line" and you won't have to suffer the consequences, which is paying money each time you fail.
I used their app while preparing for an exam and I regret not using it earlier. I was initially put off by the fact that I will have to fork over money to a random company, but in reality, you don't have to pay if you never fall from the "yellow line". Additionally, they give multiple reminders so that money isn't snatched away from you, and their customer support helped me refund money for one time when I didn't log something that I did do.
This is an example of my logging the amount of hours studied [2]
[0] https://blog.beeminder.com/
[1] https://www.beeminder.com/
[2] https://www.beeminder.com/llllll/fg
We did a startup that used the same model in stopping online procrastination: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2268710, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuc0_ZMQ4P8 and our competitor in productivity space blogged about us :http://blog.beeminder.com/timecarrot/. My experience is that, it is really hard to build a business model around behavioral economics, be it weight loss, quitting smoking, or anything else. Based on the data I have seen, people who will think they need commitment device are also sophisticated enough to know that they might fail, hence won't signup. In the end, you always end up serving significantly smaller number of consumers than you have initially assumed.