What if I only want to do something once a month?

Or once a quarter, or even once a year?

Most Beeminder goals are things people want to do pretty often (daily or weekly), but these sorts of so-called chunky goals can be managed as well. It's basically the same principle as for weekly goals, just with a bigger timescale.

It's easier to understand with an example, so let's say I want to make a goal to attend one event per quarter, but my next scheduled one isn't for another two months. I'd make a Beeminder goal to attend 4 events per year (that's 4/365 per day) and start my goal with 30 days of leeway (the max that the goal creation interface allows).

Once the goal's created, I can use the schedule-a-break feature in the STOP/PAUSE tab below the graph to extend my initial leeway to 60 days.

That gives me some safety buffer, so my goal won't derail before I can attend my first conference. After I attend it, I enter a 1 to my goal, and Beeminder will start counting down about 90 more days before I need to attend my second!

If I can't arrange something in time, I can add an extra break to carry me over to the next event, using that same schedule-a-break feature as before. The only limitation on that the break must be added at least seven days before I need it to kick in, because of the akrasia horizon.

The same principles can be applied for goals with other frequencies. For example, for a goal you want to do roughly once a month, you'd set a goal of 1/30 units per day, and safety buffer of however many days until the next time you need to do the task.

Keywords: chunky time, newbee confusion