[HN Gopher] Show HN: WorkOrPay - Set goals, form contracts, pay ...
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Show HN: WorkOrPay - Set goals, form contracts, pay a penalty if
you fail
Author : khromem
Score : 64 points
Date : 2022-04-24 14:28 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.workorpay.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.workorpay.com)
| constantinum wrote:
| How is this different from Beeminder -- afaik popularised
| "commitment contract". I'm an active user of Beeminder; have 4
| active commitments. More than feature to feature comparison,
| Beeminder has an amazing blog, and an ever supportive community
| to lean on to.
|
| [links] https://www.beeminder.com/home
| https://blog.beeminder.com/ https://forum.beeminder.com/
| khromem wrote:
| Beeminder is great. However, it's all automated and you cannot
| set huge penalties for single goals. Also, It's limited to
| things that can be verified from fitness trackers and other
| apps thats many people do not use.
|
| WorkOrPay tries to add more human interactions. We text users
| daily to make sure they aren't starting slack off. We help them
| form reasonable goals. Do verifications manually, so the goals
| can really be anything.
|
| We are a mix between beeminder and a life coach.
| adamzerner wrote:
| > However, it's all automated... Also, It's limited to things
| that can be verified from fitness trackers and other apps
| thats many people do not use.
|
| That isn't true. You can track progress on a goal manually,
| as well as automatically. For example, I used to use
| Beeminder to track how many push ups I did.
| khromem wrote:
| True, but if you add manually then there is no verification
| neya wrote:
| >We are a mix between beeminder and a life coach
|
| This sounds like a great product idea. Screw automated follow
| ups. I have tried it abs it doesn't work. I would prefer a
| personal touch anyday!
| nocobot wrote:
| this reminds me of beeminder.com
|
| I like the idea of adding financial incentive to stick to habits
| etc, but i would be uncomfortable with having to deposit money,
| why not just take a CC and charge it if I break the contract?
|
| also: what prevents me from just lying about whether I did the
| thing I promised to do?
| khromem wrote:
| From what I have seen, depositing before making the commitment
| makes you much more likely to succeed. Seeing the money leave
| your account creates a lot of psychological pressure that
| otherwise doesn't exist.
|
| The verification system is not fool proof. If you put some
| effort into forging proof you will succeed. However, I do not
| believe most people who willingly sign up for this would do
| that.
| geranim0 wrote:
| A lot of us know what's good for us... doesn't mean it's always
| easy to do. This is just another way of making it a little
| easier to actually do what you know is good for you.
| adamzerner wrote:
| There's also https://www.beeminder.com and their competitors
| (https://blog.beeminder.com/competitors/).
| stansm wrote:
| I've recently got a loan (~35k) with the idea of using that money
| for marketing once I'll be done with development. It kind of
| works the same way - I'll either launch the product and pay it
| off early (paying just 3% of the amount in this case) or keep
| paying 9% interest rate for 6 years. An important difference is
| that this money can actually work for me, when I'll launch the
| product which provides positive motivation for me.
| BeetleB wrote:
| $20/mo is expensive. Beeminder charges $8/mo (and they stop
| charging if you stop using it).
| khromem wrote:
| Beeminder is largely automated.
|
| We try to offer much more human support. Such as daily texts
| and manual verification of goals instead of just pulling data
| from an API.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > We try to offer much more human support. Such as daily
| texts and manual verification of goals instead of just
| pulling data from an API.
|
| If people value this at $12/mo, that's great. It has no use
| for me, and will likely detract many from joining. When
| Beeminder raised their rates from $4/mo to $8/mo, they put in
| all kinds of mitigations for the customer:
|
| 1. Not charged if you don't have any active goals.
|
| 2. If you fall off track and have to pay an amount, they
| deduct that from the monthly cost.
|
| The key is to make it easy for people to sign up.
|
| Also, anecdotally, the majority of people will fail the first
| time round. My first stint with Beeminder was mostly a
| failure and I stopped using it for a few years. Then I came
| back to it with the lessons learned and use it much better
| now. If it cost me $20/mo, I'd probably never have returned
| to it.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| The bottom line are the results.
|
| I bet many people failed trying services like beeminder.
| The stakes are high. If it works, the upside is huge. If If
| doesn't, just a couple dozen dollars lost. Experimenting is
| a no brainer.
|
| If it works, 12 or 20 dollars/mo is ridiculously cheap.
|
| I'd pay $200/mo if it works and helps me achieve more in
| less time. Many would be able to recoup this investment in
| one or two productive days...
