What app/system do you use to track goals?

Hi,

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve have struggled for YEARS trying to discover an effective way to track goals AND keep them salient in my mind daily.

Goals are easily forgotten and ‘lost’ when merely typed into a note-taking app.

I’d love an app/system that has a dashboard of sorts which displays my overall progress with each goal, what’ve I’ve completed in the last X days/months/year, what’s active/waiting and some way of differentiating the importance of each.

I think the only way this could work app-wise easily is if a task manager developer added the dashboard as a feature and considered each goal to be a project.

https://www.amazingmarvin.com/ is in the early stage of creating a dashboard which can be unlocked under its ‘strategies’ but has a long ways to go. Btw, I think that if Amazing Marvin could improve it’s UI, especially the iOS app, it could be one of the best task management apps on the market (currently a Things 3 user). It has almost every feature I can think off - https://help.amazingmarvin.com/strategies

But I digress, please share your method of tracking goals.

Thanks

Beresford

4 Likes

I put long,medium, and short term goals in Devonthink

1 Like

Of course. Out of sight, out of mind.

The trick is manually performing regular reviews.

And the trick to that is setting a Reminder or recurring alarm to review those goals. Look them over on a recurring basis basis and go from there.

(Note that even with tasks, the Getting Things Done tasks methodology is dependent on weekly and even daily reviews.)

Goals are different from tasks, but if you want to meet goals you should probably think hard about the task components needed to achieve the goals, then work to complete those tasks. If you can set them to specific dates and times, all the better.

I use Todoist multiple times a day, but I use it exclusively for actionable tasks, to which I try to give dates/times (which then sync into my calendar - and I live inside my calendar). For goals with concrete steps I’ll enter them in Todoist and apply dates/times.

For some projects without specific dates I’ll usually put them in Trello, or Google Keep, or Apple Notes, but for me making lists of goals is useless unless I set reminders to review (I use Due but Reminders would work as well).

5 Likes

I’m shocking at reviews :frowning:

I use a bullet journal and (as @bowline said) reviewing often is a necessity and part of the process. I recommend Ryder Carroll’s book to get started. I also use a goal-setting roadmap I picked up from the Passion Planners I used to use.
It’s all right there in my notebook. Nothing distracting. If I need something new, like a 12-week timeline view, I just turn to an empty page and write it out. If I don’t like the way that worked, a new opportunity is a few pages away.
Some people complain that rewriting tasks is redundant, but that’s part of it. You’ve rewritten something 12 times? Time to devote some thought to it - do you need it? What’s keeping you from completing it?
Combined with Fantastical and the Reminders app, it’s all I need.

2 Likes

To wit; I wanted a timeline view of the rest of the year, so I made one.
Looking at this, I get immediate feedback: I haven’t been updating this timeline, thus my schedule may/is slipping. Thinking back, my weekly reviews have slipped as well. Now the effects of my weekly reviews slipping is evident: I might not be able to accomplish these things in the timeframe I want. Time to press on the gas, and resume the things that I know to work: Daily, weekly, monthly reviews.

1 Like

I set only two or three targets (goals). l use keyword reminders displayed on my phones lockscreen. Tasks, steps, and the like go into check-lists managed in Drafts.

I keep all my goals in DEVONTHink. I review them on the week that contains the equinoxes and solstices as part of a modified 12 Week Year program combined with my regular GTD weekly review.

I read them daily as I’m drinking my morning coffee and planning my day. That way I look for projects (GTD style) that will move me toward my goals each day. I may flag a few for extra attention using Omnifocus flags. All my active and potentially active in this season, Projects are in Omnifocus. All the rest are in DEVONThink.

1 Like

hmm I don’t struggle with goal or the review but the most important part - taking action

I’m going to look into this Marvin app thanks

Thank you. I have heard of regular reviews but had never implemented them.

Is there a particular methodology of doing reviews you’ve seen online you’d recommend? If it makes any difference I use Things 3 as my task management app and have Due app for reminders.

For the time being I’m writing my goals on my Whiteboard which is easy to see everyday - this might go some way also to making them more salient in my mind.

Have you discovered any downsides from bullet journaling? Does it not necessitate you carrying the notepad everywhere?

I’m guessing you use Reminders for well reminders… and repeating tasks?

Why use it versus and a task manager on your phone?

Good idea looking at your goals daily. Made a daily reminder to review them :slight_smile: