Can’t seem to find this asked with a quick search of the forum. I would like an odometer but “stay below” (I want a “do less” goal, but with the functionality of odometer rather than a standard do less goal, including the resetting by entering “0”). I have a “smoking cessation” device which counts to 1000 then resets; basically, I want to Beemind that with the odometer.
Anyone have any straightforward ideas on how this might be possible? Is there an obvious solution I’m overlooking?
No; the number is going to keep increasing, but at a lesser and lesser rate. It could be done as a whittle down if I could have the slope of the whittle down goal going the “wrong” way, I suppose (in fact, such a whittle down goal might be useful in some other circumstances I can think of; like if you’ve got some sort of kobiashi maru inbox that, no matter what you’re gonna do, it’s going to get bigger, but you want to make a valiant effort, in any case).
You can definitely have a whittle-down goal with positive slope! The biggest difficulty, I think, will be in ensuring accurate data-entry, but as long as you can pull that off it should work correctly!
So I suppose then I would just have to do the math in any case? Then I guess it would be simpler to make it like almost every other goal I make: a “do more” goal where i get a point for success on any given day where I stay below the rate I propose for myself, and don’t get a point if I don’t. It seems every goal can be boiled down into this format, but then I lose the coolness of the novelty of different graph types and the intrigue of how they visually display what they are tracking!
Thank you though, your help was insightful. Do I literally put a negative symbol in when I make the whittle down goal, or is it a specific setting?
Yeah, I think you’d have to do the odometer-math yourself. You… might be able to do something sneaky with the API or with bulk export/import to shift all your data points by 1000 but it feels like that way lies madness.
I think you should be able to just put a negative symbol at goal creation, but if the new-goal wizard is too clever you can set whatever rate, then use graph.beeminder.com to adjust it properly. That’ll leave you subject to the akrasia horizon, note.
Every possible goal type exists, one way or another. Above or below the line being good (a.k.a. yaw), datapoints as totals or as increments (a.k.a. kyoom), line sloping upward or downward (a.k.a. dir).
The API docs have some of the gory details (and even more tongue-in-cheek namings, some now deprecated). At the bottom of the linked section is a handy table that tells you what each of the six pre-configured goal types defaults those (and many other!) variables do.
Woah did the custom goals help always say right at the beginning “an Odometer goal that makes you stay below the red line,” and I didn’t know and then I asked this question and looked like a knob!? (By the way, I just upgraded to the level that allows me to make custom goals, so I’ll try and figure it out.)
(By the way, I just upgraded to the level that allows me to make custom goals, so I’ll try and figure it out.)