Do More Goals

• When should I use a Do More?
• How should I enter data for a Do More?
• I'm on vacation and won't be working on my Do More goal. How do I pause it temporarily?
• Sample Do More goal creation

Do More goals are the simplest, most straightforward, and most common goal type. Chances are high that whatever you want to beemind, you can do it with a Do More!

When should I use a Do More?

They're for things you want to do more of than you would otherwise do if left to your own devices. Common examples: going to the gym, brushing and flossing your teeth, studying for exams, working on your side hustle, saving money, eating your vegetables, crossing items off your to-do list, calling your mom, cleaning your house, doing pushups, eating home-cooked meals, applying for jobs, doing your 10000 daily steps, going to bed before midnight... the list of what you can do goes on and on.

Really, just about anything can work as a Do More, if you enter the data the right way! If you never want to do some particular thing you could use a Do Less goal. But you could also think about it in terms of how many days a week you want to go without doing the thing! Meaning you can Do More of those thing-free days.

For instance, if you never want to eat processed sugar, you can set up a graph with a rate of 1/day. Every day you meet your goal of not eating processed sugar, you can add a +1. If you do eat sugar, you can't add a +1, and if you do that too often, you'll end up on the wrong side of the bright red line and have to pay.

How should I enter data for a Do More?

Beeminder needs to know how much you did that day toward your goal. Behind the scenes, it adds up all your datapoints to show you how much you've done since starting the goal.

Let's say I have a goal to read more books, and I commit to 100 pages per week (100/7 per day). I read 20 pages today, I submit a 20 to my graph. Tomorrow, when I read 30 pages, I'll submit 30 to my graph. The next day, I only read 5, so I submit a 5. And so on.

As the points are submitted, the graph will change something like this:

(Sharp-eyed people will have noticed that because this is a mock-up, the dates on the x-axis and submission form are wrong! You can also see a little tutorial about Beeminder which displays how a Do More goal works.)

I'm above my bright red line — doing better than my goal rate! Cool. And Beeminder's keeping a running total of all my progress for me which I can view in the "Statistics" tab, so I know I've read 55 total pages since starting my goal.

I'm going on vacation and won't be working on my Do More goal. How can I pause it temporarily?

This is super easy to do on a Do More! Using the Take a Break feature in the Stop/Pause tab below the graph, first pick the dates that you'll be away, then set the break rate to 0. This will make your bright red line flat during that time, so you don't have to make any progress until it starts sloping up again.

Which looks like this!

Sample Do More goal creation

1. Head to create a new goal (also accessible through the New Goal link in the top menu).
2. Click the + icon to start a new manual entry goal.
   
   
3. Select Do More as your goal type (because you want to Do More gym visits).
   
   
4. Enter the units you want to use and the amount you want to commit to. In this example, I'm aiming to visit my gym 5 times per week, so I need to enter 5/7 per day.
   
   If you want to delay your goal's start a few days (maybe you're traveling this weekend), be sure to tick the "Start this goal with extra leeway" box. Enter the number of days you want to delay and press Continue.
   
   

   

5. Give your goal a brief name. If you want, you can also write a short description with more information.
   
   
6. Finally, choose your initial pledge. This is the amount you will pay the first time you derail on the goal. After derailing, the pledge will increase by default — use the dropdown below to control how high it goes by selecting the cap. In the example below, I have chosen to start at a $5 pledge, which will increase each time I derail, until it reaches $270 — the pledge cap. (To read more about pledges and payments, check out some FAQs!)
   
   If you want to start out with a sort of trial period, you can choose to start the goal at $0. If you do that, the pledge will automatically increase to $5 after seven days. If you derail before that, it will also increase to $5.
   
   
7. Step through the preview and confirmation steps, and your graph will be created. Now I'll need to go to the gym in the next 4 days to avoid paying Beeminder my first $5!
   
   

Keywords: do-more goals vs do-less goals