[Updated] Beeminder - put your money where your mouth is

How many times have you said you were going to do something, then seen your commitment evaporate?  I know it's happened to me.  In the past, I've written about how to overcome procrastination, how to turn to coaches and other 3rd parties to help keep you on task, etc. But what about online tools to help keep you on track?

Recently, I was contacted by the creators of an interesting productivity service called Beeminder and I was intrigued enough to give it a try. Beeminder is an innovative approach to help you commit to specific goals, and stay focused on them. What’s the secret sauce? If you don’t do what you said you’d do, it will cost you money. In other words, it creates accountability by getting you to put your money where your mouth is.

The premise is pretty simple:

• You decide on a goal and commit to it.
• You decide on a dollar amount as a "penalty" you'll pay if you don't meet your commitments.
• You agree to Beeminder's "contract" (including an "I promise not to weasel" clause) and commit to your penalty amount. Right now, looks like $5 is your only choice - I suspect that will change at some point.
• You use Beeminder to track your progress.

Beeminder tracks daily progress against your goals to help you monitor whether you are on track or not.  You can report progress via email, text message, or directly on the site.  You also receive daily email updates from Beeminder to let you know whether you're on track or not.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

In tracking progress against your goal, Beeminder has a very good visual helper that I like a lot.  They call it the "Yellow Brick Road" and it is the sweet spot of progress against your goal - here is a sample of my graph (at right).  If you want a better illustration, check out the example from the Beeminder site.

In my case, my commitment is to blog 4 times per month (I know some of you have noticed how occasional my blogging has become, and I want to change that).  I also have my own internal guidelines about what it means to "blog" 4 times a month - for example, I'm talking about original content (not reposts), and the posts need to be long enough (I don't have a hard guideline on post length - but I know it when I see it).

I've established daily milestones toward a weekly blog post, and my goal is to stay within the bounds of the yellow line (my Yellow Brick Road) or above it, which means I'm ahead of my goal.  If it falls below the yellow line, I have a short amount of time to correct it, or I pay my penalty (in this case $5) to reset my goal.

The effect is cumulative, too - the first time you miss your goal, it costs what you committed originally, but each time you fall off the path, the price goes up - very motivating. Here is the formula for increases, per the Beeminder site:

What exactly is the exponential fee schedule for subsequent derailments?

Going off your yellow brick road the first time costs nothing, the second time (if you chose to unfreeze after the first attempt) it costs $5, the third time it costs $10, then $30, $90, $270, $810, etc. In general, the cost of going off the road the ith time is:

You can chicken out at any time, of course.  Which leads me to the next point...

It's free if you stay awesome

One cool thing about Beeminder is that it will cost you nothing if you meet your commitments - you only pay when you fail to do what you said you'd do, at which point you have to pay to reset/restart your goal.  I think this approach is pretty cool - they provide a great tool to help you track your progress, and it stays free if you adhere to your plan.  Mess up, and you pay the site's owners - yep, they reap the rewards if I don't do what I committed to, which is a fascinating business model.

A lot of thought has gone into this approach, from what I can tell - there is a good overview about Beeminder on the site that goes into a lot more detail, and I suggest you read it if you're considering using Beeminder.

On Goals and tracking

You can pick just about any general goal, but I encourage you to think about what daily progress looks like, as Beeminder expects you to check in daily.  They provide a bit of guidance on this on the site, as well as some specific guidance if you want to use Beeminder to track weight loss.  More on that, plus general information about the approach and "akrasia" are detailed on the Beeminder blog, in the post "The Magical Widening Yellow Brick Road."

Update: I was having trouble figuring out how to effectively track my goal, which has a weekly "deliverable" rather than a daily cadence. I just spoke with one of the Beeminder founders and he pointed me at a great blog post on that very topic: Chunky Time! - it's a must-read if you have a "chunky" kind of goal.

Give it a try

If you need a little help overcoming procrastination, or some extra motivation to keep you focused on your goals, I recommend taking a look at Beeminder.  I think it provides an interesting, innovative, and motivating method to help you get more done.  You'll know whether I succeed or not - it will be measured in blog posts per month.

If you try Beeminder, let me know how you fare!

The Top 5 Things For Greater Productivity

I was just reading a great article by Brett Nelson of Forbes, called "Eight Secrets To Getting More Done In 2012."  I love the ideas he's assembled, particularly the one about "Hourly Gut Checks."

With his post in mind, I have an idea of my own to contribute:  The Top 5 Things.

