Finding those new years resolutions to lose weight or maybe even just get out of bed on time hard to keep?

Well if the motivation of tools like 43things isn’t enough, how about using financial penalties as incentives to keep you on the straight and narrow?

This certainly seems to be the trend, as more and more initiatives help us to achieve our goals by enabling us to hit ourselves where it hurts - our wallets

Stickk is one very obvious such example: when a Yale economics professor tried to lose weight, he found that the threat of forking out over $1,000 to a friend every week that he didn’t drop one pound was enough to keep his weight loss on a continued downward trend - with the result that he lost 10 pounds without paying a cent. So he and his colleague created Stickk - offering the rest of us the facility to sign binding contracts committing to pay a set amount to charity if we fail to meet our own goals.

Which is pretty much the same logic behind the creation of the wi-fi-enabled SnuuznLuuz alarm clock, which donates money directly from your online bank account to a charity of your choice every time you hit the snooze button - with a running tally of your donations providing a daily reminder of your indolence.

Except that whereas the SnuuznLuuz just uses ’stick’ tactics to beat you into submission, you can use Stickk to create your own proverbial carrots as well: e.g. you can pre-purchase items through the Web site, but the transaction only goes through if the you accomplishes the nominated goal. Or even add group solidarity into the equation - whereby a group of friends can create a group contract in which each commits a certain amount of money to a pool; but the entire pot goes to only those friends who accomplish their goals.

It’s a lovely idea - but will we ultimately be prepared to put our money where our mouth is?