Hmm, well I guess the fact that I’ve gotten Beeminder permanently ingrained is a good enough reason to finally update my Beejournal. Which means it’s already doing a good job of being a commitment device unto its own, hah! Time for a long overdue diatribe.
I know I said multiple times throughout my journal that I never wanted to stop no matter what, but there are a few reasons that I did end up stopping anyways.
The biggest reason being I’ve reached a equilibrium with Beeminder, and don’t have anything meaningful to update, unlike shanaqui’s excellent Beeminder Journal. I haven’t added or changed any of my Beeminder goals since my last update, and just archived a few that weren’t working.
That leads to my second point, which is that I realized I was getting caught up with the aesthetic of being productive rather than actually being productive. Not to mention I’ve sort of exhausted all my thoughts on Beeminder and a layperson’s perspective on behavioral science.
Since I’ve last updated I’ve started university, and it’s been going really well! I finished my first semseter with a 3.8 GPA. The magic though, is that I haven’t really had to use Beeminder for my schoolwork. I’ve just been doing my assignments and research, at a reasonable daily pace instead of trying to do everything last-minute, which used to be my default. The daily habits that I do which I’ve trained myself with using Beeminder (and that are still ongoing) have changed how I interface with my work in general.
But now I am on break, and almost all my Beeminders are on break. And a new year is just around the corner. And my education is suddenly back online because of the Omicron variant, which means I need to hold myself more accountable again!
Now, getting my shit together doesn’t mean I need figure out productivity, it means I need to figure out meaningfulness. Our lives have such a large amount of forgetability when we’re not being aware of it.
I’m sure I’ll end up writing a new year’s list of resolutions in my next update.