Derailments:
-
/thelastremnant - I wasn’t feeling it, so I let it derail. I put in a few extra days off, too.
New goals:
-
/intensityminutes - This is now set up, with an initial goal for 30 intensity minutes (per Garmin’s calculations) per day. It’s autodialled, with a maximum of an hour a day set. It needs a maximum because I don’t have tons of time per day to exercise. It has weekends off because I use those for recovery.
Changes to existing goals:
-
/stepitup - This is now autodialled, with no limits.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
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/dresscode - Finished and archived. I don’t know how original/in-depth it is, since fashion isn’t directly my interest (sewing and fabrics are), but I found it interesting once I got into the swing of how she expressed herself.
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/cahokia - Also finished! This was fascinating, once it got onto the archaeology and started discussing finds in detail.
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/romanbath - Standard reading goal set up to finish reading Peter Davenport’s Roman Bath. I’m enjoying it, so it’s flying by now I’ve finally started reading it.
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/deathofabookseller - Started up from the backlog as a standard reading goal, to read Death of a Bookseller by Bernard J. Farmer. It’s a British Library Crime Classic, so probably a lot of fun.
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/thehandsoftheemperor - I forgot to mention starting this up; this is for reading Victoria Goddard’s The Hands of the Emperor, which I need to finish by the end of the month for a challenge. It’s a chonker!
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/com2_possession - Standard reading goal for my reread of A Case of Possession (K.J. Charles).
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/ourwivesunderthesea - I forget quite where I’m at with creating new flat-forever goals in response to ones I’ve started up, so let’s just start from where we are and do two. This one’s for reading Julia Armfield’s Our Wives Under The Sea.
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/sirenqueen - For reading Nghi Vo’s Siren Queen, a flat-forever goal (for now). I had an ARC and didn’t get to it in time, so I really should read this soon.
Notes:
- Oof! I think that’s everything.
1 Like
Derailments:
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/thehandsoftheemperor - I ate another $5 charge to let me slow this goal waaaay down and take a break. I’m burning out on my reading goals, and I think it’s because I changed the “standard reading goal” format and had several goals requiring I finish books by particular dates. I don’t know why that seemed like a good idea – maybe because my reading goals were in general going well – but it’s never historically been good for me. So I’ve fixed that.
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/bmon1_beastsofnight - Same!
New goals:
- N/a, except for Project Bookminder books below
Changes to existing goals:
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
-
/romanbath - Finished and archived! It was really good; Davenport has a flare for delivering a lot of information in a very readable way.
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/portablemagic - Also finished and archived. I enjoyed it a lot: it was exactly the sort of thing I was looking for right now.
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/com2_possession - Finished this as well. Of course I loved it – it was a reread.
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/dgh3_graveimportance - Rereading a beloved book; this is the third in the Greta Helsing series. Standard reading goal.
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/blackdeathgoldengate - Standard reading goal for reading David K. Randall’s Black Death at the Golden Gate. Yay, books about disease!
Notes:
- Every week I’m like “oof, well, thank goodness that’s over and next week will be better”. Anyyyy time now would be good.
1 Like
Derailments:
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/dailyweight - I derailed again, but I’ve crunched the numbers and figured out why my weight-behaviour has suddenly changed, and it’s something that isn’t an option to change right now (my anxiety medication). This is a known side effect, so I felt comfortable with calling this non-legit and getting myself set up to try again with more buffer and lower rate. The rule for the future is “if I’ve tried everything I can for a month, and it definitely correlates with a medication change, then the next derail is non-legit [and a catalyst to change the goal so I can reach it]”.
New goals:
Changes to existing goals:
- N/a, except for the already referenced change to /dailyweight
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
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/dgh3_graveimportance - All finished! A lovely reread, though I noticed a few more flaws this time…
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/deathofabookseller - Finished and archived. Less charming than I’d hoped, but an enjoyable enough mystery.
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/sirenqueen - I had to start a goal from the backlog for the /pileminding goal, so I decided on this once. The rate hasn’t quite kicked in yet, but it will shortly and I’ll get to dig in! I’ve been looking forward to this one, but I tragically neglected to get to the ARC in time…
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/anthropocenereviewed - I’ve been meaning to read this for ages, and I just felt like it after a week of not feeling like much reading. So, tahdah! I’ve started it right away with a standard reading goal setup.