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I'd pay $200/mo if it works and helps me achieve more
| in less time.
|
| Think of fitness programs. Many would pay $200 per month
| for one that works. But are they willing to pay that much
| for each one they try till they find the one that works?
| The data is clear that they don't.
|
| There is little innovation in this particular offering.
| Why go with this service vs other ones?
| mrlonglong wrote:
| But shouldn't we be paid for our time?
| nemo1618 wrote:
| For all the people asking how this differs from Beeminder: my
| first reaction was "finally, a version of Beeminder that lets me
| pay $1000!"
|
| Beeminder is obviously amazing, but it really "loses its sting"
| when you can't set a penalty higher than $25 (give or take -- I
| don't know what the current limit is).
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Beeminder is obviously amazing, but it really "loses its
| sting" when you can't set a penalty higher than $25 (give or
| take -- I don't know what the current limit is).
|
| Beeminder's model is a bit different, in that the payment
| amount keeps going up if you keep falling off track. The
| current upper amount you can pay is $7290 (as in once you hit
| $7290, it will keep charging you that amount).
| khromem wrote:
| Exactly! I have used beeminder and stickk. But there were a few
| things that bugged me about them.
|
| 1) Theres no option to have a referee that isn't friends or
| family
|
| 2) Its automated, and no human actually checks up to see if you
| are staying on track.
|
| 3) You can't really set huge stakes
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Theres no option to have a referee that isn't friends or
| family
|
| Has stickk changed? When it was new you could set anyone to
| be your referee.
|
| > Its automated, and no human actually checks up to see if
| you are staying on track.
|
| With stickk, isn't the human referee the one who checks up on
| your progress?
| mizzao wrote:
| How's this different from https://www.beeminder.com/ which has
| been around for 10+ years?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| freddymilkovich wrote:
| Chargeback horrorshow.
| reggieband wrote:
| I recall a Twilight Zone movie "Cat's Eye" and a sketch from that
| including James Woods called "Dying For a Smoke". The premise is
| a man wants to quit smoking so he goes to a firm called Quitters
| Inc. where he signs a contract. If they catch him smoking they
| will escalate the punishments against him. After a few relatively
| tame punishments for sneaking a cigarette, he gets caught smoking
| again and so they kidnap his wife and daughter. They force him to
| watch as the company tortures his family and then they insinuate
| even worse fates for his family if they catch him smoking again.
|
| The sketch from the mentioned movie is a dark satire. It lampoons
| the kind of pseudo-logical thinking which simplifies problems by
| externalizing responsibility for our actions to external
| entities. Yet it is only when that external entity reflects the
| consequences of our action back on us that there is a chance we
| alter our behavior. However, once externalized we lose control of
| the process and in some sense become a slave to it.
|
| I feel that dystopian sketch is a satire directly aimed at this
| kind of application.
| [deleted]
| mpalmer wrote:
| Originally a short story by Stephen King:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quitters,_Inc.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| The anti-charity model seems like it could be truly, truly
| motivating.
| logicallee wrote:
| Microeconomic analysis:
|
| - Suppose you have a project worth $10,000 to you in some
| intangible form if successful, with a 20% chance of success. You
| use a penalty site to pay $2,000 if you make no progress. You set
| this high enough to put some non-productive entertainment out of
| your budget. Your hope is that when evaluating what you want to
| do, entertainment goes from being "$20" to "$20 plus $2,000
| penalty". In your thinking, this promotes work on the project!
