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Show HN: Discipline.io – Make binding commitments to your better self

discipline.io

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Re: Show HN: Discipline.io – Make binding commitments to your better self

#21

Post by ishjoh »

anonyfox wrote: post #14
stri8ted wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not a fool proof solution, but the hope is, it should significantly reduce the likelihood of breaking your commitments. I was considering supporting anti-charities (e.g. NRA, DNC etc..), but I thought that was unnecessarily distracting.

well I am probably kinda the hardcore target group. I can clearly spot, articulate and act on problems (like being overweight and out of shape). I go deep into the scientific (and also pseudo for fun) discussions about anything in the process, can roughly understand it, relate that to my personal situation, and make absolutely great plans how to tackle it. iE1 (body recomp): calorie counting app, tracking everything…

I'm curious about example 1. It sounds like you had all the right things in place so I have a few questions for you:

1. Were you just so hungry that you didn't want to stick with it anymore? What was your daily calorie deficit?

2. Did you enjoy your sports program or was it a chore to do?

Re: Show HN: Discipline.io – Make binding commitments to your better self

#22

Post by suketk »

As a peer[1] in the habit-building space, there are so many things I love about this:

* No self-reporting. I can attest this a huge source of friction for users.

* Aligned business model. I also donate 100% of penalties to charity. It's shocking how many accountability apps are incentivized for you to fail.

* External accountability. It's an underrated tool and I'm glad it's gaining more recognition.

However, I think there's also such a thing as too much accountability. Life comes in the way and people won't always hit their goals. When you penalize failure, you penalize trying. Instead, it's better to encourage learning from failure.

That's why I impose compassionate accountability. You're only required to check in on your goals, not succeed at them. This way, you can fight through the problem instead of giving up the moment you fail.

Here's a recent example from Habit Gym that illustrates this quite well. It's a user trying to quit smoking - they start off slow, but pick up momentum quickly because they learned from their mistakes. https://i.imgur.com/1eiZEMy.png

Just my two cents! Good luck with your app!

[1] https://www.thehabitgym.com/programs/daily

Re: Show HN: Discipline.io – Make binding commitments to your better self

#23

Post by anonyfox »

ishjoh wrote: post #21
anonyfox wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well I am probably kinda the hardcore target group. I can clearly spot, articulate and act on problems (like being overweight and out of shape). I go deep into the scientific (and also pseudo for fun) discussions about anything in the process, can roughly understand it, relate that to my personal situation, and make absolutely great plans how to tackle it. iE1 (body recomp): calorie counting app, tracking everything…

I'm curious about example 1. It sounds like you had all the right things in place so I have a few questions for you: 1. Were you just so hungry that you didn't want to stick with it anymore? What was your daily calorie deficit? 2. Did you enjoy your sports program or was it a chore to do?

1) I am pre-trained in fasting extended amounts of time and actually enjoy it, being hungry wasn't the problem. but sometimes (quite often for me unfortunately) adult life happens, and I just have to do something like eating business lunch with a client or some holiday feast with the family. A few times of these things happening (sometimes even within 1 week) and after a while I just think "fuck it". The only thing I actually can keep for many months now is going meatless, but this was a great body response feeling within few days and just staying noticeably good, including appetite changes over time I spotted (like preference for fresh vegetables and fruits I never had before) as well as a disgust now to kill/eat animals, so this is now a natural body reaction on a lower level.

2) the usual dopamine loop seemed to work for me here, like the workout itself was intense (nearly fainting after lifting sometimes), feeling a small high afterwards, and even enjoyed the DOMS 2 days after proudly, also helped noticeably in stress reduction to move (accumulated over sets) a few tons of iron. had a kind of personal coach (even though shared with others when I didn't need him) and felt well in my gym environment - everything on point. After a while, I stopped going for no particular reason.

Re: Show HN: Discipline.io – Make binding commitments to your better self

#24

Post by stri8ted »

teeray wrote: post #15

I love that you explicitly call out how you make money and that it is not a percentage of deposits. Being up-front about that is refreshing. Suggestion: a large portion of folks looking to use this app would like to do so to achieve fitness goals. The simplest possible integration with HealthKit may be closing your exercise rings. It’s general enough to not require integrating with specific vendor APIs, but is still…

Agreed re fitness tracking. I have been thinking about that.

Re: Show HN: Discipline.io – Make binding commitments to your better self

#25

Post by asciii »

anonyfox wrote: post #2

Thats a nice way to make me donate more money to charities I guess

On the other hand, I think it's a great way to start a positive habit. Sure, maybe, one can fail on the first try but these offset the long run mindful activities to achieve more discipline.

I'm not an expert or anything at this but I have appreciated the Atomic Habits book where switching your brain's focus to trying something for 5 minutes eventually overcomes the barrier to not doing it.

Re: Show HN: Discipline.io – Make binding commitments to your better self

#27

Post by OJFord »

underyx wrote: post #7

The incumbent in this space is https://www.beeminder.com where the specific use case shown here about screen time can be configured with e.g. their RescueTime integration. Beeminder however just take your money for themselves as opposed to giving it to charity. They claim people would otherwise be more prone to giving up on their goals, thinking "oh well, the money is going to charity anyway so I'm doing a good thing…

> The opposite approach would be setting it up so the money goes to an organization whose goals you disagree with.

That's hilarious, but could be really dark & depressing!

Re: Show HN: Discipline.io – Make binding commitments to your better self

#28

Post by kokanee »

underyx wrote: post #7

The incumbent in this space is https://www.beeminder.com where the specific use case shown here about screen time can be configured with e.g. their RescueTime integration. Beeminder however just take your money for themselves as opposed to giving it to charity. They claim people would otherwise be more prone to giving up on their goals, thinking "oh well, the money is going to charity anyway so I'm doing a good thing…

Another incumbent is https://gofuckingdoit.com by the bootstrapping cult icon Pieter Levels.

Re: Show HN: Discipline.io – Make binding commitments to your better self

#29

Post by sledgehammers »

sledgehammers wrote: post #10

>is a lack of self-discipline Hmm, maybe there is something to say about the addiction capitalism?? You cannot place the blame on individual here. This is a societal level problem. This is a failure of democracy to recognize and address the problem. Greed and bad incentives are the problems, again. They are causing massive destruction, again.

Zuckerberg et al downvoting an inconvenient truth? ;) Mark: fuck you.

Re: Show HN: Discipline.io – Make binding commitments to your better self

#30

Post by ekanes »

kokanee wrote: post #28
underyx wrote: post #7

The incumbent in this space is https://www.beeminder.com where the specific use case shown here about screen time can be configured with e.g. their RescueTime integration. Beeminder however just take your money for themselves as opposed to giving it to charity. They claim people would otherwise be more prone to giving up on their goals, thinking "oh well, the money is going to charity anyway so I'm doing a good thing…

Another incumbent is https://gofuckingdoit.com by the bootstrapping cult icon Pieter Levels.

I love the simplicity and interface, but it seems unclear where the money goes. I can't find a FAQ.
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