# The weirdest way possible to use Beeminder as a todo list

**URL:** <https://forum.beeminder.com/t/the-weirdest-way-possible-to-use-beeminder-as-a-todo-list/12692>\
**Category:** Akrasia\
**Created:** [January 8, 2026, 12:49am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/the-weirdest-way-possible-to-use-beeminder-as-a-todo-list/12692 "2026-01-08T00:49:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![emeraldnext](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/emeraldnext/32/6116_2.png) [@emeraldnext](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/emeraldnext)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2026, 12:49am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/the-weirdest-way-possible-to-use-beeminder-as-a-todo-list/12692/1 "2026-01-08T00:49:46Z")

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I have found a very very weird way to use Beeminder as a todo list, and it involves setting a do less goal with a cap of five todos.

My do less goal means that if at any given time I have more than five todos due by the end of the day, I derail on the goal and get charged. So I can reduce the number of todos due by completing them and deleting the datapoints. I can also add datapoints for the future for todos due at later dates but not due today.

Why five? Because the iOS app only shows 5 datapoints at a time 🤣

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/beeminder/original/2X/8/8d697f4527217342335d4c3903675f180c08db66.png)

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/beeminder/original/2X/9/9c43eeb49380f4eebb3c8d7aff2a2c342ec2ae50.png)

I acknowledge this is pretty brittle and not a Beeminder way to do things because anytime this derails requires a pretty annoying graph fix to get it back to speed.

However, it means I don’t need a separate todo app, and having my todos in Beeminder is worth the weirdness jank of hacking Beeminder into being my todo list, as the one must do task a day version never worked well for me.

Advantages: My todos are in beeminder, and I can schedule todos to be due in the future. Additionally, having a backlog hurts me today AND in the future, so I’m highly incentivized to complete past todos.

Disadvantages: Any derail requires a graph fix, so I am HIGHLY motivated not to derail.

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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:** [January 8, 2026, 2:42am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/the-weirdest-way-possible-to-use-beeminder-as-a-todo-list/12692/2 "2026-01-08T02:42:41Z")

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Ooh, I like it! It doesn’t actually seem terribly hacky to me, just clever. You’re graphing undone tasks and committing to keeping them under some threshold. What’s so bad about the post-derail state? Too much buffer? Can you not ratchet it?

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**Author:** ![emeraldnext](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/emeraldnext/32/6116_2.png) [@emeraldnext](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/emeraldnext)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2026, 4:09am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/the-weirdest-way-possible-to-use-beeminder-as-a-todo-list/12692/3 "2026-01-08T04:09:30Z")

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I hadn’t honestly thought about that, but I had the post derail buffer too high, and fixing that made for one ugly graph compared to the “you always have 5 tasks of buffer” mentality. 🤣

Right, 0 days of buffer if derail, ratchet if needed. That would work well. The only other quirk is that this doesn’t exactly line up with “x tasks needed by x date”, since 1 task of buffer and 2 tasks of buffer acts weirdly, but honestly, this works well - enough.

Edit: just remembered, derails are ugly because your graph when derailing gets set to a value like six. Hence the weirdness in using Beeminder like this.

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**Author:** ![krugerk](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/krugerk/32/5161_2.png) [@krugerk](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/krugerk)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2026, 2:43pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/the-weirdest-way-possible-to-use-beeminder-as-a-todo-list/12692/4 "2026-01-08T14:43:13Z")

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Thanks for sharing your system. I had the thought of what it might look like to add another datapoint upon completing a task by setting say -1 as the value and with a DONE Task xyz as the comment instead of deleting done items.

> [@emeraldnext](#):
>
> Why five? Because the iOS app only shows 5 datapoints at a time 🤣

For anyone else stumbling across this, more specifically the ios app shows the ‘recent datapoints’ of which there are a maximum of five. These are the most recently touched datapoints and may not be the most recent from a date or daystamp viewpoint.

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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:** [January 8, 2026, 8:31pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/the-weirdest-way-possible-to-use-beeminder-as-a-todo-list/12692/5 "2026-01-08T20:31:43Z")

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Sometimes I see ideas so smart or elegant I wish I had invented them. Thanks for sharing!