Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What do you use to align your daily todos with your long term goals?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 222 posts

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to align your daily todos with your long term goals?

#151

Post by enoch_r »

I cannot possibly recommend Beeminder highly enough, if you happen to have the personality type that it works well with.

The basic idea isn't too far off from the million other "habit" apps out there. I say I want to meditate X days a week, tell Beeminder whenever I meditate, Beeminder gives me a pretty (okay, decently attractive) graph of how I'm doing, and they tell me if I'm not meditating as much as I want to.

The key that makes Beeminder stick (heh) is that it makes use of commitment contracts. I don't just say I want to meditate X days a week, I promise Beeminder that if I don't meditate X days a week, I will pay them $5 (or $10, or $30). You can cancel or decrease your goal at any time, but only with a week of heads-up, so you can quit for a well thought out reason but not because you just don't feel like it today.

I've tried to start a lot of habits in my life, but I've historically been very bad at sticking with them for very long. It's so easy to give into the "I'll just do that tomorrow" syndrome.

As an example, here's my Beeminder graph for "tidying up": https://www.beeminder.com/jds02006/tidyup

I love having a clean desk, but historically I'd have a clean desk every 6 months, followed by a slow accretion of messy crap. Now, if I don't spend 5 minutes tidying up my work area every few days, I'll have to pay Beeminder $30. Result: my desk area is completely clear.

It sounds crazy (to my wife, at least), but it's ridiculously good at bringing your long-term goals (and the consequences for not achieving them) into the present.

Disclaimer: I have no association with Beeminder, but they have sent me stickers for making bug reports. :)

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to align your daily todos with your long term goals?

#152

Post by JaviLopezG »

onion2k wrote: post #42
JaviLopezG wrote: post #36

I draw on my window a dashboard with a kind of life's game. I needed 1 million of points to get a price (allow myself to startup another company). I can earn points and bonuses doing things like workout, travel, launch with my family, rock climbing, party with friends, develop small projects,... I had some additional rules. All mornings I spent a minute puting strikes near the icons of the things I did past day. Ever…

I draw on my window a dashboard with a kind of life's game. I needed 1 million of points to get a price (allow myself to startup another company). If you've recognised a pain that you solve for people and that could turn in to a viable business, waiting until you completed an arbitrary number of other tasks seems like a pointless exercise. On the other hand, if you don't have a solution to a pain point, this might be…

Start a business is really hard here (Spain). With my last one I learnt a lot, but I also lost a lot: all my savings and money from family and other people. I invested a lot of time so I didn't spend that time with my family and friends. Here, you can lost the rest of your life if you fail. I failed and now I have a lot of problems for this reason. For example, I have some open cases with government yet. I knew that it was a possibility but I chose and lost.

With all of this, I don't think that an idea is really important. Execution is more important. Nevertheless, I know that I will start another company someday, but I need to be sure that I regenerate my self before value a new idea or start the execution of one.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to align your daily todos with your long term goals?

#153

Post by pors »

Make sure that working on your long term goals gets priority over working on the rest of your todos. It sounds simple, but it is not.

How to do that is different for everyone. What worked for me is the "Deep Work" method as described in this book: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25744928-deep-work

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to align your daily todos with your long term goals?

#154

Post by passivepinetree »

enoch_r wrote: post #151

I cannot possibly recommend Beeminder highly enough, if you happen to have the personality type that it works well with. The basic idea isn't too far off from the million other "habit" apps out there. I say I want to meditate X days a week, tell Beeminder whenever I meditate, Beeminder gives me a pretty (okay, decently attractive) graph of how I'm doing, and they tell me if I'm not meditating as much as I want to. Th…

Wait, do you pay the company Beeminder that money?

Or is it paid into a savings account or something for you to have access to later?

If you actually pay the company that money, and if their app is based around that pricing, that's a pretty unique business model idea.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to align your daily todos with your long term goals?

