Oh, thanks so much for pointing that out! I think that is the default because it’s how my YouTube goal works–I just keep forgetting that fact 
I can go ahead and create that email goal without fear!
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I’m still way behind on my newsletter reading, but the goal is helping. I just made the slope way too easy at first. It’s probably still too easy, but I ratcheted a couple of times and at least I don’t have a huge gap.
Of course, when I go back to work (this shutdown has to end eventually, right?), I don’t think it will be as easy to keep plugging away at the newsletters. So the goal will be more necessary then.
In other news, I came very close to derailing on my walk goal! I got my replacement Oura ring last Wednesday and put in a break on the goal right away. My old ring wasn’t picking up anywhere near all of my movement (apparently it was a battery issue) and I thought I’d be able to keep it on track once I had the new ring working, and then use the break to get back to the 7-day buffer I previously had, but I came down with a mild cold literally the day after I got the new ring. I am sure I could have declared any derail non-legit, since it’s unlikely I would have derailed if the ring was picking up all my movement, but I just really don’t like derailing. I was able to squeeze in just enough movement to keep the day from ending with me in the red, and now I’m in my break and I have a good buffer again. Whew!
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I ratcheted my newsletter goal again a few days ago, and then didn’t read any for a while, and now my goal is in the red and I have to read some! Success, as long as I do actually read a few newsletters today 
I just decided to ratchet my crafting goal (makestuff) as well. Between the furlough and a mystery knitalong I’m doing, I have been putting in a lot more crafting time than usual (though I’m still behind, having started clue 2 yesterday when clue 3 comes out today), so the buffer got huge.
Both of my books goals were on breaks for a couple of weeks, because I finished my library books and both my current ebook and current paper book are ones I preordered, so I don’t have a deadline. But this morning my hold on my next book club read finally came in, so I restarted my ebooks goal. I think I did something wrong in the restart process because the slope looks really shallow and it says I have infinity buffer… OK, I see the issue, I told it my current point is 0 and my goal is 100 but it thinks my current point is the same as it was before the restart, because it’s an odometer goal. But when restarting I can’t see what the old number was. I can now, though in statistics. Now I’ve fixed it and the goal looks wonky again, but wonky in the correct way! 
This does make me think that it will be easier to always have those goals active. I can just set arbitrary goal dates when I don’t have a library or book club due date.
Oh, I also made a separate reading goal for one of my favorite spooky books, which I wanted to reread in October and take my time with, ending on Halloween. The goal worked great for that!
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Been a while!
I have a few new goals for 2026. januarydesserts is my New Month’s Resolution for January, limiting the number of desserts I eat, to keep me from mindlessly chomping on chocolate all the time. TBR is my New Year’s Resolution, to whittle down the number of owned but unread books on my shelves, and TBR-meta makes sure I regularly update the data for that goal. More on both in their respective threads.
I had minor surgery last month, and put in breaks for several of my goals. I’m still recovering, but when I feel like I can walk a normal amount again, if I haven’t already lost the buffer the break gave me, I’ll ratchet my walk goal to 7 days. I actually read a ton of newsletters while I was recovering, so that goal now has a massive buffer, and I changed the slope so the buffer will go away, with the aim of maintaining it at 10 eventually. I’m still not back to work full time, so I’ll see in a few weeks whether that’s a good number or not.
I’ve also been reading a lot while recovering, and using my books and ebooks goals to keep me on track. I also noticed that I feel really satisfied when I get 100 pages read in a day (I check Storygraph daily to add that info to Exist.io), so I set my Storygraph goal to that rate and ratcheted to 7 days; it’s going strong.
I did a big year-end wrap-up of accounts on 12/31 and now my YNAB goal has extra buffer (I checked things like my 401k that don’t need to be reconciled frequently). I ought to ratchet that, oughtn’t I? Sigh. I’ll do it.
A couple days ago I was feeling quite comfortable with the number of goals on my list and now the list looks rather overwhelming since I added the new month’s and new year’s goal. I’m considering archiving the Storygraph goal, since it isn’t really pushing me; I get basically the same information on Storygraph itself now that I’ve set a goal of 36,500 pages for the year. But it makes me sad to think of archiving that goal! I’ll give it a few days and see if the length of the list settles in my brain.