The Top 5 Things

This is a pretty simple concept that I use, which I find to be very useful:

1. Start with a "mind sweep" as prescribed in David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology - get everything out of your head, out of your inbox, out of meeting notes, etc. in to one big list.
2. When you sit down to plan your week, look at this list and pick the top 5 things you need to get done this week from the list.  Try to pick the 5 things that will have the most impact or drive the most progress toward your most important goals.
3. Write your Top 5 on an index card.
4. Carry that index card with you, and review it regularly to help you focus on what is important.  As things get done, mark them off.
5. Repeat the process.

You can do this weekly, or just wait until you've done your top 5 - figure out what works best for you.

Another thing I've found useful is to use the back of the index card to record the "in the moment" priorities you end up working on, so you can review the things you chose to work on instead of your top 5.  This can be helpful in figuring out what (or who) is undermining your productivity.  Sometimes you'll find your doing it to yourself.

Got any tips of your own?  Please share!

Evernote, convenience, and habits

I was recently catching up on some of my favorite blog stops, and just read an article from a few months back on the Success Begins Today blog, where John talks about the lovely marriage that is Evernote+iPad 2.  John and I are usually of like mind, and our fondness for Evernote is no exception.

Background

I'm a long-time user of Evernote which, if you aren't familiar with it, is an excellent capture and recall tool for storing all kinds of digital information.  You can take pictures of things and add them as a note, you can type things in, you can forward emails and PDF's to it, and much more.

Everything you send to Evernote gets indexed and stored in your account on its cloud-based service.  Once the information is indexed, you can quickly retrieve it based on tags, location, or keyword searches (it will even convert text in pictures to a searchable form - it is awesome for retrieving pictures you've taken on whiteboard diagrams with lots of text on them).

Evernote offers a robust free account, as well as a subscription option (faster indexing of your files, and more monthly storage - most people will be fine with the free version).

Evernote makes it easy to collect and interact with this data - you can run desktop clients on your computer, access it in a web browser, or from mobile clients on most tablets or smartphones.  Very simple.

Challenges

For me, the hardest things with adopting Evernote were:

1. Developing the habit of using Evernote
   • The number of clients available for Evernote (see above) makes this easier but, like with any new process, it took me a while to develop the habit of entering my notes into Evernote.  I wish there were some magic potion that would make this easy, but I don't know of one.
   • One thing that can help is to ditch your paper notepad for a while so you are encouraged to take notes directly into Evernote.
2. Taking notes directly into Evernote in meetings
   • There were a couple of problems in this area:
     • first, my computer was a bit bulky so I didn't carry it around to all my meetings;
     • second, the soft keyboard on my phone or iPad were kind of a pain to type on and I ended up spending more time concentrating on finger typing than I did on the contents of the meeting.
   • The best solution I found for this was to get the Zagg ZaggFolio for my iPad 2.  This is a combination iPad 2 case and Bluetooth keyboard.  When I use this in combination with the Evernote iPad app, I can use my touch-typing skills to easily take notes in my meetings.  The iPad's 10-hour battery life plus the long life of this keyboard (I charge it every month or two) makes this a much better alternative than my laptop.

So, if you're looking for a great way to centralize all your meeting notes, easily retrieve them, and you have an iPad, I think this is a great solution.

One thing missing from the Mac: ClearContext

In the past, I've written a lot about Getting Things Done (GTD) and my journey with it.  One of the shining points along the way was finding ClearContext, which is an Outlook add-in for WIndows that transforms how you can use GTD with Outlook. I've written a lot about ClearContext, as well.

As you may also know, I switched to the Mac about a year ago and one of the hardest things to do without has been ClearContext.  I'm now using Outlook 2011 for Mac, but it apparently isn't quite as extensible as the Windows version of Outlook (I'm hoping Microsoft addresses this crippling limitation in future release of Outlook for the Mac).

Anyway, if you are looking for an awesome product to help you up your game with GTD, I encourage you to check out ClearContext.  Their latest release (which a few of my colleagues are using) has a lot of new functions to help automate a lot of the categorization, filing, and other kinds of mundane tasks so you can better focus on getting your work done efficiently.

If you've never looked at ClearContext, start with the intro video before, then head over to the ClearContext site for a free trial.  If you've looked at ClearContext before but not acted, give it a second look.

And Microsoft:  If you're listening, please open up Outlook on the Mac to enable fantastic products like ClearContext.

My Livescribe SmartPen, 2 years later

A couple of years ago, I reviewed the LiveScribe Pulse Smartpen.  The other day, someone asked me how I like it - and specifically, how well it integrates with Evernote (which I'm always talking about, it seems).

I figured this would be a good time to provide an update on how I'm using the LiveScribe Smartpen.  First, I now have the newer model now called the Livescribe Echo Smartpen.  More storage, a bit less bulky.

Yes, I still use the LiveScribe, but not all the time.  Bottom line?  I have a love/hate relationship with it.

