Post-derail Respite

Respite (formerly known as "mercy") is a flat spot or a jump added into your goal, depending on the goal type, which gives you a bit of a break after a charge has been queued up to help you get back on track. You can set how much respite you get in the "Commitment" tab under your graph, on a per-goal basis (you don't have to have the same settings for different goals).

Important: it doesn't mean that you won't be charged, though! It's designed to give you some breathing space after you've been stung, rather than giving you time to get back on track to avoid it.

Because whether you need respite or not is highly variable depending on your goal and your aims, it's totally configurable: if you need to get back on the horse right away, simply set your respite to 0, and your goal will be due at the next deadline right away after a derailment.

If you'd prefer to have a week of breathing space after you've been charged, then for a Do More or Odometer goal, you can simply set the respite to 7. Even if you have the respite set to 7, you can always ratchet the respite away after a derailment if you want the goal to be due again sooner, so you might prefer to be generous with your respite and then tweak it according to your circumstances.

For a Do Less goal, you set your respite in terms of units, so e.g. if you want to have an allowance of +3 coffees after a derailment on a goal for drinking less coffee, you'd set your respite to 3.

For Whittle Down goals and Weight goals, you can get respite like a Do More goal, with a rate of 0/day for the number of days specified. However, bear in mind that you still need to keep your data on the safe side of the line: with these goal types, you don't need to make progress toward your goal, but you can't backslide.

If you contact support to let them know a derailment was non-legit, they will typically remove the respite from your graph, putting you back on track. If you can't do your goal for a couple of days for some reason like sickness, make sure to let us know in the email when you're calling not legit! Then we'll know that we shouldn't fix the graph this time.

Keywords: formerly "no-mercy recommits" and then for a while "days of mercy", getting a reprieve after derailing