I have set a goal for doing 5 hours of work on a project per week. So my metric is 5 hrs.
But when set, Beeminder is showing that I have to enter data in one day and 9 hrs.
I would like to be able to do several hours at a time some days, often at the end of the week, as long as it adds up to 5 hrs per week.
How do I do that so I don’t get penalized?
Thanks!
You should have some buffer of a few days so that you’re not “forced” to work on the goal now instead of your planned later in the week. if it is a new goal, you can recreate it and make the choice to start with a week of buffer. If it’s not a new goal you can schedule a break (see the “stop/pause” tab).
After that is set, you should aim to always have 6-7 day of buffer instead of waiting to end up close to the line.
Thanks, that’s helpful!
Really appreciate you asking about this as it’s an extremely common point of confusion and it’s really important for us to figure out some way to make it more intuitive to newbees (ideas welcome)!
Here’s an old blog post we wrote about it, in case it’s helpful or generates ideas for how to make it clear in the UI itself without reading blog posts or forum posts…
Here’s one possible idea. If you select the kind of measurement as hours per day/week/month, (with a drop down) then the system will automatically calculate when your total hrs for that period are due to be complete.
So if I set a goal for doing something for 5 hrs in a week, then Beeminder will let me know I have 7 days to put in those 5 hrs.
This is more intuitive than having to set up a buffer of 7 days.
I’m sure explaining it is a lot harder than programming it!
Cheers, Robert
Please note that the day/week/month is not changing the fact that Beeminder checks every day if you are on track. If you make a goal for 15 hours a month, Beeminder will figure out how many hours per day that is (about half an hour), and will make sure that on day one, you have done 0.5 hours, and on day two, you have done 1 hour. It does not let you wait until the last day and then let you put in 15 hours.
If you want the ability to take a few days off, but “make it there on average” you need to start with, or build up, some safety buffer.
Great point, Adam.
Ultimately I’ve found that with a little ingenuity, you can make Beeminder work for you!
Cheers, Robert
Oh, I see. Your response was a suggestion. I definitely misread it.
I think this is one of the most common snags for people when setting up goals. “I said 1 per week, why do i need to make progress TODAY ALREADY!?!” Then they derail, and they think the whole site is flaky or even worse, a scam. 
Perhaps there should be some warning on the new goal page, like “you add no buffer, so you commit to X by tomorrow” or have the ability for the first week to adjust the buffer without having to cancel the goal and recreate it.