Something I’ve noticed from paying close attention to the “urgency_load” metric returned by the API. A goal that has reached it’s target is still contributing to the load. E.g. I have a goal that that has reached its target amount and the deadline is at the end of tomorrow, but it’s still contributing 5 (i.e. 7-2) to the urgency load even though there’s nothing to do.
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I think that’s as intended. Goals contribute to the urgency load until their safety buffer is 7 days.
HOWEVER! I think there is a slight simplification that’s been done there. If a goal ends sooner than 7 days from now, it shouldn’t count as much, you know? If you have 1 goal, and it ends in a month, and you have no safety buffer, your urgency load is 7. Then you do a whole bunch of work, and now you don’t have anything to do for 7 days (HUZZAH!). Your urgency load is 0, partytime. Fast forward a few weeks, and you’ve slipped behind. Your goal ends in 2 days, and you have no safety buffer. Your urgency load shouldn’t be 7–you haven’t committed to doing 7 days of work!
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But hasn’t a goal that’s ending in 2 days and has already reached it’s target got an infinite safety buffer? You’ve reached the end of the line and never need to work on that again, there is no urgency and there is never going to be any.
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Yes, I think we’re in complete agreement 
A goal that ends in 2 days and has already reached its target has a safety buffer of 2 days. Currently, it would contribute 5 to the urgency load, because the urgency load is hardcoded to assume the goal has at least 7 days of commitment left. It should look at the deadline, though, and only count as much of the upcoming 7 days as are actually committed–so a goal that has 2 days safety buffer that ends in 2 days should contribute 0 to the urgency load.
(In my opinion.)
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Apologies, I misread your post as disagreeing with me. I see what you were explaining now!
Y’all were super correct and we listened and then we did it:
http://beeminder.com/changelog#4364
So the official formula is hereby:
\max(0,\min(7,m)-b)
where m is days till your goal ends and b is days of safety buffer.
PS: And even more exciting, you can now see Urgency Load in the Stats tab!
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