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/fourlostcities - I wanted to read this one by Annalee Newitz from the library, and then they cut me off because I haven’t visited in person since just before the pandemic started. Eyeroll. Anyway, I’ve got a copy now and this is my new flat-forever goal to replace the started goal for /sirenqueen. I don’t think it’ll need to wait long!
Notes:
- Nothing much to report this week. I’m hoping that by this time next week, one source of anxiety will be over with… though that might be overly optimistic. We can but hope!
Derailments:
New goals:
-
/healthcheck - I have a health symptom that I need to check on regularly… but not too regularly. I have problems with obsessive-compulsive behaviour, so this goal is a do-more goal to check on this symptom as advised by doctors. I’ll +1 it when I check according to schedule – and -1 it when I check out of schedule.
Changes to existing goals:
-
/catalogue - This one is now archiving! I’ve catalogued all my books on Litsy, for a value of all which includes: all physical books, all ebook purchases back to 2018, and all unread advance reading copies back to the dawn of time.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
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/blackdeathgoldengate - Finished and archived! Slow start, but towards the end I totally devoured it. And now I have a new public health hero! (Rupert Blue, who became the Surgeon General of the US based on his success in eliminating plague in humans and rats in San Francisco.)
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/anthropocenereviewed - Finished and archived! Quite fun, but John Green’s anxiety totally rhymes with mine and that wasn’t the greatest mix.
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/fourlostcities - Now started as a standard reading goal.
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/fallow - Started up as a standard reading goal, since it’s this month’s pick for me in a Litsy challenge!
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/totheletter - New flat-forever goal for reading Simon Garfield’s To the Letter, which I’ll be reviewing on Postcrossing’s blog.
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/ww1_dukeheist - New flat-forever goal for reading Erica Ridley’s The Duke Heist. I’ve actually read the second book already, so I’m sure I’ll like this… maybe I’ll pick it up soon.
Notes:
- This week kinda put one of the things making me anxious to bed, so, onwards and upwards!
Derailments:
-
/pileminding - Let this derail to get a breather on it, to be quite honest! The autodialer kept it poking me regularly, but my reading speed had slowed down dramatically, so I couldn’t start more books at once.
New goals:
-
/readreadread - A reading goal tracking the pages I record on StoryGraph. Dual purpose: it’ll remind me to update my reading progress so I can get better stats from StoryGraph, and help keep me reading. I’ve set up the autodialler on it.
Changes to existing goals:
-
/feedbackzeroes - Added a short break to get this back in sync with my work-week.
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/stopbyseven - Added a break due to circumstances beyond my control.
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/earning & /bsupport - Ratcheted and changed the x-min as usual, after being paid yesterday.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
-
/fallow - Finished and archived! Once I got into it, I read it practically in one go. It’s just… oof. So much going on.
Notes:
- I’d got into the habit of just pasting “not yet” in as the comment for all my flat-forever reading goals. Which… is accurate, but it was getting too automatic and I was no longer really looking at the goal and thinking about the book, which was kinda the point of this whole thing. So I’m trying to be better about that. I also need to remember to make the datapoints public, which I keep forgetting during goal setup. That’s on my to-do list now!
Derailments:
-
/intensityminutes - It was too hot to move for the first part of this week, so I let this derail. I could’ve planned ahead, though, so it’s legit.
New goals:
Changes to existing goals:
- I put a break in a couple of goals to help me catch up, given the apocalyptic weather this week.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
-
/fourlostcities - Now finished and archived! I knew a fair bit about most of the cities discussed, but there were new bits of information.
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/sirenqueen - Finished and archived also. I loved this one!
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/ww1_dukeheist - Started this one up from flat-forever mode as a standard reading goal.
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/therealvalkyrie - Since I started up a flat-forever goal, here’s a new goal for reading The Real Valkyrie, by Nancy Marie Brown.
Notes:
- This week has made me seriously consider getting an air conditioning unit, even here in the chilly UK, for those emergencies where it suddenly hits 40C in Yorkshire for the first time in recorded history. It’s not been a week for reading, or productivity, or anything but sitting very very still. As a consequence, I still need to go through making my datapoint comments public. Soon!
