I want to talk to a fixed number of new people every week and I want to Beemind it. I was pondering the following thing:
I want to talk to at least 9 new people a week, but it should be more. How can I structure my goal so that it rewards me for doing more than 9 a week?
I want my goal to be on a weekly basis - so I don’t have to talk to 1 new person each day (or 2), but rather I can do it on Friday/Saturday (days I go out) - how can I do this?
How can I pause my goal during Christmas time (when I’m traveling home)?
I’m not sure about your first request. I guess if you get ahead, you will just have a safety buffer built up. If you have premium, you can use autoratchet to trim that buffer or you could trim it manually and reward yourself in some other way for building up that buffer.
As to your second point, you can use the Beescheduler tool (https://beescheduler.echonolan.net/) to set different rates for different days of the week.
Last, just be sure to take a break on your goal at least a week out. Go to your goal page, and under the tab Stop/Pause, you can take a break on your goal. Just set the rate to 0 for the days desired. Make sure you do this at least a week ahead! (Hopefully this won’t mess up the Beescheduler settings. You’ll have to contact Beeminder Support with a question like that.)
Nine new people a week sounds like a HUGE number of people to me! Especially since real social connections take repeated contact to develop – if I had to meet that many new people a week I wouldn’t have time to talk to any of my existing friends, let alone develop acquaintances into new friends. If you just want to practice getting comfortable talking to people, maybe focusing on new people is a good idea, but even then I think I’d track “unique people conversed with.” Do you know how many new people you currently talk to? I suggest starting this goal flat for a little while, and then set a rate that is just a little higher than feels naturally comfortable (to stretch yourself). To address your actual question – in general, the reward for succeeding at your goal is success at your goal, and/or a bit of buffer saved up so you can take a break from the goal later.
The way Beeminder usually works, the whole goal is to turn a weekly/monthly/yearly/lifelong general goal into a concrete today amount. So I’d probably set this goal up to start with a week of flat spot (a sensible idea anyway, as per above) and on Friday and Saturday make sure that I “get ahead” on the goal and have enough buffer to last until the next Friday. It’s also possible, as @ssteiner describes, to set variable amounts due, but I think Beeminder works best when the road itself is simple.