shanaqui's Beeminder Journal: 2022

Derailments:

  • N/a (technically my inhaler goal derailed, but I just missed hitting enter after adding my data, so that got fixed up)

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • N/a

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.

  • /edinburghmystery - Started up last weekend, finished the book! It wasn’t as good as the bibliomystery collection, with some very obvious/conventional choices, but I liked it.
  • /thestrangertimes - Finished and archived! I found it enjoyable but was not in love with it.
  • /thevaccine - A new standard reading goal for reading The Vaccine by Joe Miller, a chronicle of the BioNTech vaccine.
  • I owe a new flat-forever goal since I started The Edinburgh Mystery, but I’m not sure what to add yet.

Notes:

  • Still pondering suggestions for lowering my Beeminder burdens. I’m thinking in terms of reconfiguring almost all goals to have weekends off, for one thing, and I’m also thinking about @ianminds’ suggestion about alternatives to my current method of entering data literally every day on my Beeminder goals. I think the thing that most bothers me is that the graph will show entries every day for so long and then it’d go blank… but I could just set the x-min to hide that.

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • N/a

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.

  • /amazons - Finished and archived! Fascinating, but got a bit unfocused.
  • /brightfall - This was my new flat-forever goal, but just got started up as a standard reading goal. This is for reading Jaime Lee Moyer’s Brightfall, an interesting take on Robin Hood.
  • /thevaccine - Finished and archived! Really good, though very biased toward BioNTech.
  • I owe a new flat-forever goal, which will be for Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall. I just need to grab the book so I can set things up right.

Notes:

  • Stiiiiill having a think about how to chill out my goals a bit. It’s been an okay week, so I feel a bit less under pressure – and thus this feels like less of a priority. I really should give it some more thought, though.
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Derailments:

  • /dailyweight - I suspect this one only really derailed now because of hormonal fluctuations, but it’s still legit; I was drifting too close to the line. I might need to invoke my fine print if it happens again within the next couple of months – I’m currently tapering off some medication, and it’s playing hell with my body.

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • N/a

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.

  • /shadowlands - I made this as a standard reading goal for reading Shadowlands by Matthew Green, a book about “lost” places in Britain. I’ve finished it already – it was really fascinating.
  • /takesthecake - I finally made the flat-forever goal for Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, and I’ve started reading it now too! I’m a bit turned off by the protagonist telling a huge stupid lie right away, I’ll be honest.
  • /dd5_damsel - I made this for finishing a reread of Damsel in Distress (Carola Dunn). Not a favourite of the series, but still a cozy read. Finished it already!
  • /brightfall - Finished reading and archived the goal! It was an interesting take on Robin Hood; I quite enjoyed it, though I think you could’ve easily filed off the serial numbers and not used Robin Hood and Maid Marian as characters.

Notes:

  • I think I’m going to reduce the number of flat-forever goals again, down to 15 to start with. I’ll do the same read “read two, add one” process I did before. There’s no possible way of both touching these goals every day and adding every book I buy, and the former is more valuable to me. So these flat-forever goals will just be random selections of stuff I have and want to be sure to read sometime soon-ish, or at least keep top-of-mind.
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Derailments:

  • /takesthecake - I’m kinda stuck on reading this, because the protagonist told a whopping great lie on page 30, and I hate the inevitable embarrassing situations she’s going to end up in as a result. So I let it derail to give me time off.

New goals:

  • /physio - I know I’ve tried having a physio goal before, but this time I’ve made it dead simple: do one stretch that will help either my nerve compression issues or my back problems, every day. With a rate of 0.9/day so I can build up safety buffer if I’m good. This should be easy enough that it doesn’t become a burden – once I notice it’s due, I can just do it, right away, pretty much no matter what’s going on. This will mean I’m unequivocally doing more physio than I was otherwise, even if I really only do one stretch.

Changes to existing goals:

  • I was sick this week – hurt my back on Tuesday and then had a paradoxical reaction to the painkillers I took for it*, so also took Wednesday off, and then had a short workday on Thursday as well to give me recovery time. So I added small breaks into a couple of goals.