| You will not actually have to pay the penalty, since you intend
| to work on the project. You hope to influence yourself to
| increase your happiness by an intangible $2,000 (expected value
| of $10k * 20%) for free, by manually pricing entertainment out of
| your budget.
|
| - What happens if another project is worth $500 billion to you in
| some intangible non-monetary form, for sure? You definitely need
| to do that now. You are out the $2,000 if you don't also do
| something toward the first project, though. Thus, the penalty
| which had been intended to keep you from goofing off becomes an
| extra burden also on something worth an intangible $500 billion
| to your happiness. The "here's your incentive to be happy and
| productive" becomes: "here's your penalty for being hyper happy
| and productive" (on a new, temporarily very valuable project.)
| Clearly a misalignment of incentives: an unintended consequence.
|
| - Note that if you are independently rich this contract could
| still help you make some progress! Suppose you committed to pay
| $2,000 as a penalty for stopping work, but stopped work since you
| have something guaranteed to give you $500b in intangible
| happiness. Now it is strictly better to hire someone such as an
| intern or assistant and pay them anything less than $2,000 as
| long as this counts as progress and avoids tripping the penalty.
| i.e. a loss of $1900 paid to an assistant (counting as some
| marginal progress) is strictly better than a penalty of $2000
| (and zero progress).
|
| - Could this explain why rich people hire personal assistants and
| project managers? It is an automatic penalty: once the assistant
| / project manager is on staff their salary goes out the window.
| You might as well use them to do what you, as a rich person who
| can hire personal assistants and project managers, want to get
| done.
|
| Is their behavior of hiring assistants and project managers why
| rich people get so much done?
|
| If so, the moral of the story may be to set aside $2000 to be
| handed over to project managers you deploy strategically on any
| project you want done.
|
| If it works for wealthy people, it could work for you - if you
| pay the cash for it. While disincentives could be nice, as the
| saying goes, you have to spend money to make money.
| khromem wrote:
| For my whole life, I have been dealing with bursts of motivation
| where I am extremely productive for several days, followed by
| weeks-long slumps. This yo-yo behavior does not let a person
| develop their skills or build anything substantial.
|
| According to my observations, people usually start working
| towards a goal following a temporary spike in motivation. It
| lasts a few days at most. Usually, it is not enough for people to
| move past the hurdle that is the first 2 weeks. In the first 2
| weeks of starting anything new, you are garbage at everything.
| It's hard work, and not very rewarding because you are constantly
| getting things wrong and not being able to get in flow.
|
| However, after 2 weeks so, People start appreciating the task.
| They finally see hints of progression in their abilities. Are
| able to work for longer stretches at a time before running into
| something frustrating. This allows them to get into flow.
| Together this starts to produce consistent internal motivation
| that allows the person to actually stick with the new habit long
| term. But 99% of the time people give up before getting here.
|
| To address this issue, I created WorkOrPay
|
| WorkOrPay: Set goals. Form contracts. Pay the penalty if you
| fail.
|
| We let you form contracts in which you agree to reach a goal
| before a deadline. You then deposit some money. If you fail to
| accomplish your goal before the deadline, your deposit is lost
| and donated to a charity of your choice.
|
| Basically, we provide you with external motivation (by holding
| your deposit hostage), so you get stuff done even when you don't
| feel like it. In addition, we text you daily to keep tabs and
| make sure you stay on track.
|
| WorkOrPay's mission is to bridge the gap in motivation from the
| initial spike and the more consistent motivation that appears a
| while later. The idea is that if you make a contract for the
| frustrating 2 weeks where you want to quit. The pressure of
| potentially losing your deposit will provide enough external
| motivation for you to continue until you reach the promised land
| of consistent internal motivation.
|
| I hope others who have the same problem I had, can use this
| service to break out of the loop. Without wasting years of their
| life.
