Pledgehammer

Two great reviews of Pledgehammer

Pledgehammer was reviewed by Inventor Spot and Too Lazy To Do It. The former is a website about the latest inventions, innovations and interesting ideas from Obama twittering to a electrical talking bananas. And Too Lazy To Do It is not a procrastination site, but a project aimed at letting business ideas circulate, grow, and become a reality. They write:

Pledgehammer seems to be entirely founded on the honor system, i.e. their is nothing but personal honor requiring people to actually pay up for failing to reach their goal. It seems rather unlikely that someone who habitally breaks promises would choose to keep a pledge to website (and who, having failed to get financial freedom, is going to shell out 5,000 of money they apparently don’t have?). But it is a nice idea, and could catch on.

It is a valid point but we’re not too worried if everyone that fails a pledge doesn’t donate money to charity. We won’t come chasing anyone around. It’s only when absolutely no-one donates that it becomes a bit pointless for us as well as charities. We suppose time will tell.

Interviewed by Happiness Is Better

Happiness Is Better is a blog about personal finance, real estate investing, early retirement, and being happy. In these economically turbulent times it’s a good source for ideas, commentary and useful links. Dustin recently sent me a few questions about Pledgehammer and published the interview on the blog.

Birthday resolutions - a great idea

I stumbled upon this ‘birthday resolution” idea by Elise Blaha, or rather a to do list for the year. 

Not only is it a great idea but its execution is even better. The substance is having a to do list for a year with length equal to the corresponding age. (And it scales well. It’s shouldn’t be very hard to tick a hundred boxes in the year before your 101st birthday. right?) The form is a beautifully designed diary where every page is different.

We’re proud to have Elise’s pledge to do her best to accomplish her list on Pledgehammer and wish her all the best in that. 

Resolutions tips from Dr. Josh

I stumbled upon this blog post by Joshua C. Klapow, Associate Professor at the University of Alabama and author of Living Smart. It’s about New Year’s resolutions but I’m sure readers of blog agree you can make resolutions every day, not just on January first, slightly dizzy from the night before. With his kind permission here’s his post re-published.

A few more ways to make the resolutions stick in 2009

New Years Resolutions; frankly, for many  people they are a waste of time. Why? Because so many of us resolve to be different, do things differently, think, feel, and live differently and so many of us wind up making short lived changes that rarely pan out. The result? Resolutions that repeat themselves each year. Think about what a waste that is. You resolve to be different or live differently and you spend a year not achieving the goal. You end up at December 31st ready to “try again”.

As straight forward as the New Years resolution concept is, it’s implementation is what trips people up. Most of us don’t take the resolution seriously enough. We “say” we are going to do something- maybe lose weight, be more social, advance our career, etc.. and the reality is we have no game plan, we have no course of action and we believe that by committing to change, things will fall into place.. Well guess what- as we all have experienced, inspiration alone gets you no where.

Inspiration is the first step but many, many people fall off that cliff because they are only inspired and have nothing else. So this year before you make that resolution take a few minutes and put things in order…

Some simple points to consider:

1. What specifically do I want to achieve in 08? You have got to make it as detailed as possible– so exercising, losing weight, advancing the career won’t cut it. Going to the gym M,W,F at 6:30am, eating 5 servings of fruits and vegetables, contacting a head-hunter are all much more specific — being specific will give you a clearer picture of what you actually will need to do.
2.  Do a gut-check– do I really want to do this? Don’t kid yourself– if your heart isn’t in it it’s not going to happen– it’s better to be honest then to fail.
3. Don’t shoot for the stars- shoot for success. We all have a tendency to bite off more than we can chew… Not a good move… The more successful you are the more likely you are to keep at it. Make the resolutions reasonable. Have short and long term goals. Success will foster success so start small and let that success factor propel you to the next challenge.

None of us wants to waste a year and we all have goals and dreams… Take this year’s Resolution seriously and have a game plan and guess what? Next year won’t be a carbon copy of this one…

Some more of Dr. Josh’s resolutions tips on his blog and in this article in TimeOut Chicago. Or you can ask him anything yourself.

A picture is a thousand words

Now you can save your thousand words and add a picture to your profile. This here is mine, for example.

We also fixed several niceness issues and annoyances with this morning’s release. So Pledgehammer should be smoother to use than ever before. Enjoy!

Stairway to resolutions

If Pledgehammer had an office we’d probably have a similar stairway. 

Spotted on Sunset.

Tip: re-do your New Year’s resolution

Inspired by this article by wellness writer Marissa Kristal here’s our tip of the day. If you’ve broken your New Year’s resolutions already why don’t you do it again. Do it again, and this time for 30 days only. (I’ll soon blog more about why the 30-day period.)

Happy New Year!