Derailments:
-
/healthcheck - Things were going so well, and then I was tempted into doing the check out of schedule. Sigh. OCD is not a fun time, folks; let nobody make you think it’s all about being really tidy or something.
New goals:
Changes to existing goals:
- I keep putting more breaks in /thelastremnant… not in the mood for that game. Gah. Need to find a day to sit down and get back into it!
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
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/bmon1_beastsofnight - Finished and archived! It was interesting to read something with a totally different setting, but I didn’t get hooked on the characters or plot.
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/thelibrarybook - Started this up as a standard reading goal, hoping to finish The Library Book (Susan Orlean) by the end of the month… but I’ve learned my lesson and I’m not pushing it. I actually reverse engineered this from several days of reading without creating a goal, so there are no datapoint comments. Bad Nicky.
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/100objects - Same deal here, for rereading A History of the World in 100 Objects (Neil MacGregor).
Notes:
- I’ve been pondering my goals, given my ongoing high stress and associated issues. My instinct is always to use Beeminder to handle any given problem, but it might actually be time to slim things down a bit. Not sure what I’d drop, though!
3 Likes
Derailments:
New goals:
- N/a. Not a good idea right now while I’m trying to reduce obligations, maximise my free time, and find some more breathing space.
Changes to existing goals:
-
/dailyweight - Lowered the rate again. Really struggling with this of late; the increased dose of my anxiety medication really mucked things up.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
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/persephonestation - For a long time, this book had a “curse”; it was on my BookSpinBingo card, but I always avoided reading it. I don’t really know why, and I really enjoyed it once I finished it up! I started it up a few days ago, and found myself racing through it.
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/thehandsofthemperor - I got back into this and read the last half much faster; I loved it so much!
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/ww1_dukeheist - I really enjoyed this one, too; it took me a while to warm to the male lead, as he was a bit of an asshole in the prequel novella, but he did redeem himself and it all made sense in the end.
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/le6_crimsonwarning - I think I started and finished this one since my last roundup: it was a standard reading goal for Tasha Alexander’s A Crimson Warning, but I read it all in two days. The male lead redeemed himself a little, but I still don’t trust him much anymore.
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/bag3_denofwolves - Finally started up this one for finishing Juliet Marillier’s Blackthorn & Grim series. I’m enjoying it so far, though I’m still a bit meh about it turning into a romance.
Notes:
- As you can see, I have my reading mojo back a bit, whether it’s my stress-busting efforts or just the extra time afforded by the lack of class work. I’m enjoying it.
- I started up two of my flat-forever goals there… but I’m not going to replace them for now. I am in a situation where I have a tower of books not added to Beeminder, which I don’t love, but managing my reading goals has become a bit of a chore. Right now there are 29 of them; I’d like to get it down to 25 before I start adding books again, and then I’ll add one for every two started until I’m down at 20 total flat-forever reading goals. Also, I’m going to make it less whim-based, and just use my StoryGraph TBR as a guide to add goals in the order books were acquired. I’d been being capricious and picking what I thought I might start soon, instead.
- I’m always tempted to add new goals to help me keep to my resolutions, but for now I’m leaving them on Habitica where they feel a bit less… punishing. I may make a Habitica-linked goal again to beemind doing at least a certain number per day, once I’ve settled in a bit more to my new routine!
2 Likes
Derailments:
New goals:
- N/a. As before, not a good idea right now due to burnout.
Changes to existing goals:
- A break covering my time off has been inserted for the following goals: /bsupport, /earning, /feedbackzeroes, /focusmate and /postcrossingtasks
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/readreadread - Because this is an odometer goal, it doesn’t actually work with the autodialer, but I’ve been using the 30-day average calculated by the autodialer to manually autodial it… if that makes sense. So from a goal of 30 pages/day as a conservative starting point we’re now at a goal of 185 pages per day. I’m honestly surprised it’s that high, as I didn’t think I was reading that much lately, but that’s how things average out because I read a lot more at weekends, I guess.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
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/100objects - Finished and archived! Still interesting, but had less engagement with colonialism/repatriation than I remembered.
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/notquitedeadenough - Started this one up from the backlog on a whim. So far, it’s okay; the tone reminds me of John Dickson Carr, a bit. (I’m not a fan of John Dickson Carr.)
