Fix off days (no work required on off days even if you're in the orange the day before)
I subscribe to the idea that we should have off days where we don't have to do anything. Currently with beeminder, if I'm in the orange the day before the off day starts, I will be in the red the next day and will have to do work otherwise I lose the goal.
Off days should work so that if you survive the day before, and it's your off day, you can't lose.
Ayub
shared this idea
Eep, this points out that we really need to redesign the take-a-break interface to make it clearer how to do this correctly! As dreeves points out in the comments, you can do this by setting the break one spot earlier on the calendar than you were expecting.
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Admindreeves
(Cofounder, Beeminder)
commented
Another way to think of this: you're not really safe till you're on or above the centerline of the yellow brick road. So if you end the day in the orange you may have some emergency work to do the next day even if a flat spot nominally started that day.
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Admindreeves
(Cofounder, Beeminder)
commented
Cool, yeah, exactly right. That's sort of confusing (obviously) but I suspect that trying to de-confuse would add more confusion elsewhere. For example, it's nice to have the property that you if you make a flat spot from, say, the 25th to the 27th then since 27-25=2 you get 2 days that you can do nothing.
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Ayub
commented
Yes, I think that is how it would work. The bottom of the off day's yellow brick road would be down to the day before's lowest point (of the yellow road).
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Admindreeves
(Cofounder, Beeminder)
commented
This sounds like it's a question of how to define where the flat spot starts. If you schedule the flat spot to start the day before the first day you want to be able to do nothing then does it behave as you'd expect?