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Trying to get back on the wagon of journaling when my calendial reminder comes due…
I think the goal that’s really making my list long and irking me is the meta goal for updating my TBR goal. I tend to keep lots of buffer on most of my goals, so it inevitably ends up at the top and since I can’t affect it directly, it feels in the way. Hmm, that just made me realize that perhaps what I want to do is change the order in which goals are displayed on the iOS app. I’ll try the other options for a few days.
I feel like I’m up for walking again, so I ratcheted my walk goal back to my sweet spot of 7 days.
I’d had my YouTube goal on a flat spot for a while, feeling like I couldn’t feasibly get the list lower than 40, but I’ve finished all the interesting backlist of some of the channels I was trying to do that with and have been able to keep it lower, so I’ve set it to decrease again—this time a shallower slope, one video every two weeks (well, to be precise, half a video a week) rather than one every week.
Having my goals in name order seems to be working pretty well. I miss having which goal is most urgent being super obvious, but I don’t often use that to decide how to spend my time anyway. Also, this way my manual reading goals are at the top, and my YouTube goal is at the bottom, so they’re both easy to find and update.
I started a book from my shelves so my tbr goal has plenty of buffer! I was pleased to see how instantly the tbr-meta goal updated, too. Very smooth.
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Ha! Did I say I don’t often use goal urgency as a way to decide how to spend my time? I’ve been using it that way a lot in the last couple weeks! I meant to update last week but didn’t because I was reading flat-out to keep up with my ebooks goal. The drawback to setting the rate based on percentage (as opposed to page number, which is how I do my books goal, though technically either would work for both goals) is that when a book is really long and you get behind, suddenly it’s really hard to catch up. I was reading flat-out to keep up with my goal on Assassin’s Quest. Hopefully I’ll keep this in mind next time I have a Robin Hobb book to read, or any other long book…
I expect to finish Quest today and the next book is much shorter and an easier read, so I should have more breathing room soon. Thankfully, the really high slope (I think it was something like 17% a day for a few days) didn’t last long.
My crafting goal (makestuff) has also been on the edge recently–indeed, both goals are in the red right now. It didn’t help that I missed my usual weekly craft night due to the wildly unusual ice storm in my area. But the ice storm has also given me a little more time to work on my crafts, thankfully, since I’ve been teleworking more than usual.
I also managed to let my YNAB goal get into the red, but I did a good (and thankfully not too difficult, thanks past self for ratcheting) set of reconciliations and now it’s comfortable.
I had some struggle with my newsletters goal–I had it set to end on 1/31 at 10, which wasn’t really what I wanted, since I wanted it to continue indefinitely set at a flat 10. I ended up using the graph editor and now it’s doing what I want! I ought to use the graph editor more, but on my limited personal laptop time there usually seems to be something more urgent. Like watching a Skillshare class so I can meet my makestuff goal…
anyway, I’d better go do my PT so I can work on my English paper piecing and do some reading!
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It’s been a weird week. The heat is out at my house. There is still a lot of snow and ice outside (unusual for this area since usually it warms up after a snow and most if not all of it melts—thanks, climate change). I also haven’t been able to go to work, since my contract funding hasn’t come through for the new contract year, which started 2/1 (thanks, Trump administration).
My write goal (February new month’s resolution) has therefore been going better than expected—actually, I realize that I’ve done it 4 times this week and my goal is 3 times a week, so I’m not that far ahead, but I ratcheted anyway. I guess I haven’t felt any pressure from the goal because I have no urgency to be anywhere else in the morning, so it’s hard to say how well the goal is working. Hopefully I get to find out next week!
I have been using Beeminder to help me decide what to do with my free time—read a paper book, read an ebook, or craft. I’m well ahead on all three goals now, which is great. I’m more optimistic about continuing to read my owned books and also reading all the… uh, six… paper books I have out from the library before they’re due.
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I’ve been out of touch with this forum because I’ve had less screen time—both because I’ve been busy and because I had a screen time limiting goal for March! I have a couple of highlights:
- derailed on makestuff a couple weeks ago. I guess I’ve been missing some weekly craft nights for whatever reason and I didn’t manage to squeeze in the few minutes a day I need to keep up.
- My walking goal had an 8-day buffer for a while and I was skeptical at first, even ratcheted, but I got back to 8 days! So that’s my signal to increase the goal, which I have, 100 more steps a day. I ratcheted to 6 when I increased the goal and I’m back to 7 and holding steady.
- I realized that I can use the graph editor to add a long flat spot at the ends of my books and ebooks goals so they don’t get close to “ending” before I’ve finished the current book. I don’t always remember to do that, but I can!
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