Why I Love the Livescribe Echo Smartpen:

• The Evernote desktop client has very clean integration with Evernote (there is a button in the LiveScribe UI that uploads the selected page automatically as a new note that becomes OCR-able).
• The Livescribe Smartpen is absolutely great for capturing notes and diagrams – it helps me to write, as writing helps me retain things better.  I'm very visual so keeping a record of my diagrams as I captured them is terrific.
• The Livescribe Smartpen's audio capture is also very handy – I can write a keyword, record, and concentrate on the conversation more fully, knowing I can go back and re-listen to all the details.
• The ability to share animated diagrams with voice annotation via their portal is way cool – though I've only done it a couple of times.  I posted an example of a recorded LiveScribe session in my last review, if you're curious.
• There is some nice built-in OCR-ish search function in the LiveScribe client software.
• The Livescribe Smartpen has really good battery life.
• Notebooks and pen refills are reasonably priced and available at Target or Amazon.

Why I Hate the Livescribe Echo Smartpen:

• The Smartpen is a bit too bulky (not so comfortable to write with for extended periods).
• The Smartpen has no reasonable way to attach to anything – that makes it a pain to carry around.  They sell a funky little carrier case for it but I can't stand it.
• I have to remember to recharge it, and it uses a microUSB cable – which I don't have many of at the moment.
• I have to remember to synch it (though it does store a lot of notes – I've never filled the pen up).
• It wasn't cheap so I feel guilty that I don't use it more often than I do.

So, that's my candid update on the Livescribe Echo Smartpen.  It is great if you take a lot of notes and want to search them, tremendous if you interview a lot of people in situations where you need very accurate recall, and it works well with both Mac and Windows.

Does your actual mileage vary from mine?  If so, I'd love to hear your opinion on this gadget.

Get It Done, by the book

The other day I got my hands on Stever Robbins' book, "Get-It-Done Guy's 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More (Quick & Dirty Tips)," which is a great collection of tips & tricks to be more productive.

When I picked up the book, I was wondering how this aligned with David Allen's "Getting Things Done."  Turns out it's very complementary - GTD is focused mostly on how to collect, capture, and organize the things you want to do so you can pick your activities based on context, energy, importance, etc - you still need that, even with Robbins' book.

So what is Robbins' book about, then?  While it does have some overlap in terms of defining life goals, priorities, and "purpose" stuff, much of Robbins' book deals with tactics to help you free up more time to be productive - how to overcome procrastination, how to get better at saying "no," how to block out distractions so you can focus, and those sorts of things.

Practical and fun to read

Robbins' style is very conversational, making it an easy read.  He also has a lot of quirky stories and memes going on (hint: zombies abound).  In the midst of the quirkiness, there are a lot of sound ideas - and he illustrates them with stories from his life.  For example, there is a section on "baby chunks" which is a strategy to break daunting tasks down into smaller, more manageable pieces.  He discusses how he used this approach in writing his book, and I found it easier to understand the techniques involved because of this concrete example.

Likewise, he illustrates most of his concepts with real stories you can identify with (except for the zombies, of course).

So, you may be wondering, "What are the 9 steps?"  Let me fill you in:

• Step 1: Live on Purpose, deals with identifying you top-level life priorities;
• Step 2: Stop Procrastinating, offers tips to get your butt in gear and do the things you're avoiding;
• Step 3: Conquer Technology, which helps you figure out ways to prevent technology from hijacking your productivity, as well as how to use technology to help you get through your tasks more quickly;
• Step 4: Beat Distractions to Cultivate Focus, is perhaps my favorite chapter, and it deals with how to establish an environment / habits that will help you focus more (you might also want to look at my post on how to focus in a cubicle environment, if you have trouble focusing on your tasks);
• Step 5: Stay Organized, which helps you implement systems to support a more organized life;
• Step 6: Stop Wasting Time, which is mostly about how to identify your leverage points - the 20% that's most important in your 80/20 life;
• Step 7: Optimize, which has some very interesting tips to help make time-consuming or mundane tasks more efficient, and even "outsource" them to others if you can;
• Step 8: Build Stronger Relationships, which is about doing the care & feeding of relationships to make your life more meaningful and create a network that can support your efforts when you need help;
• Step 9: Leverage, which is partially about automating things to give you more power over getting them done, but also a lot about how to use your skills to their best advantage to increase your personal value.  Leverage is also about how you can tap into the strengths of others to move past your own limitations.

In summary, I got a lot out of this book and found it to be very practical.  Through this book, I also discovered the "Get-It-Done Guy's Tips & Tricks" site, which is loaded with great ideas.

If you're looking for a good way to refocus your energy on being more productive, you won't go wrong with this book.