|
| Promo Code for HN members: hackernews
| steve76 wrote:
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| > Is this for me? / Who is this for?
|
| Half joking, but you could have simplified these entire
| sections to "you have ADHD".
|
| Speaking as someone who is diagnosed with it, you more or less
| described the dopamine ride of a person with ADHD.
|
| The "deadlines give you superpowers" bit definitely reminded me
| of this video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CcHQDI8NYzF/
| laurencei wrote:
| Can I ask a bit more about your experience with this? My son
| has ADHD, and I'm rapidly realising that many aspects of my
| life correlate with the symptoms, especially in adults.
|
| But then I get worried I'm trying to make my square peg/round
| hole fit the the diagnose.
|
| Are you medicated or having any other treatment? Did it have
| any meaningful impact/change to your adult life?
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| Where are you incorporated? Are you a non-profit? How do you
| make money?
| khromem wrote:
| We are a New York LLC. We're not incorporated at the moment.
|
| We make money through a subscription model. We do not make
| anything from the contracts because it seemed wrong to profit
| from our users failing. We want our incentives to be aligned
| correctly!
| trhr wrote:
| Since you're allowing people to donate to charities or
| "anti-charities," you should just allow the user to specify
| a % fee that goes to you. If I set up a $1,000 contract to
| go to some Nazi org if I fail, I'd much rather $1 go to the
| Nazi org and $999 to you.
| zarmin wrote:
| Sounds like you'd be more motivated to hit that goal with
| the payment distribution as is.
| klyrs wrote:
| > We do not make anything from the contracts because it
| seemed wrong to profit from our users failing.
|
| This is how naive good-meaning founders start evil
| parasitic businesses that don't realize their true
| potential until the buyout...
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _We do not make anything from the contracts because it
| seemed wrong to profit from our users failing. We want our
| incentives to be aligned correctly!_
|
| I assumed that the monthly fee was on top of a percentage
| fee on lost bets, which other platforms charge. You should
| make this more prominent on the site -- aligned incentives
| are great!
| khromem wrote:
| Good point. Just updated the site to make that clear.
| Thanks!
| johnthewise wrote:
| I strongly believe external motivation kills the inner
| motivation. Maybe that is the goal here, by killing it completely
| so you can't ever think of depending on it(?). For me personally,
| I always found these kind of tools that helps trick one's self
| into doing or not doing things, very soul crushing. It's almost
| like trying to beat yourself into submission, disowning the part
| of yourself. If you can't make yourself to do something, maybe
| you shouldn't do it?
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| I think this is for when your inner motivation is already
| waning. You obviously don't need to do this if you're already
| super motivated.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| the_only_law wrote:
| > If you can't make yourself to do something, maybe you
| shouldn't do it?
|
| That attitude probably works if it's some sort of leisure
| activity, but someone who struggles to do routine, necessary
| tasks might not want to just give up on them.
| johnthewise wrote:
| I totally understand, I can't still make the bed or do
| procrastinate with many things. Would it be better if I
| somehow tricked myself into doing them by delegating the
| decision making process into a third-party? If this worked,
| maybe. But these tools never work on me as I feel I'm being
| tricked and get stressed/annoyed even more. I understand
| everyone is different, but if anyone out there is like me,
| I'd suggest trying to make your peace with yourself and with
| all the cool projects you abandon. or get stressed enough
| that maybe you can change yourself :) If you're depressed,
| get help!
| ravishi wrote:
| You may have inner motivation. Some don't.
|
| I've been down this rabbit role trying to find my inner
| motivation for half a decade already. I've tried everything,
| from recreational to prescription drugs, routine, exercise,
| nutrition changes, therapy, even became a parent. Nothing works
| consistently.
|
| So when I find myself unable to be motivated, I just stack
| techniques as much as I can. I have a whole toolbox of
| maneuvers and mechanisms to achieve whatever I have to without
| any inner motivation.
|
| It's the best way of coping with life I've found up until this
| point.
