Lately retroratchet has been bugging me a bit. I’ve been thinking about it, what’s wrong with it and how it would be better. What do others think of this feature?
In the past, retroratchet has been both a blessing and a curse. I’ve had goals with too shallow slopes with large buffers becoming unmotivating; retroratchet cleared these buffers for me. But other times, I hit the button while not thinking too much about it. And it left me with a buffer smaller than I thought it would be. A couple times, I hit the button after inputting the data of the day, and felt frustrated because now tomorrow I will have hardly any buffer left.
Also, especially for habits like running at least 1x/week, I need to feel motivated constantly. Right now, I guess in a certain way I feel more like I’m being punished when I do more than my goal needs me to (like running 3x in a week). Then I would have a huge buffer, and I wouldn’t be motivated to do anything the next 2 weeks. I could change the slope of the YBR, but if it’s incidental because of a vacation or something, that might not be wise. Or I could retroratchet, but that might leave me with less of a buffer than I would have had before, needing me to scramble to get a little buffer again; and I guess it somehow makes me feel like I did it for “nothing”.
I guess to me, the retroratchet function is broken at the moment:
- I feel most comfortable while at the top edge of the YBR or slightly above, but the retroratchet puts me at the middle and there’s no way to change this as a basic user. So when I retroratchet, I’m punishing myself in a certain way, by putting me in uncomfortable territory.
- The outcome or retroratcheting is very much dependent of the timing: before or after inputting the data of your day, with no way to correct this after the fact. Both of these would be fixed for me, if Retroratchet would put me at the top edge by default. But this is a premium option. I don’t really need custom goals (which feels logical to pay for), and paying $8/month to fix a broken feature seems too much for me, especially for a service like this where I’m already pledging and occasionally paying money.
The problem of keeping me motivated while doing something extra, would be fixed by automatically trimming extra buffers. But paying $16/month for this seems even more outrageous to me (I don’t really need unlimited pledgeless goals, 10 freebees for $1 might satisfy the occasional need).