alys/intime

alys/intime: is archived

Don't procrastinate on doing things by a certain time.

DAY	DELTA	TOTAL
Mon (11th)	+01:41	03:41
Tue (12th)	+01:41	03:41
Wed (13th)	+01:41	03:41
Thu (14th)	+01:41	03:41
Fri (15th)	+01:41	03:41
Sat (16th)	+01:41	03:41
Sun (17th)	+01:41	03:41

Datapoints ?

Your actual reported data. The color shows where you are with respect to your bright red line:

Green:
> 3 days of buffer

Blue:
~ 2 days of buffer

Orange:
~ 1 day of buffer

Red:
crossed the red line
Bright Red Line ?

Keep your dots on the good side of this bright red line!
Colored guiding lines ?

The orange line shows one day of safety buffer. The blue line is two days, and the green line demarcates seven days of safety buffer.

(If you keep your safety buffer at 7 days or higher then you're immune to being stung. If anything comes up, just flatten your bright red line. It will take effect after the 7-day akrasia horizon but since you have that much safety buffer, you're golden!)
Yellow guide lines ?

These thin yellow lines indicate the good side of the bright red line.
Akrasia horizon ?

This line is a week away from now. You can only make changes in the steepness of your red line beyond the akrasia horizon.
Pink zone ?

This shaded pink zone on the wrong side of your bright line shows the bare minimum that you are committed to doing this week. Your red line can never get easier and dip into this forbidden zone.
Infinitely safe region ?

This light yellow shaded region shows the infinitely safe area. If your datapoints are in this zone, then you have exceeded the final total of your graph, and your safety buffer is unbounded. You usually see this as your goal approaches the end date, or if you have an infinitely flat bright red line for some reason.
Skull & Crossbones ?

We fly the Jolly Roger on your graph if it freezes. The primary way this happens is if you derail when your graph is scheduled to be archived.
Watermarks ?

The watermarks in the corner regions of your graph (shown darker here) indicate your current pledge amount and how much safety buffer you have. How safe you are is shown on the good side of the red line, and the amount pledged is shown on the derails-this-way side.
Smoothed trend swath ?

Think of this as a very thick line charting your progress or an aura around your actual data. It's like the moving average line but fatter and smoother, and it extends past your actual data as a kind of projection into the future, in case that's useful. (Gory details on the blog.)

Features not enabled on this graph:

Optimistic projection (deprecated) ?

An optimistic view of progress, i.e., a view of your data through rose-colored glasses. It shows your inexorable march towards your goal. If you're bouncing around it just shows you flat. When you go down (or whichever direction your goal is), it shows you that right away.

It never shows you going up (or whatever the wrong direction is) unless it's sure you've screwed up.

If you find the random fluctuation unnerving, you can focus on the pink dots day-to-day.
Moving average ?

This is a moving average implemented as an IIR filter. If most of your daily numbers are below this trend line then you are inexorably dragging it down.

For the case of weight loss, this was inspired by The Hacker's Diet as a way to see the forest through the trees, to see past the daily random fluctuations to what your weight is really doing.
Max flux ?

This thicker yellow line denotes the user-specified maximum daily fluctuation, shown as an offset from the bright red line. Details in the FAQ.
Standard flux ?

This dashed yellow line indicates a so-called 90% variance derived from your data, shown as an offset from the bright red line. Details in the FAQ.

Careful what order you edit datapoints in. Beeminder derails you if your data crosses the red line, even retroactively. (Also FYI this goal is auto-summing aka cumulative, which can be confusing.)

Date

Value

Comment

This goal has the following fine print specified by alys:

This do-less goal is designed to limit my procrastination about finishing enjoyable activities or starting important activities. It records each event where procrastination is likely to be a problem.

For each event, i enter two data points:

The first is a negative number that defines the amount of time I am allowed to spend on my current activity (e.g., something frivolous) or before starting a new activity (e.g., something important, which can include appropriate fun/relaxing activities of course). That amount of time starts at the moment I enter the data point. (Concerned by this negative point? Read on for a note about fake data!)

The second data point is entered at the moment that I finish the current activity / start the new activity. It is a positive number that states the amount of time that actually elapsed since the first data point was entered.

Thus if the time spent is less than defined in the first point, I have done well and my safety buffer increases. If too much time was spent, my goal becomes closer to derailing.

The comment for the first data point contains the word "initial", plus the allowed time, plus a description of the current activity / new activity.
The comment for the second data point contains the word "final" plus the allowed time (the data point itself contains the actual time).

If you ever see an "initial" comment with no matching "final" comment, then I have cheated by not entering the second data point! Call me out about it! (Or it means my process failed in some way, in which case I'd want to know about it anyway.) Of course if the "initial" data point is very recent, then I'm probably just in the middle of the event and hopefully don't need the reminder. :)

The process of entering a negative point followed by a positive one is pretty much entering fake data then real data and I could avoid that by entering just one point that states the difference between the allowed time and actual time, but I REALLY like having the allowed time hard-coded into the goal as soon as I've decided on it. Requiring a pair of initial and final points and having it publicly-auditable means that I can't decide in the middle of an event that I just won't bother recording that event, which would not be the case if only one point was entered at the end of the event.

(Of course the auditability would be bypassed if I entered the initial point and then flaked out by deciding to delete it, but that requires more of a conscious decision to cheat and so is significantly less likely to happen. I could prevent this and reduce the "fake data" feel of this goal by having some secondary system (IFTTT?) that populates an auto-data goal with the same data that's in this goal but in a way that will punish me if I abuse my system, but that's more effort than I'm willing to go to at the moment and my assessment of my own reliance on this system is that it wouldn't be necessary. Maybe later just to be thorough.)

I am creating a Task in the awesome Android Tasker app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm) to automate the data point entries and to set reminder alarm(s) before the allowed time has elapsed. I'll be publishing the code when it's ready.

Curious about this? Have suggestions/feedback? Email me! lady..alys@gmail.com

Hard Cap By Day

Goal Progress

Stats

Graph stats

Data stats

Graph Legend