# Is Total Buffer a better metric than Urgency Load?

**URL:** <https://forum.beeminder.com/t/is-total-buffer-a-better-metric-than-urgency-load/10935>\
**Category:** Bugabee\
**Created:** [April 24, 2023, 9:48pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/is-total-buffer-a-better-metric-than-urgency-load/10935 "2023-04-24T21:48:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![skorytnicki](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/skorytnicki/32/4204_2.png) [@skorytnicki](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/skorytnicki)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2023, 10:05am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/is-total-buffer-a-better-metric-than-urgency-load/10935/21 "2023-04-28T10:05:52Z")

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![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/beeminder/original/2X/b/b482bd40f73e7e4dc56099819f181800e08d874a.png)

Use BUI 🙂

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**Author:** ![enbee](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/enbee/32/4796_2.png) [@enbee](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/enbee)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2023, 10:10pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/is-total-buffer-a-better-metric-than-urgency-load/10935/22 "2023-07-20T22:10:20Z")

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> [@linux535](#):
>
> Though one aspect of urgency load I don’t like is that auto ratchet goals tend to make it go a lot higher. I feel like if you are at your max buffer than it should add zero. As you are not doing anything bad such as edge skating you simply have chosen to cap the buffer.

very late to reply here again, but seconding this very much!

* * *

> [@dreev](#):
>
> Now I’m wondering if we could show both Urgency Load and Total Buffer in the UI. And Total Buffer, when showing the denominator in parentheses, could account for autoratchets. Namely, your maximum possible Total Buffer is the sum of your autoratchet setting on each goal, or 7 if you don’t have an autoratchet.

i would love this! but why not make urgency load also account for autoratchets? `:)`

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> [@philip](#):
>
> > [@dreev](#):
> >
> > > [@enbee](#):
> > >
> > > anyway, where can i find my urgency load again?
> > 
> > It’s in the Statistics tab, under the Due By table:
> 
> 😹 I had no idea it was there. Always wondered what my urgency load was.
> 
> Not least because that’s a terrible place for it to live — all the other statistics on that tab are about the individual goal.

very late thank you to @dreev for the answer and 🤝 to what @philip said!

* * *

to add some original thoughts that came to my head after reading through this thread again:

for me, what _any_ metric like this (including the current urgency load) is missing, is a reference point. yes, with urgency load we can say we always strive to get 0 (disregarding autoratcheted goals for a moment), but an urgency load of e.g. 7 could mean a lot of _very different_ things:

- you have 1 goal and it’s a beemergency _today_ (immediate action required!)
- you have 7 goals with 6 days of buffer each (definitely no immediate action _required_)
- anything in between those two

so i guess i would prefer it to say 7/7 or 7/49, or something like that. and this is especially where taking autoratchets into account would be _lovely!_

how do people who regularly use urgency load as a useful metric for themselves deal with this? i guess after a while you get a feeling for what range of urgency load is doable for you?

personally, i love the goal dashboard view where it shows me the coloured frames. easily at one glance i see which goals are red, which are orange, which are blue, which are green; and i know of course which of the red and orange ones are purposefully that colour and thus maybe couldn’t be “promoted” to the next higher colour. then i can work my way through them from most to least urgent, until i don’t feel like it anymore. works like a charm so far! `:)`  
(of course this is not really beemind-able, but also i’ve never felt a strong urge to meta-beemind anything yet; probably don’t have enough goals for that yet `:p`)

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**Author:** ![linux535](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/linux535/32/4914_2.png) [@linux535](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/linux535)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2023, 2:52am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/is-total-buffer-a-better-metric-than-urgency-load/10935/23 "2023-07-21T02:52:17Z")

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> [@enbee](#):
>
> i would love this! but why not make urgency load also account for autoratchets? `:)`

That’s actually a good idea. Maybe it could make what the autorachet is set too count as 7. Though I could see some saying it makes urgency load less useful.

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**Author:** ![enbee](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/enbee/32/4796_2.png) [@enbee](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/enbee)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2023, 6:21am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/is-total-buffer-a-better-metric-than-urgency-load/10935/24 "2023-07-21T06:21:49Z")

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> [@linux535](#):
>
> Though I could see some saying it makes urgency load less useful.

easy workaround: having the option to choose and switch between the two however one prefers. `:)` (“easy” from the user-perspective; probably extra difficult to program.)

