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Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

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Re: Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

#31

Post by marginalia_nu »

khromem wrote: post #19
johnthewise wrote: post #15

I strongly believe external motivation kills the inner motivation. Maybe that is the goal here, by killing it completely so you can't ever think of depending on it(?). For me personally, I always found these kind of tools that helps trick one's self into doing or not doing things, very soul crushing. It's almost like trying to beat yourself into submission, disowning the part of yourself. If you can't make yourself t…

The role of this is to bridge the gaps between the spikes of internal motivation. A lot of times people start working on something new and for the first few days they have enough motivation to stick with it. But when that disappears a lot of people just quit. They don't stick with the new activity long enough for the next surge of internal motivation. We believe this service can help people grind it out for a week or…

It seems to me like you are describing inspiration and not motivation, when discussing internal motivation.

Motivation is the why of what you are doing, inspiration is the Eye of the Tiger montage when you are doing something that seems to go well.

Your motivation for brushing your teeth may for example be to avoid a trip to the dentist.

Re: Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

#32

Post by johnthewise »

the_only_law wrote: post #23
johnthewise wrote: post #15

I strongly believe external motivation kills the inner motivation. Maybe that is the goal here, by killing it completely so you can't ever think of depending on it(?). For me personally, I always found these kind of tools that helps trick one's self into doing or not doing things, very soul crushing. It's almost like trying to beat yourself into submission, disowning the part of yourself. If you can't make yourself t…

> If you can't make yourself to do something, maybe you shouldn't do it? That attitude probably works if it’s some sort of leisure activity, but someone who struggles to do routine, necessary tasks might not want to just give up on them.

I totally understand, I can't still make the bed or do procrastinate with many things. Would it be better if I somehow tricked myself into doing them by delegating the decision making process into a third-party? If this worked, maybe. But these tools never work on me as I feel I'm being tricked and get stressed/annoyed even more. I understand everyone is different, but if anyone out there is like me, I'd suggest trying to make your peace with yourself and with all the cool projects you abandon. or get stressed enough that maybe you can change yourself :) If you're depressed, get help!

Re: Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

#33

Post by mynameisvlad »

khromem wrote: post #2

For my whole life, I have been dealing with bursts of motivation where I am extremely productive for several days, followed by weeks-long slumps. This yo-yo behavior does not let a person develop their skills or build anything substantial. According to my observations, people usually start working towards a goal following a temporary spike in motivation. It lasts a few days at most. Usually, it is not enough for peop…

> Is this for me? / Who is this for?

Half joking, but you could have simplified these entire sections to "you have ADHD".

Speaking as someone who is diagnosed with it, you more or less described the dopamine ride of a person with ADHD.

The "deadlines give you superpowers" bit definitely reminded me of this video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CcHQDI8NYzF/

Re: Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

#34

Post by BeetleB »

khromem wrote: post #28
BeetleB wrote: post #26

$20/mo is expensive. Beeminder charges $8/mo (and they stop charging if you stop using it).

Beeminder is largely automated. We try to offer much more human support. Such as daily texts and manual verification of goals instead of just pulling data from an API.

> We try to offer much more human support. Such as daily texts and manual verification of goals instead of just pulling data from an API.

If people value this at $12/mo, that's great. It has no use for me, and will likely detract many from joining. When Beeminder raised their rates from $4/mo to $8/mo, they put in all kinds of mitigations for the customer:

1. Not charged if you don't have any active goals.

2. If you fall off track and have to pay an amount, they deduct that from the monthly cost.

The key is to make it easy for people to sign up.

Also, anecdotally, the majority of people will fail the first time round. My first stint with Beeminder was mostly a failure and I stopped using it for a few years. Then I came back to it with the lessons learned and use it much better now. If it cost me $20/mo, I'd probably never have returned to it.

