Let me choose how much to put at risk (Less "trying", more committing)
It's currently free to start on a yellow brick road. If you go off you have to put $5 at risk to reset and try again. If you go off again then you have to put $10 at risk to try a third time. Then $30, then $90, etc.
Details at http://beeminder.com/money
But if you know from the start that 5 or 10 dollars isn't going to be very motivating, you should be able to jump straight to something that is.
This is one way in which stickK.com currently beats Beeminder: If you're gung ho to force yourself to shape up Right Now. This and the retroratchet idea -- http://beeminder.uservoice.com/forums/3011-general/suggestions/2289727-retroratchet- -- could fix that.
You can now commit anytime (i.e. without first losing) and jump up to a higher level on the fee schedule if you so choose. The fee schedule still sets the lower bound on how much you must commit if you drive off your road.
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Admindreeves (Cofounder, Beeminder) commented
@mimercha, to clarify, I was mostly agreeing but was suggesting that the monetary motivation and social pressure are orthogonal. But I think you're making an interesting point that they may not be. It's one thing to show your thesis advisor a graph of your progress and quite another to show them a graph that you have $100 at risk on. (For one thing the former is boring to watch and the latter is exciting!)
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Admindreeves (Cofounder, Beeminder) commented
@mimercha, well said. But also: just giving your thesis advisor the URL for your graph might be scarier than the risk of losing $100.
What I've found though is that that doesn't work nearly as well as you'd think for a couple reasons:
1. Your graph isn't going to hold anyone's interest for too long. They stop looking at it and you know they stop looking at it and it ends up losing a lot of its teeth.
2. There's a slippery slope problem: Even if your advisor's watching your graph, there's not so much shame in being just a *little* below your yellow brick road. But once you're ok with that then it's very hard to draw a line and keep from slipping right off the wagon.
I do think there's a lot of value in going public with your graph and it can't hurt, but it can't compare to a monetary commitment contract!
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mimercha commented
I like the idea of being able to set your commit earlier. Mainly, because it allows a user to start using BMinder by bringing in a level of commitment that might have been made externally to other people or to themselves.
Starting at 0 and by "trying" to improve, implies that the commitment is only starting at BMinder / isn't a big deal to restart and might have no significant history behind it. For example, my thesis advisor would be happy to have seen me commit $100 as a starting point (yes, I realize how scary that would be which is why it's an INCREDIBLE motivator ;D )
- Mike