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**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2023, 10:38pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/is-total-buffer-a-better-metric-than-urgency-load/10935/25 "2023-07-21T22:38:55Z")

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Really good questions and ideas here. I’ve been trying an experimental feature to keep both Urgency Load and Total Buffer on my dashboard:

![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/beeminder/original/2X/2/2a97cbd2ef061fa9f4173ed09c1f2c2debf32023.png)

But alas, without actually beeminding it, I’ve just become banner-blind to it! 🧑‍🦯

So I still don’t know which, if either, I’d expect to be more useful.

I guess this means I need to try beeminding it! Ok, here I go:

![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/beeminder/original/2X/6/6a9d418fb7e8d6609628d0e7aba21a6d8b7e59c5.png)

As for whether Urgency Load and/or Total Buffer should account for autoratchets – also not obvious! (Reminder to ourselves that making it a setting because we don’t know which choice is better is a [classic red flag](https://blog.beeminder.com/choices "The Anti-Settings Principle").)

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**Author:** ![enbee](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/enbee/32/4796_2.png) [@enbee](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/enbee)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2023, 12:08am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/is-total-buffer-a-better-metric-than-urgency-load/10935/26 "2023-07-22T00:08:40Z")

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> [@dreev](#):
>
> As for whether Urgency Load and/or Total Buffer should account for autoratchets – also not obvious! (Reminder to ourselves that making it a setting because we don’t know which choice is better is a [classic red flag](https://blog.beeminder.com/choices).)

fascinating blog post! i guess i stand corrected about making it a setting.

so here’s my impassioned argument for absolutely making urgency load _and_ total buffer (if that becomes a thing) account for autoratchets:

- i definitely wouldn’t use them if they don’t account for autoratchets!
- it is much more motivating if _everyone_ is theoretically _able_ to achieve the “best” number.
- having the “best” number be the same for everyone makes it more useful as a tool for comparing yourself with other people. obviously the amount of goals plays a _huge_ part in this, having 60% total buffer with two goals is much less “impressive” than having 60% total buffer with 200 goals—they’re still easier to compare, though, if we know they both _could_ reach “100%”. otherwise you’d always have to say “i know 60% total buffer doesn’t sound like a lot, but i’m actually unable to get past 80% because of my autoratchets, so the number’s really much higher, actually”. (same would be true for urgency load, my brain’s just better at dealing with % right now.)
- if urgency load/total buffer _don’t_ account for autoratchets, and someone in the forum speaks proudly of their 98% buffer / 5 urgency load / whatever, i would feel annoyed and left out, because my own goal choices (which i like and have chosen in the spirit of beeminder, i’d like to think!) would prevent me from attaining that same achievement. ~~(satisfying numbers make brain go brr)~~
- speaking of achievements, there might be another “free goal” idea here: +1 free goal the first time you reach 0 urgency load / 100% buffer (having at least 2 active goals and having beeminded for at least a week, or something like that)—if this were a way to get +1 free goal, you’d _have_ to account for autoratchets, imo, because not doing so would be incredibly unfair to everyone who would otherwise qualify. (i realise that autoratcheting is currently still a premium feature, but iirc it’s on the near-ish roadmap to be rolled out for everyone; and even if it weren’t, people might like an additional free goal after their subscriptions run out, for example.)

i hope my rambling makes sense and isn’t too incoherent `:)`

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![skorytnicki](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/skorytnicki/32/4204_2.png) [@skorytnicki](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/skorytnicki)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2023, 9:57am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/is-total-buffer-a-better-metric-than-urgency-load/10935/27 "2023-07-22T09:57:16Z")

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Since my original post, I got accustomed to tracking total buffer as percentage. This is really good, because it measures my efforts against my time.

With my do more goals, I can’t create limitless amount of them. I have to track if I can fit them into my routine.

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**Author:** ![skorytnicki](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/skorytnicki/32/4204_2.png) [@skorytnicki](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/skorytnicki)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2023, 10:00am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/is-total-buffer-a-better-metric-than-urgency-load/10935/28 "2023-07-22T10:00:09Z")

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![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/beeminder/original/2X/e/ed1d4bb341969bd742b3798d29a9611e2663a8f1.jpeg)

You see urgency load and total buffer as %

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