One advantage Beeminder has over a simple streak based system is that when I do more than the bare min I earn safety buffer which I then can spend in the future. Adding a carrot to the stick. Being akriatic I am of course prone to just spend it all over next days until I run out and feel bad for having been lazy. But this is only possible because by default N days of safety buffer is distributed over the next N days. If for example N days of safety buffer was distributed evenly over the next 2*N days I could only spend half a day of safety buffer per day. This would have the advantage that I would have double the days where I can be grateful for my productive past self and when I invariably run out of safety buffer I will feel less bad because at least I did half of the daily rate.
Some other possible distributions I though of:
what is already possible with current Beeminder features:
- safety buffer is distributed to the end of the goal. With a fixed goal total and daily rate and auto-ratchet set to zero the safety buffer is distributed to the last possible days. This is the complete opposite of the default and least motivating because all the benefit goes to the future self most remote from me today.
- safety buffer is distributed evenly over all days until the goal date. This is achieved by fixing the goal total and goal date and setting auto-ratchet to zero. I’ve stumbled onto something similar with my french goal where I fixed goal total and goal date and set the auto-ratchet to 7 days. I discovered that shaving a second or two of my daily rate could be more motivating than getting another safety day. This was the first impulse for me to think about this topic.
things that would require new features or playing around with the API:
- everything below 7 days of safety buffer is distributed evenly over the next 7 days. This probably would strike a good balance between benefiting the future selves I feel most connected to and not being able to just splurge a small safety buffer straight away.
- manually selecting the days safety buffer is first distributed to. With this if on Sunday I learn that I won’t have the time on Friday to work on a goal I could make sure that lazy Monday to Thursday me won’t be able to leave me in a pickle come Friday.
It might be that the current default of being able to spend all safety buffer straight away is optimal but I think it is worth considering other options too.