#155

Post by macNchz »

awjr wrote: post #108

I have a trello board with the following columns: "Good intentions" :- Things I think I'm going to do. I investigate then put in other columns. "Next Up" :- Need to have a go at next. "Working On" :- Actively doing. "Done/Dead" :- Things that I did as well as things I failed at or discarded. "Follow Up" :- Something happened, so need to wait on something/someone to then allow me to continue. "Asleep" :- Sometimes thi…

> It's my home page when I fire up my browser. ;)

That's maybe what I've been missing with this approach...I've set up very similar Trello boards in the past only to have them get stale because I only looked at them on a 'pull' basis rather than having them 'pushed' to me automatically.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to align your daily todos with your long term goals?

#156

Post by daveguy »

enoch_r wrote: post #151

I cannot possibly recommend Beeminder highly enough, if you happen to have the personality type that it works well with. The basic idea isn't too far off from the million other "habit" apps out there. I say I want to meditate X days a week, tell Beeminder whenever I meditate, Beeminder gives me a pretty (okay, decently attractive) graph of how I'm doing, and they tell me if I'm not meditating as much as I want to. Th…

Three questions:

How much have you had to pay beeminder?

How do you make payments (escrow, credit card, PayPal, etc)?

Is it a non-profit?

It seems like this would be a great opportunity for a non-profit. Although it may reduce the incentive a bit. I expect it will be psychologically similar. Especially if the non-profit overhead is something like 10%. You are effectively losing 10% of what could have gone directly to your non-profit of choice.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to align your daily todos with your long term goals?

#157

Post by mmattax »

Disclaimer: This is my startup.

We're building Jell (https://jell.com) to tackle this problem. We have 2 sets of core functionality: OKR tracking, and "checkins" which can act as a daily/weekly/monthly "standup".

You can add plans/tasks to your checkins (and mark them as complete), and link these items to your OKR's.

We've seen a lot of companies have success with our tool (many replacing daily standups with it). We'd love feedback.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to align your daily todos with your long term goals?

#158

Post by passivepinetree »

daveguy wrote: post #156
enoch_r wrote: post #151

I cannot possibly recommend Beeminder highly enough, if you happen to have the personality type that it works well with. The basic idea isn't too far off from the million other "habit" apps out there. I say I want to meditate X days a week, tell Beeminder whenever I meditate, Beeminder gives me a pretty (okay, decently attractive) graph of how I'm doing, and they tell me if I'm not meditating as much as I want to. Th…

Three questions: How much have you had to pay beeminder? How do you make payments (escrow, credit card, PayPal, etc)? Is it a non-profit? It seems like this would be a great opportunity for a non-profit. Although it may reduce the incentive a bit. I expect it will be psychologically similar. Especially if the non-profit overhead is something like 10%. You are effectively losing 10% of what could have gone directly to…

Their FAQ is here: https://www.beeminder.com/faq

1. You set the payment amount, but the default is exponential. (Edit: didn't read your comment thoroughly enough the first time to know you were referring to the OP, not the general policy.)

2. Payments are done via credit card, although Paypal support seems to be in the works.

3. It does not appear to be a non-profit. It looks like a business where Beeminder's living is made off of people paying when they fail their goals.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to align your daily todos with your long term goals?

#159

Post by taude »

LVB wrote: post #97
imranq wrote: post #60

Advice from my physics professor: make a detailed plan and then discard the plan and do what you feel. This doesn't mean the plan was unnecessary...rather the plan carves out the neural pathways in your mind. The feeling part is important too since if I am so rigid then I am going to be crushed by the randomness of life.

"Plans are nothing; planning is everything." - Dwight D. Eisenhower I used to hear this a lot from one of my better bosses. I agree with it. It is, however, important to capture "planning". Any form is fine, whether scribbles or a list or a picture of a whiteboard. Trying to organize the raw info was usually a waste of time, but having it accessible as a reference wasn't.

I think there's value in relieving the mind from holding on to the context by writing it down, even if your intent of execution changes. The process of writing it down releases my mind from thinking about it.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to align your daily todos with your long term goals?

#160

Post by [deleted] »

mmattax wrote: post #157

Disclaimer: This is my startup. We're building Jell ( https://jell.com ) to tackle this problem. We have 2 sets of core functionality: OKR tracking, and "checkins" which can act as a daily/weekly/monthly "standup". You can add plans/tasks to your checkins (and mark them as complete), and link these items to your OKR's. We've seen a lot of companies have success with our tool (many replacing daily standups with it). W…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN