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Show HN: A simple way to set goals you actually follow

motion.hoanhan.co

51–60 of 66 posts

Re: Show HN: A simple way to set goals you actually follow

#51

Note to the submitter: Firefox gives me a "Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead" message when I try to visit the link. Error code: SEC_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ISSUER. Seems like a https certificate problem.

Are you behind a VPN? I wasn't able to read this through my company's VPN but have no issues from my home network.

Re: Show HN: A simple way to set goals you actually follow

#53

I envy people that can freely share their thoughts / dreams / wishes on some random VM in some random cloud. I don't even trust my connected devices since the amount of telemetry going on guarantees that everything I type will end up on some random VM in some random cloud.

Buy a small NUC and run some docker containers. You might end up sinking 100 hours into it, but I have the same concerns and self hosting (with some cloud backups, but encrypted) is the solution for me. https://github.com/htpcBeginner/docker-traefik

What's the point of having my own cloud as long as my devices are purposed built against my privacy?

AFAIK everything I type on my Windows machine is directly sent to MS servers. I assume the same for my Android phone.

Microsoft and Google ... I know it's the worst for privacy but my platform choices were made before I realized I was data mined.

I can't afford Apple, and frankly I think their privacy stance is more marketing than real care. Especially when I see the lengths they go to create a world were they OWN consumers.

Last Sunday I decided I had enough: I installed KDE Neon on my desktop. It failed to install drivers for my NVIDIA 950 gfx and proceeded to kill my sound card drivers in the process. So I installed Elementary OS (yes complete opposite from Neon). Graphic drivers were fine, but every time it played a sound it was preceded by a loud crack in my speakers. And it's not like it's fresh / unknown hardware, I assembled this PC between 2010 and 2012 (Intel Core i7 3770k on an Asus motherboard).

So I'm back on Windows, but at least it's a fresh install.

Re: Show HN: A simple way to set goals you actually follow

#54

"Don't break the chain" is the absolute worst system for me to form a habit. As soon as the chain is broken, I'm never going to pick it up again.

That's why I like weekly goals. Fuck up one week? Doesn't matter, once Monday hits, everything resets and you start over.

Re: Show HN: A simple way to set goals you actually follow

#56
post #23

I find the reminders app on my phone is good enough. I have a folder called "habits", with reminders that appear at chosen times of day and days of the week. I look at my phone frequently enough that I can't really ignore them. My memory is crap enough that I forget what they're going to be, so I scroll through them once in a while. It's mildly satisfying for me to "check" them at the end of the day, and to write my…

There was a comment posted on HN a while ago that has always stuck with me[0] that basically said that plain old pen, paper, and a system of rules was more than enough to start a business, organisation, or, as a follow up comment said, even Rome. This has rung true in my life many times over. I've tried complicated note and habit tracking apps that just do far more than I ever need and I tend to get stuck in the weed…

Until you misplace the paper notebook..

Re: Show HN: A simple way to set goals you actually follow

#57

This is something I would definitely try if you had a free tier (just to get a feel of the app, maybe restricted to 1-2 goals) or at least a free trial without CC info/commitment.

But that doesn't convert enough! Think about all the $120/yr payments you can extract from people that don't know you can use an Excel spreadsheet to do the same thing!

Re: Show HN: A simple way to set goals you actually follow

#58
post #50

I have a feeling a better way to follow through your goals is to decouple tasks from the time it takes to do them. Divide your time in blocks, one tasks per block. The time doesn't depend on the task, and the task doesn't depend on which block you choose to do it. For me, 3 blocks per day is optimum.

Interesting idea. For me the hardest thing is carving time out to do deep work at all. It’s critical to protect that time and focus on applying to a specific thing.

Exactly. Make space and the action will follow. Reminds me of a quote by John Carmack - “Focus is a matter of deciding what things you're not going to do.”

Re: Show HN: A simple way to set goals you actually follow

#59

"Don't break the chain" is the absolute worst system for me to form a habit. As soon as the chain is broken, I'm never going to pick it up again.

I completely agree. If you just look at it as a system, it’s completely unstable. When do I most need support in my habits? When something goes wrong and I miss a day. When does a streak system completely remove all support and pile on a bunch of negativity? When something goes wrong and I miss a day.

Streaks seem to be good at taking you from 99% compliance to 100%, but that’s not the problem most people face.

What has worked way better for me is to take the world a week at a time. I track my compliance across all of my habits. It’s usually only like 75%, but I bet you most people aren’t hitting that. Then I meet someone for up to 30 minutes once a week. She’s not an accountability buddy (also an unstable system). She’s a project manager. We talk about what’s going wrong and how to fix it, or what’s going well and how to keep it. Done it all year and it has helped tremendously.

Back to streaks, I had an idea for streaks that still give you a goal, but they’re not so huge. So you reach for the next number in the powers of 2 or Fibonacci sequence, and your streak counter starts over when you hit it. Then you’re not trying to preserve your one precious streak, you’re just setting a new record. “I did 128, let’s see if I can hit 256!”.

Re: Show HN: A simple way to set goals you actually follow

#60
Shameless plug: I teach people how to do exactly this at bizworklife.com. It's tool agnostic: just how to get control of your goals (geared mainly for startup entrepreneurs).

It started as an online course (that is still there) but has branched out a bit into personal consulting.

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