[This post has now been subsumed by the following: blog.beeminder.com/akrasia. Also, the service described below, then known as Kibotzer, is now a real startup called Beeminder, announced here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/7z1/antiakrasia_tool_like_stickkcom_for_data_nerds/]

If you are a pathological procrastinator you're pretty screwed when it comes to weight loss. You have this monumental goal like "lose 20 pounds" but there's no "last minute" that you can put it off until.

I and my partner have thought a lot about akrasia (ie, failure to do what we think we should be doing) and have a tool that tries to apply some anti-akrasia principles. It's called Kibotzer (for "kibitzing robot") and is currently in private beta.

This is not necessarily the best way to use Kibotzer but if you're a pathological procrastinator and want to just embrace that flaw, Kibotzer can help: (It's more general than weight-loss but that makes for a nice example.)

1. Pick your goal weight and goal date.

2. Kibotzer creates your "Yellow Brick Road."

kibotzer example graph

3. Place a bet with us that you'll stay on your Road.

(if you go off your Road for even a single day, you lose.)

4. Procrastinate like hell until you're about to lose the bet.

The change in focus from "weigh 20 pounds less next year" to "be on the yellow brick road tomorrow morning" makes all the difference. If you're in the wrong "lane" of your Road today then it's crunch time. You have to be on your road tomorrow morning. Pull an all-nighter on the treadmill if that's what it takes.

In one sense that mentality's crazy. Whatever you do in any single 24 hour period makes essentially no difference to your weight next year. But that's the kind of thinking that let you drift away from your ideal weight in the first place. The whole secret of Kibotzer is to automatically break down your long-term goal into day-to-day guidance. And then, critically, add a wager to force you to stick to it.

Kibotzer's tagline is "Bring Long-Term Consequences Near!" (Note that this differs from Stickk.com which adds consequences but can't bring them quite so near!)

We're interested to get the opinions of folks on LessWrong and perhaps some of you would like to be guinea pigs...

I'll put the rest of the details in the form of an FAQ. Basically, we want to make sure we never cheat anyone out of money so w...

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