I’m not being hyperbolic or otherwise using rhetorical flare. I entirely believe that there are certain practices that will eventually completely undermine Beeminder if I use them. (Ex-support-czar and repentant weasel Chelsea agreed.)
I agree that it there’s a risk in using Beeminder more rigidly than suits the in-world goal. In fact, that’s one of the main differences in the ways @dreev and I beemind, but I still think there need to be very clear lines as to where that flexibility is.
There’s a difference between
- not being able to foresee something that will unexpectedly come up,
- including unclear requirements in the satisfaction criteria of a goal, and
- having a goal that can be satisfied more than one way.
For one, the first is usually something external that imposes itself on me. I have a night of total insomnia, there’s a major protest nearby, someone is hospitalized, my apartment catches fire, I’m unwell, I’m fired from the job I’m beeminding hours for, a solar flare takes out the electric grid, whatever. Good fine print and the “Do you agree to put this into your fine print from now on” heuristic do the job here.
The second kind involves introducing ambiguity about when I’ve satisfied the goal. Ambiguity I now have to resolve on the spot each time I act… which is one of the things Beeminder solves. (As an aside, see Willpower Is for Losers.) I think this is an unhelpful kind of flexibility (and sometimes it’s something else masquerading as flexibility). I think this should be avoided or made explicit in the goal through 3.
If your in-world Goal really is “Work 8 hours OR until I feel like I’ve worked enough”, to use the OP’s example, then do the third and state that outright in the formulation of your goal. Make it a +1 that can be satisfied when you do one or the other of the options. Own that formulation of the goal, clearly, and see if that goal works. No ambiguity; no “Should I have derailed in the past that time that I let myself off the hook since I’m not sure if that’s really my Goal-goal?”, just clarity about what your goal actually is. Find out what the consequences of actually committing to that goal are. If it works, well great! If it doesn’t, time to change the plan and make a goal that does. But having a goal that’s committing to something but has all kinds of unstated, ambiguous, “maybe sometimes it’s fine; maybe just this once but I’m not sure…” criteria in the background is risky AF IMO. It’s also not a commitment.
Full disclosure, I absolutely have flexible goals that fall in 3, but I’m very clear about where that line is. For instance, I have had a goal to Stop eating by a certain time in the evening UNLESS there's a social event with food OR I'm not feeling well. But my goal isn’t to stop eating at a certain time of night… you know, most of the time… unless there are, like, reasons or something. That would leave me with way too much of the kind of flexibility I signed up to have Beeminder solve.