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/aesopsanimals - Both started this one from the backlog and finished it, this week! It was okay, though focused quite heavily on animal cognition when I’d expected more on animal behaviour (though of course the two are linked).
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/somethingfabulous - Started this one up from the backlog, and am having plenty of fun!
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/therealvalkyrie - Also started up from the backlog. This one so far leans very heavily on supposition and imagination, which I’m not keen on, but we’ll see how it pans out.
Notes:
- I’ve been starting a lot of books, as you see! So now I’m down at 25 backlog reading goals already, as planned. From now on, for every two I start, I’ll add one to the backlog, until I get them down to a total of 20. Then I’ll try and keep it there.
1 Like
Derailments:
-
/bag3_denofwolves - I got behind on reading this because I wasn’t well, so decided to let it derail and give me breathing space.
New goals:
Changes to existing goals:
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
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/somethingfabulous - Finished and archived! I suddenly inhaled it. Very melodramatic, Heyer pastiche to the max. Fun, but not for everyone, I think.
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/abouttime - A new book that I just started reading right away and also inhaled. (That’s a theme at the moment.) Enjoyable, though the subtitle about it being a history through 12 clocks is very misleading. It’s more 12 themes about clocks, not 12 specific clocks.
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/therealvalkyrie - Finished and archived. Heavy on the imaginative reconstruction, but very readable, and makes some interesting points and comparisons based on sagas.
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/com3_flightofmagpies - Standard reading goal for the final book of this trilogy! It’s a reread, but going quite slowly, for some reason.
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/notquitedeadenough - Finished and archived. It was OK, nothing special.
Notes:
- My birthday is tomorrow and I know I’m getting at least 10 books. I’m doomed. I’m happy about it.
2 Likes
Derailments:
-
/com3_flightofmagpies - Didn’t feel like it on my birthday, so I let it derail!
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/meditation - It felt like a huge chore at the time, so I just… didn’t do it, to give me some more space.
New goals:
Changes to existing goals:
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
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/com3_flightofmagpies - Finished and archived! Glad I reread it, but not my favourite of Charles’ books.
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/tf1_sleepinggiants - Set this up a little belatedly for rereading Sylvain Neuvel’s Sleeping Giants. Finished and archived already, as well! Still very enjoyable, and I’m hoping to reread the second book and finally read the first, soon.
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/sway - A normal reading goal for reading Pragya Agarwal’s Sway, since it’s coming up as a book club read.
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/skywardinn - Started up from a flat-forever goal, as a standard reading goal. I’m making progress with it, but it’s not grabbing me as much as I hoped.
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/deadmancontrol - Started up from flat-forever, as a standard reading goal. It’s… okay so far?
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/moondayletters - I started up two flat-forever goals, so I can make one new one. This one’s for reading Emmi Itaranta’s The Moonday Letters, which I’m hoping to review for Postcrossing.
Derailments:
-
/skywardinn - Wasn’t feeling it one day and let it derail to give me a bit more time.
New goals:
Changes to existing goals:
-
/readreadread - Dialled up to 240 pages/day. I’m worried this partially reflects my vacation time and can’t be sustained, but that’ll become apparent quickly enough from the 30-day average, with the amount of buffer I’ve earned up to now.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
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/skywardinn - Finished and archived. Turned out to not really be my thing and kind of grossed me out at the end.
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/bag3_denofwolves - Finished and archived! A lovely end to Juliet Marillier’s Blackthorn & Grim trilogy.
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/sway - Finished and archived! Not much new to me here, but I enjoyed it well enough, and there were some interesting anecdotes.
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/deadmancontrol - Finished and archived. It was okay, very much a procedural.
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/le7_floatingcity - I created this goal retrospectively because I’m obsessive like that and didn’t want a gap in my Beeminder history for a series I’m reading. I finished the book this morning, though, so it will be archived tonight.
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/postcards - A new standard reading goal for reading Lydia Pyne’s book on postcards! I meant to keep it for later, since I didn’t mean to review a non-fiction book again yet on Postcrossing… but it tempted me.
Notes:
- I’ve added a bunch of the books I have flat-forever goals for to BookSpin, the reading challenge I do on Litsy. I know at least one of them will need to be started up this month in order to meet that goal, so here’s hoping it helps me clear some of my backlog!
