Deadline & Reminders

The deadline default is midnight in the time zone you've set, but you can change it for most goals using the reminder settings. Some autodata integrations don't lend themselves well to custom deadlines because then there would be a date conflict between them and Beeminder; those goals have the field grayed out and it cannot be changed.

A goal's deadline field also lives in the Reminders section of the Settings tab below the graph image on the goal page. You can change all the same settings there, but only for the goal you're looking at.

Screenshot highlighting the deadline field in reminder settings

How do I change my deadlines?

To change the default deadline, type the new deadline into the Deadline field for the "Defaults for new goals" row at the top of the table. This won't change any of your existing goals, and only applies to future goals you make.

To change the deadline for particular goals, edit those goals' deadlines. Press Save Changes at the bottom of the page to submit.

What times are allowed?

  • 7am-12am are what we call earlybird deadlines. A deadline in this range happens the same day on the calendar (before the calendar day ends).
    • For a goal with a 12:00pm deadline, March 23 in Beeminder takes place from 12:00pm March 22 to 11:59am March 23 in the real world. Your derailment time is midday, and the date will change early.
  • 12:01am-6am are what we call nightowl deadlines. A deadline in this time happens the next day on the calendar (after the calendar day ends).
    • For a goal with a 3:00am deadline, March 23 in Beeminder takes place from 3:00am March 23 to 2:59am March 24 in the real world. Your derailment time is 3am, and the date will change late.

I'm getting an error trying to change deadlines.

Check the following common error conditions:

  • If the goal you're trying to change is on a beemergency day, do your work to get out of beemergency status, then try again. There are extra limitations placed on deadline changes when you're close to derailing:
    • You cannot delay the deadline on a beemergency day with less than 6 hours left on the countdown.
    • You cannot push the deadline into the past on a beemergency day, so that you derail immediately.
  • Your reminder start time (Start Alerts) needs to be earlier than your deadline — you cannot have reminders start at 6:30pm for an 11:30am deadline.
  • You can't have a deadline between 6am and 7am.
  • If you tried to change multiple deadlines, likely only one or two of them created the error.
  • If you tried to change your "lead days" to more than 30 days, this is the cause of the error. 30 days is the maximum length.

If it's still not working, please contact support!


Keywords: thwomp page, fwomp page, when goals are due, deadline for beemergencies, eep days

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