Re: Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

#37

Post by logicallee »

Microeconomic analysis:

- Suppose you have a project worth $10,000 to you in some intangible form if successful, with a 20% chance of success. You use a penalty site to pay $2,000 if you make no progress. You set this high enough to put some non-productive entertainment out of your budget. Your hope is that when evaluating what you want to do, entertainment goes from being "$20" to "$20 plus $2,000 penalty". In your thinking, this promotes work on the project! You will not actually have to pay the penalty, since you intend to work on the project. You hope to influence yourself to increase your happiness by an intangible $2,000 (expected value of $10k * 20%) for free, by manually pricing entertainment out of your budget.

- What happens if another project is worth $500 billion to you in some intangible non-monetary form, for sure? You definitely need to do that now. You are out the $2,000 if you don't also do something toward the first project, though. Thus, the penalty which had been intended to keep you from goofing off becomes an extra burden also on something worth an intangible $500 billion to your happiness. The "here's your incentive to be happy and productive" becomes: "here's your penalty for being hyper happy and productive" (on a new, temporarily very valuable project.) Clearly a misalignment of incentives: an unintended consequence.

- Note that if you are independently rich this contract could still help you make some progress! Suppose you committed to pay $2,000 as a penalty for stopping work, but stopped work since you have something guaranteed to give you $500b in intangible happiness. Now it is strictly better to hire someone such as an intern or assistant and pay them anything less than $2,000 as long as this counts as progress and avoids tripping the penalty. i.e. a loss of $1900 paid to an assistant (counting as some marginal progress) is strictly better than a penalty of $2000 (and zero progress).

- Could this explain why rich people hire personal assistants and project managers? It is an automatic penalty: once the assistant / project manager is on staff their salary goes out the window. You might as well use them to do what you, as a rich person who can hire personal assistants and project managers, want to get done.

Is their behavior of hiring assistants and project managers why rich people get so much done?

If so, the moral of the story may be to set aside $2000 to be handed over to project managers you deploy strategically on any project you want done.

If it works for wealthy people, it could work for you - if you pay the cash for it. While disincentives could be nice, as the saying goes, you have to spend money to make money.

Re: Show HN: WorkOrPay – Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if you fail

#40

Post by MaulingMonkey »

vasco wrote: post #25
khromem wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The role of this is to bridge the gaps between the spikes of internal motivation. A lot of times people start working on something new and for the first few days they have enough motivation to stick with it. But when that disappears a lot of people just quit. They don't stick with the new activity long enough for the next surge of internal motivation. We believe this service can help people grind it out for a week or…

Why would you grind out something you found you don't want to do? Or on another note, if something really should get done, I think their argument is that this sort of crutch makes you lose the muscle of "just do it and get on with it".

> I think their argument is that this sort of crutch makes you lose the muscle of "just do it and get on with it".

I don't have that muscle when it comes to "internal motivation", and decades of floundering have not particularly succeeded in developing it.

The right external motivation - for me, most typically, something along the lines of not wanting to let down the people who are depending upon me in a reasonable manner - means I can absolutely slay it when it comes to getting things done in a 9-5 work environment, and rather than being soul crushing, it's a relief that I can contribute value. I might grumble a bit at the start of my mornings, but getting into the grove of work quickly distracts me from said grumbling. johnthewise's experience is far from universal.

Precommitment in the form of money laden goalposts and checkpoints alone aren't super effective for me, but they do accomplish something.

> Why would you grind out something you found you don't want to do

Because it will be valuable enough to have it done, to be worth it in the long run. My natural internal motivation is terribly shortsighted - to the point that I'll procrastinate on getting myself food when I'm only a little hungry, because cooking, walking, driving, or even ordering sounds like a bother and a chore. Does spending an extra hour or three hungry improve my day overall? It does not.

It's 10AM, I've skipped breakfast, and I'm rather hungry for lunch. My natural instinct is to spend another few hours doomscrolling reddit or HN or otherwise making not particularly good use of my time, even when it comes to the explicit goal of leisure or relaxation. But, instead, I'm going to hunt down some socks, shoes, keys, wallet, sunglasses, mask, jacket, and go out into the beautiful sunny day that I've been hiding away from, and go grab some delicious food I've been looking forward to all week, and improve my day in the process.

And I will grumble slightly along the way, because among other injustices, I will have to "get up".

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