So, I’m new to all of this…
I programmed a challenge, to do 4 times a week a sport session, I’ve kept my rythem so far
But I’v been sick with a flue for three days now, how am I supposed to “pause” the challenge ? I went to the “pause” tab, there was “archive” option which is not what I’m looking for. Tried to schedule a “break” starting yesterday or today, didn’t work.
Is it “ethically” ok to check as “done” when you know the reason you didn’t do it is because your really couldn’t ?
Send a message to the support team! Either here: https://www.beeminder.com/contact or their email at support@beeminder.com. I’m sure they can help you out with setting a break since you’re sick.
Hope you get better soon!
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I second the suggestion to email support for the case you’re currently experiencing.
Once you’re better, I’d recommend thinking through how you want to handle this in the future and writing it into your fine print. I personally count “laying in bed sick” as meeting my day’s obligation for any health- or fitness-related goal - after all, the whole point of those goals is to be healthier, and caring for myself when I’m sick is part of that. But if you want to have accurate data about how many times you did X or how many miles you ran (or whatever), that might not be the solution for you. One thing you can be certain of is that eventually you’ll get sick, so write it into your fine print while you’re not in a situation where doing so will feel like weaseling.
Get well soon!
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Although adding a third vote to “contact support”, that’s a crap option in some ways - I know how much I pay Beeminder and it’s not enough to pay for human intervention every time I get sick. So, I think the full catalog of choices (some of which may be used jointly) is:
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Contact support.
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Take the hit.
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Fake your data, combined with modifying the fine print of your goal to allow for that when you’re incapacitated. If you want to preserve your record of what you did and didn’t do, there’s a comment field. Beware of this - while most will agree that too sick is a legit excuse for not sweating to the oldies, the course of faking data (or, to a lesser extent, having overly expansive fine print) has the potential to gut the effectiveness of Beeminder very quickly.
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If you want to be really pure, set your goals so that you will build a safety buffer and eat into your safety buffer when you’re sick.
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As soon as you feel sick, hit the pause button. If you’ve got any buffer at all, that may get you thru.
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Similar to 3 with the “fine print”, “do the best you can” counts as fulfilling any goal. So, if you’re goal is to go the gym for 30 minutes, and you’re dead sick, or out of town taking care of your sick Dad, or the gym is closed, maybe the best you can reasonably do is some push-ups, some planking, some squats and lunges, or going for a run instead, or if you’re too sick for that, stretching, or if you’re too sick for stretching, downloading a book on stretching and putting together a stretching routine for when you’re only half-sick. But, “nothing” almost never cuts it. The “best you reasonably can” standard is much better than letting yourself off the hook completely.
For myself, I think there ought to be three buttons for goals, did it, didn’t do it, legit excuse… but, that’s not the mentality Beeminder is built on - it is supposed to be hard to not do a goal and cry mercy.
Which, brings us back to “Contact Support”. They’re great.
3.a. Faking your data, or even entering it according to your “fine print” gets reasonably hard if you’re using a fitbit or similar - really the best bet in that case is to 1. Contact Support.
This time? Contact the support, they will give your road a flat spot. However, it’s a good wake-up call that situations like these will happen from time to time and you need good tools to handle them.
Faling the data might be not productive in the long run, because definition of “really couldn’t” slowly creeps from “I’m legit dying” to “I’m sick” to “I’m not feeling well” to “I don’t have energy” to “I don’t want to do it right now” or what have you.
You should draw the line very clearly and commit not to second-guess it until <insert goal re-evaluation date which you put down now and don’t second-guess it either>.
I’d also recommend splitting the goal into 2 levels. One - something extremely basic and simple that you will do every day you are physically capable of getting out of bed, even if you are hangover, on vacation and your leg is broken (not kidding here). Second level is your actual sport goal - which you can flunk out of if you have fever / doctor’s note saying to rest / if during the exercise you feel that finishing it is unsafe. Of course, your standardas may vary, but beware of standards creep and draw the line using markers as objective as you can.
You can afford to lose some flexibility here in exchange for a tool impervious to your tendency to slack off.
Splitting the goal into 2 levels makes sure that you are neither too harsh on yourself nor too soft. Also, basic part would become a habit, which is good because continuing a workout is usually easier than starting one. For the same reason I say drop the exercise if you feel it’s unsafe during the exercise, not before - person in running outfit that gets outside, runs a hundred meters or so and feels he shouldn’t go running today is way better evidence than the same person under the blanket feeling that he doesn’t feel like he should go running today. I trust the former one, but the latter one looks suspicious.
Of course, you can use more levels but that gets really complicated very fast.
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