# Updating my goal's progress **URL:** \ **Category:** Newbee\ **Created:** [October 13, 2015, 10:06pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/updating-my-goals-progress/1250 "2015-10-13T22:06:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![heraclitus63](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecc23a/32.png) [@heraclitus63](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/heraclitus63)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 10:06pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/updating-my-goals-progress/1250/1 "2015-10-13T22:06:37Z")
Hi Guys, I’m having a lot of issues trying to work out how to update my goal. If I read 4 pages of my book the night before – and I want to reflect those changes on BM, how do I do this? ---
**Author:** ![drtall](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/drtall/32/1341_2.png) [@drtall](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/drtall)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 10:29pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/updating-my-goals-progress/1250/2 "2015-10-13T22:29:11Z")
If you’re talking about reading a book, you probably want to use the Odometer setting for the goal. If the goal is in Odometer mode, you can just enter the page number you’re on whenever you feel like it, and Beeminder will figure out how much progress that is based on whatever your last page number was. When you finish a book, enter a 0 as a separate data point and it will know that the _next_ data point is for the new book. For example your odometer goal might have data points like: > 10 > 15 > 28 > 95 // wow, you forgot to record progress for a while, but it doesn’t matter really > 101 > 0 // new book time > 7 > 15 On the graph you will see the cumulative total pages you’ve ever read, even though you’re always entering your page number on the current book. ---
**Author:** ![drtall](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/drtall/32/1341_2.png) [@drtall](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/drtall)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 10:31pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/updating-my-goals-progress/1250/3 "2015-10-13T22:31:39Z")
Or did you mean how do you enter data into Beeminder at all? I went off on the book / odometer tangent because it is different from regular goals. ---
**Author:** ![heraclitus63](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecc23a/32.png) [@heraclitus63](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/heraclitus63)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 5:43am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/updating-my-goals-progress/1250/4 "2015-10-14T05:43:05Z")
Oh excellent – I think the odometer mode sounds like just the right option! Also, I don’t understand what data points are at all sorry! And how do I change it to odometer mode? ---
**Author:** ![drtall](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/drtall/32/1341_2.png) [@drtall](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/drtall)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 3:32pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/updating-my-goals-progress/1250/5 "2015-10-14T15:32:02Z")
> [@heraclitus63](#): > > data points A data point is just a number with a timestamp. The number is the thing you are Beeminding, e.g. your page number in your book, and the timestamp is either when you submitted the data or the specific date you are saying this data corresponds to (commonly yesterday if you forgot to enter data for something that you did yesterday). On your goal’s page you see the datapoints you already entered and you can create more by hitting “Submit”: [![](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/knpfh1b8i8m0wwz/Screenshot%202015-10-14%2008.27.18.png?dl=0) ](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/knpfh1b8i8m0wwz/Screenshot%202015-10-14%2008.27.18.png?dl=0) It just shows the day of month, so the history in the image I linked is October 9th I entered a `1`, October 10th I entered a `1` with the comment `bath`, etc. > [@heraclitus63](#): > > how do I change it to odometer mode? Hmmm I thought it used to be under “Terrifyingly Advanced” settings, but I don’t see it there anymore… You can just email [support@beeminder.com](mailto:support@beeminder.com) and ask them to switch it for you. ---
**Author:** ![philip](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/philip/32/1505_2.png) [@philip](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/philip)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 1:45pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/updating-my-goals-progress/1250/6 "2015-10-16T13:45:53Z")
> [@heraclitus63](#): > > If I read 4 pages of my book the night before In case it’s the ‘ **night before** ’ part that’s important, then you might like to know about the [shortcut for entering yesterday’s date](https://www.beeminder.com/faq#qcut) on the website (or by email).