Project Bookminder:

I’m trying something new!

  • Instead of flat-forever goals, each goal now has enough flat for at least a week. Every time it gets down to seven days remaining, I can add another week’s break. That means I’ll “touch” them all regularly (daily, to collapse them in the list using zzq’s extenstion; weekly, to add a new break), without needing to enter data every day, reducing the effort it takes to handle them each day (since formerly I was entering data every day for them). This is based on @ianmindsidea in this thread. I also still have the goal for starting books from this backlog, /pileminding, so that should also keep things turning over.
  • No movement on any reading goals this week.

Notes:

  • Well, that has definitely been a week. Let’s try not to have any more like that, hmmm?

* If you’re curious, it turns out that it’s possible for even low doses of codeine to cause acute pancreatitis in people who have previously had a cholecystectomy. I’m not absolutely positive that’s what happened to me, but the symptoms match.

1 Like

Derailments:

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • N/a

Project Bookminder:

I make goals for various books from my backlog that I would like to read and could use a nudge on. These are flat for at least 8 days when started, and then every time they’re down to 7 days remaining, I add more flat spot. This way, I regularly have to interact with them, to ensure they stay top-of-mind.

  • This seems weird, but no progress this week either. I read a couple of books but apparently somehow never made a goal for them.

Notes:

  • Too soon to see if the new Project Bookminder plans help with my general overwhelmed feeling about managing my goals, but I think so…
2 Likes

Derailments:

  • /deadsilence - I wasn’t getting into this book, so I let myself derail to give me time to feel like it again instead of forcing it. It kind of worked.

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • The usual ratcheting/changing the t-min on my work-related goals, now I’ve been paid for this month.

Project Bookminder:

I make goals for various books from my backlog that I would like to read and could use a nudge on. These are flat for at least 8 days when started, and then every time they’re down to 7 days remaining, I add more flat spot. This way, I regularly have to interact with them, to ensure they stay top-of-mind. Goals that are in progress have a rate of 5 pages/day, and an autoratchet so I can never have more than a day’s buffer.

  • /deadsilence - Started up from the flat-forever goals. I’m not entirely in the mood for it, so it’s slow going – horror isn’t always my thing, and this is hitting some of the spots I dislike/have to be in the right mood for.

Notes:

  • Nothing to report, I think!
1 Like

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • N/a

Project Bookminder:

I make goals for various books from my backlog that I would like to read and could use a nudge on. These are flat for at least 8 days when started, and then every time they’re down to 7 days remaining, I add more flat spot. This way, I regularly have to interact with them, to ensure they stay top-of-mind. Goals that are in progress have a rate of 5 pages/day, and an autoratchet so I can never have more than a day’s buffer.

  • /takesthecake - Finished and archived! It was enjoyable, but one of the love interests was a complete asshole.
  • /ddamsels1_wisteria - Started up from being a flat-forever goal. It’s light and silly, not sure if it’s 100% for me, but we’ll see how it goes.

Notes:

  • I’ve had surprisingly little to report of late, which I think is actually a reasonable sign: I’m not derailing a ton, and I’m not constantly needing to adjust my goals. My reading has slowed way down, which is a little sad, but also I don’t want to force it too much… so I think I’m at a nice balance. If this keeps up, I want to change my focus a little bit and get back to some goals that have become very easy in the meantime, but let’s see if it lasts.
4 Likes

Derailments:

  • /deadsilence - Allowed this to derail because personal stuff going on (and nightmares at night) made reading a horror book not enjoyable.
  • /2022reading - Just needed a break, let it derail.
  • /ddamsels_wisteria1 - Ditto.

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • Some goals got buffer added to compensate for this horrible week.

Project Bookminder:

  • Nothing to report.

Notes:

  • The derailments this week don’t actually change how I felt last week – this week has been exceptional and weird, and I only derailed on those three things! And in each case it was a conscious choice to gain myself some time.
4 Likes

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • More breaks for various goals as this week proved worse and more emotional than last. I’m starting to feel my way back into things now!