Derailments:
New goals:
-
/grandma - Owing to my grandmother’s hearing problems, I find calling her awkward, and she’s lost her mobile phone. However, I regularly write to people, so I’m now going to start writing to her at least once a week. Postcard or letter, either is fine.
Changes to existing goals:
-
/stopbyseven - This goal’s been active for long enough that I know I can keep it up at least 6 days out of 7, so I’ve ratcheted it now. I’ve also set the deadline to 7:05pm, to make it more of a true deadline and keep me honest.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
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/whisperingdoor - Started up from flat-forever and finished this week! Enjoyable, though I felt like there was a definite Moral of the Story and it didn’t feel at all subtle.
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/sog1_fashionable - For rereading A Fashionable Indulgence by K.J. Charles, which I have in fact already done. So this goal has also been archived.
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/deathofjezebel - For reading one of my birthday books, Death of Jezebel by Christianna Brand. Already finished and archived! Enjoyable, as many of the British Library Crime Classics are, but didn’t blow me away.
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/postcards - Finished and archived! It was really good, though weirdly ignored the existence of Postcrossing.
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/phantomatlas - Started up from flat-forever to become a standard reading goal.
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/moondayletters - Likewise!
Notes:
- Sharp eyes will note that I should create one new reading goal to replace The Phantom Atlas and The Moonday Letters on my backlog; I haven’t been able to check yet which book that should be, though. I appear to be down to 21 flat-forever goals, though, so I’m actually thinking that I’ll pick up one more of those (I know which), and then I’ll be at 20 and just hold the number steady at 20 going forward. 20 does seem to be a good number for thoughtfully going through each goal each day, without getting too impatient with it and not really thinking. We’ll see!
Derailments:
-
/inhaler - I’ve been miserable about keeping up with this one lately, and it shows in my breathing. I might ramp up the pledge a bit.
-
/stopbyseven - Lost track of time due to playing Final Fantasy XIV, and didn’t finish the one goal I had left (which would’ve taken me two minutes). Sigh.
New goals:
Changes to existing goals:
-
/clockoff - Got a last-minute break added by support to accommodate interviews, since I hadn’t known what date to schedule a break for until I was within the akrasia horizon.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
-
/moondayletters - Finished! I wasn’t sure about the style (didn’t convince me as an epistolary novel) but I was for sure intrigued.
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/phantomatlas - Finished and archived. Not sure how much information I will retain, but it was interesting while I read it.
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/murderbythebook - Aside from a slight hitch where I dropped it in the bath, I inhaled this one. It was a flat-forever goal, so I should look at replacing it.
Notes:
- What a week! If I keep this up I’m gonna need a do less goal for not working through my lunch break.
Derailments:
New goals:
Changes to existing goals:
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/postcrossingtasks - This was still set as if I was working 6 days a week, whereas I now take a full weekend. So I’ve lowered the rate a little and put a weekend off in it just for this once in order to get it back on track.
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/clockoff - Got a couple of breaks on this due to “overtime” with meetings and training new workerbees.
- I think a couple more goals got breaks but I’ve forgotten what exactly.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
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/alkmene1_todiefor - Decided to give this a shot because it’s short, and finished it in under 24 hours. Quite fun!
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/thewildhunt - Added a new standard reading goal for a book I started on a whim: The Wild Hunt by Emma Seckel.
- I should add two more flat-forever goals to cover the one started last week and the one started this week. Oops.
Notes:
- Next week is the week of work/life balance! Honest!
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Derailments:
New goals:
- N/a, though I’m thinking about one for some of me and my wife’s energy-saving stuff (drawing thermal curtains over the winter as the temperature drops toward the end of the day, me remembering to unplug my laptop once it’s off, etc).
Changes to existing goals:
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/readreadread - The 30-day average for this goal has dropped to 171 pages/day, so I’ve changed the rate accordingly.
- Put a short break in a bunch of goals since I’ll be away and I’m only taking my phone, no laptop.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
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/thewildhunt - Finished and archived! It started slow, but I read the second half of it super fast.
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/ddamsels1_wisteria - A new flat-forever goal for eventually reading India Holton’s The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels. Sounds silly but fun.
