Comment author: TheOtherDave 15 March 2013 12:32:08AM 13 points [-]

I'm really curious to know how many people connect to that domain having confused "m" and "rn".

Comment author: dreeves 15 March 2013 12:50:04AM 1 point [-]

Gah! :) I did not think of that! Kind of like how I did not think of how much "beeminder" looks like "beerminder".

Comment author: dreeves 14 March 2013 11:22:47PM *  17 points [-]

I have a donation to the cause: the domain "pomochat.com". (I owe the LessWrong community bigtime -- I don't think Beeminder would've gotten off the ground without it!)

I bequeath the domain with no strings attached. I can transfer ownership of the domain or just point it at wherever folks suggest. Assuming of course that no one comes up with a better domain!

Comment author: KnaveOfAllTrades 06 March 2013 07:34:30PM *  5 points [-]

Have enough people at MetaMed been influenced sufficiently by (meatspace) LessWrong/think 'similarly enough' to LW rationality that we should precommit to updating by prespecified amounts<edit>on the effectiveness of LW rationality</edit> in response to its successes and failures?

Comment author: dreeves 07 March 2013 09:09:34PM *  2 points [-]

Interesting question! Since it's an especially interesting question for those not fully in the in-crowd I thought it might be worth rephrasing in less technical language:

Is MetaMed comprised of LessWrong folks or significantly influenced by LessWrong folks, or that style of thinking? If so, this sounds like a great test of the real-world efficacy of LessWrong ideas. In other words, if MetaMed succeeds that's some powerful evidence that this rationality shit works! (And to be intellectually honest we have to also precommit to admitting that -- should MetaMed fail -- it's evidence that it doesn't.)

PS: Since Michael Vassar is involved it's safe to say the answer to the first part is yes!

Comment author: dreeves 07 March 2013 06:12:22PM 3 points [-]

Shannon, this sounds really valuable! Thanks to you and Mqrius for kicking this off.

I just wanted to mention that if there's demand for more social features in Beeminder, we're definitely listening. (Outsiders often tell us we should have more social features but LessWrong (and similar communities like Quantified Self) are our bread and butter so if we hear it here we'll pay more attention.)

Comment author: Robert_Unwin 10 November 2012 09:46:02AM 4 points [-]

I think dreeves background at Yahoo and success in founding Beeminder makes him well-placed to talk about getting things done.

Comment author: dreeves 11 November 2012 09:15:29AM 6 points [-]

Thanks so much, Robert!

And breaking news: I'm now part of the program!

(I'm really excited about this!)

Comment author: dreeves 10 November 2012 08:00:01AM 11 points [-]

Would you be interested in a session on anti-akrasia techniques for entrepreneurs? As the co-founder of Beeminder the danger would be that it would come off as a Beeminder infomercial. On the other hand, OMG BEEMINDER IS SO GREAT. Especially for surviving down cycles in the rollercoaster that is startupland, as we can attest from dogfooding the living crap out of Beeminder. Like our one-user-visible-improvement-per-day goal, which has kept us moving inexorably forward for 629 days now.

Here are 3 things that may convince you that this may be a good idea:

  1. Katja Grace's "On the Goodness of Beeminder": http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/08/on-the-goodness-of-beeminder.html
  2. Robert Wiblin on beeminding your way to greatness: http://robertwiblin.com/2012/04/16/beeminding-your-way-to-greatness/
  3. My own manifesto on "How to Do What You Want": http://blog.beeminder.com/akrasia and sequel on "Flexible Self-Control": http://blog.beeminder.com/flexbind

(I just pitched that to the organizers and thought I'd repeat it here to gauge interest.)

There may be some overlap with the Overcoming Procrastination session, but this could be much more general.

Comment author: BenLowell 09 October 2012 08:05:19AM *  2 points [-]

I would be very grateful if someone wrote an article summarizing all of the different methods of getting organized and learning to do so, with links to all of those various productivity blogs.

Comment author: dreeves 10 October 2012 08:09:03PM 0 points [-]

Are you making fun of all us productivity porn connoisseurs? :)

Seriously though, we're pretty proud of the Beeminder blog: http://blog.beeminder.com

There's also good stuff at http://blog.idonethis.com though they actually post too frequently for my taste.

Ooh, and http://markforster.net and of course lifehacker.com has a gazillion interesting ideas.

(And, yes, self-parody that I am, I second your call for a comprehensive survey article on productivity techniques!)

Comment author: [deleted] 08 October 2012 10:30:34PM 2 points [-]

If you want to force yourself to spend less time on a project, just start it closer to its hard deadline.

But if you underestimate how long it'll take you, you'll risk burning yourself out by working fifteen hours a day during the last two days before the deadline.

Comment author: dreeves 09 October 2012 03:29:29AM 4 points [-]

True, but it might be worth the risk if it's the kind of project that will expand to fill whatever time you allow for it and yet it's not that important to you. In other words, it's worth the pain of the two fifteen-hour days because starting it sooner means a lot more total time spent on it.

Comment author: dreeves 08 October 2012 02:57:59PM 5 points [-]

Ooh, not only is procrastination sometimes not akratic, it's sometimes the opposite! Namely, it can be an effective commitment device. If you want to force yourself to spend less time on a project, just start it closer to its hard deadline.

Comment author: Manax 16 February 2012 06:40:31PM 2 points [-]

Interestingly I wrote something very similar to tagtime a number of years ago, and am still using it. I don't do random sampling (didn't think of it at the time), but at 15 minute intervals. I've got short cuts and defaults to remember the last thing I was working on, automatic (and manual) time division when I've worked on multiple projects in the interval. Over the last year, I've gotten it the point where it automatically fills in timesheets for me. Mine too is Perl.

Of course, this sort of thing only works as long as you're honest about what you're working on. Sometimes I'm very good about being honest when I've gone off-task, sometimes less so. But it's easy to go back through my logs and find out how much time I've wasted when I intended to be working.

Comment author: dreeves 16 February 2012 07:11:30PM 1 point [-]

Ooh, you should check out tagtime on github -- http://tagti.me -- and see if we can join forces on this. I think it's important to have Poisson-distributed sampling because otherwise you can anticipate the next ping and insert a bias into the tracking (even if you're trying to be perfectly honest -- in fact, you might try too hard and overcompensate, inserting the opposite bias). If the pings are Poisson then that's impossible.

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