Stickk it for Parker

I’m struggling with a writing project.  It should be about 15,000 words, but I seem to have stalled out at 5300, and it’s making me unhappy.  I need me a kick in the pants, and I think I’ve figured out how to do it.  If I don’t reach 6100 words by the end of the day on Monday, I will lose $200.  That $200 will go to Parker.*

I love behavioral economics.

An interesting problem in behavioral economics is that even when people know what is best for them to do, they do not do it.  They know they should save money, lose weight, exercise more, procrastinate less, finish the damn paper, whatever, but in the moment, they do not make the decisions that are consistent with those goals.

Now, a key principle in economics is that people respond to incentives and disincentives.  If a penalty is high enough, you’ll do what it takes to avoid it.  The problem is, we rarely have adequately powerful incentives for personal goals.  We’re grown-ups now, and there is nobody to punish us by taking away our toys if we fail to meet some personal goal.  Until now…

At stickk.com, you can commit to meeting a goal by a certain date, declare how much money you will lose if you fail, and designate who will get the money.  They charge your credit card when you make the commitment and then on your deadline the money gets distributed either to you if you succeeded, or to the beneficiary if you failed.  You can have the money go to charity, in which case they’ll send it off to one of several non controversial charities.  You can have the money go to anti-charity, which is some cause that you despise, such as a pro-choice group if you are a pro-lifer, or the NRA if you are pro-gun control, the theory being that the thought of having your money go to such a hated group will give you further incentive to achieve your goal.  Or, you can designate an individual to receive it, like Parker.  Although psychologically, it would more effective for me to go the anti-charity route, I figure if I’m going to lose some money, it may as well go to Parker.  Also, this gives me a reason to be honest about my reporting, because if I’m dishonest, that would be like lying to Parker, and who can lie to such a cutie?  And if I achieve my goals and don’t lose any money to Parker, I’ll be so happy that I might just make a donation to his medical fund anyway by way of thanking him for egging me on.

So here’s a weird fundraiser.  Let’s stickk it for Parker.  Anybody willing to join me?  My user name at Stickk.com is simply "B", so come say hi.

*I made this bet on Friday afternoon and now Miss B has come down with an awful stomach flu, which means she can’t go to daycare tomorrow, which means it won’t be a productive work day, which means… gulp…

Comments

[amy flege]

wow. you are great offering that to parker. hope miss b is feeling better!!!!!

[Tammy and Parker]

Hope Miss B is feeling better. It is no fun having the flu.

And Parker agrees with Amy. You ARE great. :)

[Tammy and Parker]

You did good! congrats! :)

[Trisomymommy]

Yep, I met the goal. It's kind of humiliating that I would need such a service, but I'll admit that it really did motivate me. Now I'm plotting my next one, and I hope to up the challenge a bit. I was going to do it tonight, but I decided to wait a bit to see if I pick up of B's stomach bug, which was a really bad one.

[Jan]

congrats on the goal! Now to head to stickk.com, so I can stickkit 4 Parket too- my diet goals will be met, and if not, what better little boy to get my windfall??