Project Bookminder:

I make goals for various books from my backlog that I would like to read and could use a nudge on. These are flat for at least 8 days when started, and then every time they’re down to 7 days remaining, I add more flat spot. This way, I regularly have to interact with them, to ensure they stay top-of-mind. Goals that are in progress have a rate of 5 pages/day, and an autoratchet so I can never have more than a day’s buffer.

  • /forbiddenlives - Got started on this! It’s about LGBT histories in Wales, and so far is very readable.
  • /deadsilence - Finished! It’s ready to archive now. I got stuck in the middle because it’s a horror novel and I was having a lot of weird nightmares due to stress, so it just… wasn’t a good fit. But then I felt like it again and steamed through the rest of it.

Notes:

  • Thanks to the last two weeks, I need to read pretty fast to finish my /2022reading goal! Still, with my responsibilities as a moderator of Habitica over, I’m hopeful I can find the time.
3 Likes

Derailments:

  • /inhaler - It wasn’t legit, I’d just forgotten to add my data. Twice. Sigh. I’m edgeskating on this one in part because I’m ekeing out my remaining doses before I can get another inhaler, rather than take my full dose but do without an inhaler altogether for a while. Anyway, I changed the deadline a bit to help give me time to get the data in.

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • /readreadread - I’ve knocked the rate waaaay down, because my attention span has been bad. The idea of having to read 170+ pages every day is really bad and daunting. Even the 50/day it’s set to now feels daunting… but more possible. I’ll work my way back up.
  • Breaks for Christmas!

Project Bookminder:

  • Nothing to report.

Notes:

  • Oof. Every time I think life drama is drawing to a close, something else happens. I’m just trying to get back my equilibrium, which luckily I’m close to doing – I’m caught up on a bunch of goals.
4 Likes

Derailments:

  • N/a

New goals:

  • N/a

Changes to existing goals:

  • /clockoff - This would have derailed yesterday, but there was a major issue with a Beeminder integration, under which circumstances it’s fine for me to go over. So another workerbee put some extra leeway into it for me.
  • /meditation - This goal isn’t working well for me, because it doesn’t enforce how much meditation time to do. So it’s archiving, and once it’s done (or in the new year), I’ll create a new time-based meditation goal. I’ll start it very small, and work up from there!

Project Bookminder:

I make goals for various books from my backlog that I would like to read and could use a nudge on. These are flat for at least 8 days when started, and then every time they’re down to 7 days remaining, I add more flat spot. This way, I regularly have to interact with them, to ensure they stay top-of-mind. Goals that are in progress have a rate of 5 pages/day, and an autoratchet so I can never have more than a day’s buffer.

  • /ddamsels1_wisteria - I ended up deciding not to finish this book properly, so I skim read a bit and now it’s archived. Just not my thing.
  • /totheletter - Started this up at the usual rate, though now it has a break for Christmas!

Notes:

  • Just one more post in this thread and it’ll be time for the new year, new thread! Is there anything folks would like to see me discuss each week, in the future?
1 Like

Derailments:

  • /clockoff - I didn’t realise I’d gone over until I had, sigh. @adamwolf (:blue_heart:) is going to help me rig something up to do a klaxon at me when I’ve done 7 hours of work, so I can then be more aware as I approach the threshold that it’s looming at me.

New goals:

  • N/a, for now

Changes to existing goals:

  • A couple of goals got their end-dates extended since for some reason they were set to end at the end of the year.

Project Bookminder:

I make goals for various books from my backlog that I would like to read and could use a nudge on. These are flat for at least 8 days when started, and then every time they’re down to 7 days remaining, I add more flat spot. This way, I regularly have to interact with them, to ensure they stay top-of-mind. Goals that are in progress have a rate of 5 pages/day, and an autoratchet so I can never have more than a day’s buffer.

  • /headedforahearse - Started up from being flat since my backlog-minding goal made me do it. It’s okay so far, not the “screwball comedy” mentioned on the back, so more my thing than I expected.

Notes:

  • And th-th-that’s all folks – my next weekly review should be in a new thread for the new year! 2022 positively sped away from me…
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