| newsclues wrote:
| Not everyone has the same level of motivation.
|
| Maybe highly internally motivated people won't understand this,
| but others will benefit?
| khromem wrote:
| The role of this is to bridge the gaps between the spikes of
| internal motivation.
|
| A lot of times people start working on something new and for
| the first few days they have enough motivation to stick with
| it. But when that disappears a lot of people just quit. They
| don't stick with the new activity long enough for the next
| surge of internal motivation.
|
| We believe this service can help people grind it out for a week
| or two until they get a surge of internal motivation and no
| longer need us.
| vasco wrote:
| Why would you grind out something you found you don't want to
| do? Or on another note, if something really should get done,
| I think their argument is that this sort of crutch makes you
| lose the muscle of "just do it and get on with it".
| imtringued wrote:
| I have to do X. I don't want to do X but I must finish X.
| Instead of procrastinating and wasting my entire day on
| avoiding X, it would be more productive to do X and then do
| the things I am actually interested in.
| MaulingMonkey wrote:
| > I think their argument is that this sort of crutch makes
| you lose the muscle of "just do it and get on with it".
|
| I don't have that muscle when it comes to "internal
| motivation", and decades of floundering have not
| particularly succeeded in developing it.
|
| The right external motivation - for me, most typically,
| something along the lines of not wanting to let down the
| people who are depending upon me in a reasonable manner -
| means I can absolutely _slay it_ when it comes to getting
| things done in a 9-5 work environment, and rather than
| being soul crushing, it 's a relief that I can contribute
| value. I might grumble a bit at the start of my mornings,
| but getting into the grove of work quickly distracts me
| from said grumbling. johnthewise's experience is far from
| universal.
|
| Precommitment in the form of money laden goalposts and
| checkpoints alone aren't super effective for me, but they
| do accomplish something.
|
| > Why would you grind out something you found you don't
| want to do
|
| Because it will be valuable enough to have it done, to be
| worth it in the long run. My natural internal motivation is
| terribly shortsighted - to the point that I'll
| procrastinate on getting myself food when I'm only a little
| hungry, because cooking, walking, driving, or even ordering
| sounds like a bother and a chore. Does spending an extra
| hour or three hungry improve my day overall? It does not.
|
| It's 10AM, I've skipped breakfast, and I'm rather hungry
| for lunch. My natural instinct is to spend another few
| hours doomscrolling reddit or HN or otherwise making not
| particularly good use of my time, even when it comes to the
| explicit goal of leisure or relaxation. But, instead, I'm
| going to hunt down some socks, shoes, keys, wallet,
| sunglasses, mask, jacket, and go out into the beautiful
| sunny day that I've been hiding away from, and go grab some
| delicious food I've been looking forward to all week, and
| improve my day in the process.
|
| And I will grumble slightly along the way, because among
| other injustices, I will have to "get up".
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| It seems to me like you are describing inspiration and not
| motivation, when discussing internal motivation.
|
| Motivation is the why of what you are doing, inspiration is
| the Eye of the Tiger montage when you are doing something
| that seems to go well.
|
| Your motivation for brushing your teeth may for example be to
| avoid a trip to the dentist.
| hawthornio wrote:
| I'm only interested motivation schemes where I can [pose as the
| meat in a human hotdog](https://streamable.com/z8i60)
| j_autumn wrote:
| Reminds me of gofuckingdoit.com from Pieter levels.
| carlgreene wrote:
| This desperately needs a free tier, or at the very least a
| several month trial
| mr90210 wrote:
| Great advice.
| kderbyma wrote:
| who are these people? why not pay for a personal coach? this
| seems like Band-Aid.....
| ge96 wrote:
| haha I tried this on my own before, donating to a food shelter
| every time I binged, it got expensive.
| khromem wrote:
| I actually used to make my friends promise to give away my
| money if I failed to do whatever. But it never really worked
| that great because I would always make some plausible excuse
| and my friends would let it slide and eventually just give my
| money back.
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