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Restarting goals at $5

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Mirabai Knight

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Aug 19, 2014, 12:47:13 PM8/19/14
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Heya! I was a slacker and let one of my goals (practice four pages of Cued Speech transliteration per week) get to $90 before I finally started taking things seriously instead of going "Eh, I don't feel like it. I'll just pay the money." After I reached that point, I managed to get through the rest of the year without screwing up, and finally reached my goal date. It was nice to see that smiling "Fin" icon on my chart, but I hated the idea of putting that $90 sword of Damocles back into play, so I just let it sit there for several months without restarting -- and without doing any Cued Speech practice either. If it were possible to step the penalty amount back down to $5 after successfully reaching a goal, I'd be all into it, but at this point I'm waffling between deleting that chart and setting up a new Cued Speech goal from scratch or just scrapping it altogether and putting something else there in its place. The $90 penalty was enough to get me white knuckling through the rest of the year, but the thought of having it hanging over me for the rest of time is just too painful; I'd rather avoid the whole thing.

Is this Beeminder working as it should and me just being a coward? Or do y'all agree with me that achieved goals should offer the chance to step back down to the lowest penalty?

David MacIver

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Aug 19, 2014, 12:50:42 PM8/19/14
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You can reduce the amount you have pledged, just one band at a time and it takes a week to take effect. Would that be sufficient for you or is the initial stressful period still too much?

On 19 Aug 2014 18:47, "Mirabai Knight" <askel...@gmail.com> wrote:
Heya! I was a slacker and let one of my goals (practice four pages of Cued Speech transliteration per week) get to $90 before I finally started taking things seriously instead of going "Eh, I don't feel like it. I'll just pay the money." After I reached that point, I managed to get through the rest of the year without screwing up, and finally reached my goal date. It was nice to see that smiling "Fin" icon on my chart, but I hated the idea of putting that $90 sword of Damocles back into play, so I just let it sit there for several months without restarting -- and without doing any Cued Speech practice either. If it were possible to step the penalty amount back down to $5 after successfully reaching a goal, I'd be all into it, but at this point I'm waffling between deleting that chart and setting up a new Cued Speech goal from scratch or just scrapping it altogether and putting something else there in its place. The $90 penalty was enough to get me white knuckling through the rest of the year, but the thought of having it hanging over me for the rest of time is just too painful; I'd rather avoid the whole thing.

Is this Beeminder working as it should and me just being a coward? Or do y'all agree with me that achieved goals should offer the chance to step back down to the lowest penalty?

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Sean Fellows

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Aug 19, 2014, 12:51:09 PM8/19/14
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Hmmm can't you choose to downgrade a pledge amount? I think it takes a week to set in, but you could fake-restart the goal and not actually begin collecting data until the week has gone by (so you're guaranteed not to derail while it is still at $90).


On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 9:47 AM, Mirabai Knight <askel...@gmail.com> wrote:
Heya! I was a slacker and let one of my goals (practice four pages of Cued Speech transliteration per week) get to $90 before I finally started taking things seriously instead of going "Eh, I don't feel like it. I'll just pay the money." After I reached that point, I managed to get through the rest of the year without screwing up, and finally reached my goal date. It was nice to see that smiling "Fin" icon on my chart, but I hated the idea of putting that $90 sword of Damocles back into play, so I just let it sit there for several months without restarting -- and without doing any Cued Speech practice either. If it were possible to step the penalty amount back down to $5 after successfully reaching a goal, I'd be all into it, but at this point I'm waffling between deleting that chart and setting up a new Cued Speech goal from scratch or just scrapping it altogether and putting something else there in its place. The $90 penalty was enough to get me white knuckling through the rest of the year, but the thought of having it hanging over me for the rest of time is just too painful; I'd rather avoid the whole thing.

Is this Beeminder working as it should and me just being a coward? Or do y'all agree with me that achieved goals should offer the chance to step back down to the lowest penalty?

--

Daniel Reeves

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Aug 19, 2014, 12:57:05 PM8/19/14
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Great question, Mirabai! As Sean and David said, you can drop to $30
in a week, then $10, then $5. The fact that that wasn't obvious is
really good feedback for us. I'm sure many people are daunted when the
pledge creeps up and they don't realize they can drop it down (with a
week delay). Or if even a week at $90 is daunting, I'm interested to
know that too. (Of course you can restart with the initial week flat
so no danger of derailing, as Sean suggests, though I wouldn't
characterize that as fake-restarting!)
--
http://dreev.es -- search://"Daniel Reeves"
Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == http://beeminder.com

Sean Fellows

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Aug 19, 2014, 1:22:03 PM8/19/14
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Oh, I didn't know that un-archived goals are eligible for a free flat week. In that case you can restart for real!
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