Beeminder is an excellent tool for certain things. I'm only a personal user, not associated with the company. I would encourage anyone using it to participate in their forum at http://forum.beeminder.com. So for example, if you posted there explaining your difficulties, you'd get a lot of support and ideas on how to continue to use it. As you said, you "found it extremely effective". I don't know why you were having this problem, but there have been a lot of people who have been using Beeminder for a long time, and certainly many of them have ran into the same issues you were having, and they are more than willing to help.
But yes, the answer to your question, "is there a beeminder without the punishment?" Any "to do" app or system would be similar. And there are other habit trackers, of course. Beeminder is best for things that you really want to accomplish, but are resistant to do. It's certainly not for everyone, but it's a very important and integral part of self-hacking for some people.
Beeminder is an excellent tool for certain things. I'm only a personal user, not associated with the company. I would encourage anyone using it to participate in their forum at http://forum.beeminder.com. So for example, if you posted there explaining your difficulties, you'd get a lot of support and ideas on how to continue to use it. As you said, you "found it extremely effective". I don't know why you were having this problem, but there have been a lot of people who have been using Beeminder for a long time, and certainly many of them have ran into the same issues you were having, and they are more than willing to help.
But yes, the answer to your question, "is there a beeminder without the punishment?" Any "to do" app or system would be similar. And there are other habit trackers, of course. Beeminder is best for things that you really want to accomplish, but are resistant to do. It's certainly not for everyone, but it's a very important and integral part of self-hacking for some people.