You can do date-based math with Remind. Going on a family vacation, and you want to remind yourself every day of how many weeks you’ve got left, and how much money you can save before then? I hadn't originally realized that Remind could do this, but David Skoll at Roaring Penguin helped me work out how Remind could work in weeks, instead of days. From there, it's a quick math problem to apply it to pounds to lose, dollars to save, and so on. These lines, for example, are in my Remind file:
I love Beeminder too (the sister app to GTBee). I’ve been trying to reorganise my habits into ones that aren’t “proxy’s” for what I want to really achieve (Eg “invoiced dollars”, rather than “did some client work”)
Interestingly I’ve found I haven’t done that. I try to make the tasks small enough that when it’s time to do them it’s not overwhelming and the potential fine is enough just sting to make me check the app regularly
I’ve found the trouble with Todo lists is that you fill them up and then start ignoring them as they are overwhelming. I’ve recently found Beeminder’s GTBee todo list app a good help as it forces you to enter a due date and fines you at least $5 if you don’t complete the task on the due date. That makes me highly motivated to keep checking the list and completing tasks.
Good point. Not a lot of people remembered that Microsoft acquired FrontPage from Vermeer in 1996 for millions. There's a pretty good old book about it "High St@kes, No Prisoners"
"Based on his review of the scientific literature, between 10 to 30% of regular users will develop dependency. Only about 9% will have a serious addiction"