Beeminder on Tom Guernier's Blog

Kitbashing a QR Code Alarm in Android Tasker and val.town

Thu, 13 Aug 2026 04:56:24 +0000

Recently I built my own bespoke sleep tracking system using Beeminder and Tasker. At the time I wrote my first post on the system, it was working but it had a few awkward elements to it. For one thing, all the maths was done in Tasker’s extremely awkward XML-based scripting system, meaning that any modifications to the formula would involve either editing it on the phone itself¹. Also, the alarm app I was using started showing me ads. So, not my ideal system by any means.

My Beeminder Sleep Tracking System

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 19:40:16 +0000

Lately I’ve been having to get up earlier than I am used to (around 6:30am to 7am) for work reasons. I’m usually fine with getting up early, but the problem is I like sleeping in too much, so over the weekend I stay in bed a couple hours later (even past 10am sometimes) and completely mess up my sleep schedule for the oncoming week.

I could just set a flat wake up time that I stick to every day, but the thing with sleep ins is that I genuinely enjoy them, and so I don’t want to give them up completely¹. Luckily, I have a convenient system that can track any values I want into it and binds me (with real money!) to sticking to whatever goal I want to track. But then I need a way to reliably track the time I wake up. I could just enter in data points manually each time I wake up, but…

My Beeminder + Obsidian + Shell scripts setup

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 21:12:00 +0000

Disclaimer: The methods described in this post involves fiddly complicated scripting stuff that probably need some prior experience with shell commands and automation to understand. Also this setup has also only been tested on my Linux machine. You might be able to get this working on Windows using Windows Subsystem for Linux or else translating the shell commands to PowerShell, but no guarantees.

This post also won’t really make any sense if you don’t know how Beeminder works.

Cyborg Motivation

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 03:18:00 +0000

Recently I’ve been making my way through the reams of posts from Inkhaven, the daily blogging residency/challenge/convention that took place last month. Participating blogger Lucie Phillipon has written some good posts on the tools you can use to align your commitments to your goals, which given my recent Beeminder obsession I have been thinking about quite a bit.

One big question is: is it better to align your short-term actions and long term goals using external commitments and incentive systems or try to align yourself internally by shifting your thoughts? Or to put it differently, should you be a Cyborg or a Mentat? As you can probably predict as someone with a strict (but effective!) blogging commitment, I’m on largely on team Cyborg.

Furret Blog - Now weekly! (or I lose my pie money)

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 05:45:00 +0000

I’ve been very intrigued by the concept of Beeminder, a goal tracking service that keeps you committed to your goals by charging you actual money if you don’t stick to them. Which sounds like something no rational person would agree to (why stake your hard-earned cash on something you might not do when you can just keep it in your bank account?), but as they explain in one of their extremely detailed blog posts on the matter, you can exploit our predictable inconsistency on how we think about our preferences over time. Or in other words, I can move my intention to write a blog post Soon™ to a specific point (e.g. 12am this Saturday night), and have more riding on it than just the vague guilt of abandoning your goal to become a Cool Blogging Guy.