I try to be "fair" while playing games that do not penalize you very much.
Say, I´m doing a great run on an NSMB level while playing my DS. Then, suppose I accidentaly die. What I do is trying to get to the spot I was without gaining a single point (no power ups, no kills, no coins, no extra lives etc) so I can "continue" where I was. If I can´t avoid something (most likely a coins/a bunch of them) I just count them until I reach the spot I died, and later avoid the exact same amount of coins I couldn´t dodge before. That goes for the timer too when it doesn´t reset, because you get a time bonus too: if I die when there were like 200 seconds left, and I restart at a checkpoint with a full 500 second timer, I just let the time pass until I´m at 200 again.
Weird, I know.