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/forbiddenlives - A new flat-forever goal for reading Norena Shopland’s Forbidden Lives, a book about Welsh queer history. I think with that I’m back up to 20 total flat-forever goals.
Notes:
- This post is early because tomorrow I’ll be driving to Edinburgh (or more accurately, being driven) and leaving my laptop behind. The whole trip was paid for on the proviso that I leave all possibility of doing work and being productive behind, so… off I go!
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Derailments:
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/meditation - I’m finding this one particularly difficult to keep up with, but it’s good that it pushes me.
New goals:
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/lshtm_time - I’m not tracking my time per class this year, but I do want to ensure I put in an hour (on average) each weekday. So, tada!
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/lshtm_mrsa - This is my specific goal for my class on healthcare-associated infection. I’ve made myself a timetable; this goal should make me stick to it. It was a bit of a pain to set up – it’s ‘steppy’, meaning that it doesn’t gently slope up over time, and each intermediate goal is due on a specific date and not before.
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/lshtm_viralinfection - Aaand this is my specific goal for my class on viral infections, same deal.
Changes to existing goals:
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/focusmate - I’ve dialled the rate of this one down a bit as I’m not finding as many uses for Focusmate right this minute, but want to still use it enough to make my subscription worth it.
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/ukrainian - It was a fun experiment, but with classes starting again, it’s time to put this on the backburner. I’m archiving this goal. I probably will keep up with doing the odd Ukrainian lesson now and then.
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/frenchagain - For the same reason, I’m setting this up to archive. I still want to finish this the French course someday, though!
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/slackoffmore - I’m archiving this one as I have the habit pretty well established, and I think it’s taking up more mental load by being on my dashboard than it warrants.
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/moodscope - Turns out Moodscope’s gone premium only, without warning. So I’m archiving this goal.
- A couple of my goals got extra breaks for my weekend away, because somehow I missed them. Thank you, Simone!
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever! At the moment, I have a backlog of books to add, so each flat-forever goal that gets started gets replaced by a new one.
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/ourwivesunderthesea - Turned out to not be my thing (too much body horror), but I finished it!
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/thestrangertimes - Became a standard reading goal, have been speeding through it.
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/edinburghmystery - New flat-forever goal! I picked this up while I was in Edinburgh. Ideally I’d have read it while in Edinburgh, but I was too tired.
Notes:
- After my weekend away, when part of what felt so good was just freeeeedommmm! from having to manage my Beeminder goals, I’ve been trying to think about what to cut down there. One obvious thing would be to stop entering a datapoint every day in all my flat-forever reading goals… but I’ve found that so useful that I’m kind of loath to stop doing that. I’ve spotted a few things that can change, as indicated above, but mostly I’m not sure what to stop doing. So many of these things are in line with my overall goals! They’re things I want to do anyway. So I’m not sure what my answer is here… it may be to slim down my goals on Beeminder by transferring them to Habitica, and then having a Habitica-linked goal for doing a certain amount of my dailies each day. That may be more forgiving in terms of just… having days off from it, if I gain plenty of buffer by doing All The Things on another day. So I’ll have a think about this, over the next week…
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Hello! I enjoy reading these updates from time to time. I was wondering what your specific workflow is for updating Beeminder with your most recent page count. Do you have a habit to just manually update right after every time you read? Manual tracking is always a struggle for me, so I was wondering how you track reading so consistently. Thanks!
@theomega34 I’d struggle too, if I were just doing reading goals. The “trick” is basically the fact that I treat my Beeminder dashboard like a to-do list, and go through everything “checking it off” by using zzq’s browser extension to collapse goals I’m done with. Then I just enter my current page once a day (before my cutoff time of 7pm). It’s not necessarily perfect quantified self, because I probably read some more pages that day after 7pm or whenever I enter the data… but it’s good enough for me.
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Hey, you’re responsible for most of my (Beeminder) reading infrastructure (thanks!), with the exception of touching every goal daily. I might have ended up with a flow that could achieve the same effect as touching them daily, with a little less effort. You’d have to change (some or all of) them from flat-forever to sloping-forever, but each day you’d check which reading goals have 7 days of buffer and add a break of x days. By tuning the break length, you’d be able to tweak the intensity. 1 day of break would be the same situation as your current one. 7 days might feel less overwhelming…
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