I wish beeminder had a second staircase for each goal, that would allow me to easily maintain a buffer. For me, the solution is using another system to manage the buffer. I’m using a separate habit tracking system that is one or more days ahead of beeminder. So when it looks like a failure day in my second habit tracking system, I might still have two three or even more days left over in my beeminder.
Currently, this requires double logging, but it is well worth it to me to have a little breathing room, and each beeminder goal can have its own individual buffer level. I think that it is natural and good for humans to ebb and flow a little bit like this. It might not be for everyone, but some people are just like that.
So I’m primarily looking at, trying to keep up with the secondary system, which is kind of acting like my primary system… Those are the goals that I need to get done today. And if I miss a goal there, it’s not great, I don’t like it, but I’m not going to derail in beeminder. But then I’m going to have to do something to make up for it in the future so I can re-establish my buffer.
Note that there may be some other considerations in doing this. How one words their goals, how easy or difficult it is to make up for a missed goal. There’s a sweet spot between being too hard or too easy. I think that sweet spot tends to be more towards the the easy than one would normally think, because what ultimately happens is life happens to you unexpectedly, and then all the sudden you’re scrambling to get your goals done but you’re not going to be able to do that, and that’s very stressful. And for me the always living on the edge of the red line is too stressful in the longer run.
I am living on the edge in a way, but I’m living on the edge in this secondary habit tracking system. I want to be successful in the secondary habit tracking system. I know that the threat of beeminder is always there lurking behind that, and I want to stay in front of it to give myself a few days leeway.
It’s like how you would treat a ledge if you are on top of a building. You give it a little bit of distance.
So yeah, if the end of the day rolls around and I haven’t finished one of my goals, I can let it slide one day and I won’t derail. But I can also see that I need to make up for that day.