
Ask HN: What do you use to align your daily todos with your long term goals? - mboperator
Hey HN,<p>I&#x27;m trying to figure out how a better way to stay on track with my long term (1 year) goals.<p>Currently I have a list of measurable 1 year goals (eg: Explore and work out of at least 3 cities this year)<p>I also write daily work&#x2F;life todo lists in a moleskine notebook to keep myself on track during the day.<p>Does anyone have any recommendations&#x2F;tools for keeping these daily goals todo list goals in alignment with the big picture?
======
imranq
Advice from my physics professor: make a detailed plan and then discard the
plan and do what you feel.

This doesn't mean the plan was unnecessary...rather the plan carves out the
neural pathways in your mind. The feeling part is important too since if I am
so rigid then I am going to be crushed by the randomness of life.

~~~
LVB
"Plans are nothing; planning is everything." \- Dwight D. Eisenhower

I used to hear this a lot from one of my better bosses. I agree with it. It
is, however, important to capture "planning". Any form is fine, whether
scribbles or a list or a picture of a whiteboard. Trying to organize the raw
info was usually a waste of time, but having it accessible as a reference
wasn't.

~~~
travis_d_ray
The first casualty of any war is the plan.

~~~
gspetr
He who fails to plan, plans to fail.

~~~
stagbeetle
_A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next
week._

General George S. Patton, Jr.

 _No plan survives contact with the enemy._

Unknown

~~~
jachee
A man, a plan, a canal: Panama.

\--Palindrome

------
renaudg
A critical factor of success in achieving long term goals is to schedule
corresponding daily todos on a calendar. Because if something isn't either
obviously urgent or scheduled on a calendar, it never gets done.

For this reason, I sorely miss the Timeful app (bought and shut down by
Google) which nailed the process perfectly, integrating one-off todos, habits
(e.g. 3 runs/week) and calendar management in a single system. AI-based
suggestions for scheduling todos was the icing on the cake.

To this day, sadly I still haven't found a decent replacement.

Google Calendar took the automatic habits scheduling engine from it but is
otherwise inadequate for todos, and well-established todo managers like Things
/ Wunderlist stubbornly refuse to allow something as simple as drag+dropping
todos onto a calendar at a specific _time_ of the day (which is the critical
bit), and they don't support habits ("tick this box n times a week")

Plan (getplan.co) seemed promising but is too alpha for daily use and
development seems to have stalled. SkedPal nails it in theory but is over-
engineered and bloated, its UI asks too many questions and cognitive load is
high, it needs "Apple-ification".

Any other recommendations very welcome ! Even happy to beta test or
collaborate on something new (I know the world already has too many
productivity apps, but it lost the "right" one with Timeful IMHO)

~~~
kore
Sounds like you've already tried plenty of productivity apps, but in case you
haven't tried it, I've found Todoist quite good.

The "Apple-ification" as you put it is done pretty well. In place of drag +
drop to set a time of day, tasks can be created with inline date parsing. So
tasks can be created with something like: "Meeting with Tim at Tues 3pm", and
it'd pick that up. It's missing direct support for habits aside from having
recurring todos.

If you'd like, I've got a 3-month premium code left over I can send your way.
Not affiliated with them, just a happy user.

~~~
Shank
The difference is that those apps use time blocking (e.g., block out an hour
for a task in the middle of actual calendar events) and are usually automatic
in nature. The ideal system blocks out the time for a task -- it's not just
setting a due date.

I too have tried most if not all of the tools in @renaudg's post and have come
to the same conclusion: nothing really matches Timeful.

------
blowski
A frequent-ish review. About once a month, I get a nice coffee and cake and
spend a couple of hours thinking about the last month, my current todo list
and my long term goals. I try to remove anything that doesn't contribute to
the goals, and intentionally put tasks which will move me toward my goals.

I also pray quite frequently (I'm Christian, but I believe some types of
meditation are just as effective here). I look at my principles and ask myself
whether I'm genuinely living up to them, and ask myself how I can improve.

I have tried using OmniFocus and MyLifeOrganised, but I found both tools got
in the way of my thought process. Now I just use paper and coloured pens.

~~~
fsiefken
Yes, I'm an eclectic christian, I find 'the daily examen' an Ignation
spiritual exercise - useful. Agnostics, atheists can perhaps use the same
procedure and replace the first two steps with mindfulness and gratitude
meditation and the last with goal attention. [http://www.loyolapress.com/our-
catholic-faith/prayer/persona...](http://www.loyolapress.com/our-catholic-
faith/prayer/personal-prayer-life/different-ways-to-pray/prayerfully-
reviewing-your-day-daily-examen)

------
awjr
I have a trello board with the following columns:

"Good intentions" :- Things I think I'm going to do. I investigate then put in
other columns.

"Next Up" :- Need to have a go at next.

"Working On" :- Actively doing.

"Done/Dead" :- Things that I did as well as things I failed at or discarded.

"Follow Up" :- Something happened, so need to wait on something/someone to
then allow me to continue.

"Asleep" :- Sometimes things are not 'Dead' they are just really not worth
looking at for another year or so. I evaluate these projects once a year or
and move them into Next Up if viable again.

It's my home page when I fire up my browser. ;)

~~~
samridh90
Is this roughly based on the David Allen's "Getting things done" method?

~~~
awjr
Sorry haven't read it. I just realised I can be out cycling or walking the
dog, or even just commuting to work and come up with an idea, get really deep
about it then move on with my life. The board gave me a place to put these
ideas.

I also keep ambitions on there. So one of them is "Become a councillor". I
don't plan to try and be a councillor until 2019, but it's nice to see it on
there. ;)

I'm guessing the board is about dreams, ambitions, and even the odd big task.

------
enoch_r
I cannot possibly recommend Beeminder highly enough, if you happen to have the
personality type that it works well with.

The basic idea isn't too far off from the million other "habit" apps out
there. I say I want to meditate X days a week, tell Beeminder whenever I
meditate, Beeminder gives me a pretty (okay, decently attractive) graph of how
I'm doing, and they tell me if I'm not meditating as much as I want to.

The key that makes Beeminder _stick_ (heh) is that it makes use of commitment
contracts. I don't just say I want to meditate X days a week, I _promise
Beeminder_ that if I don't meditate X days a week, I will pay them $5 (or $10,
or $30). You can cancel or decrease your goal at any time, but only with a
week of heads-up, so you can quit for a well thought out reason but not
because you just don't feel like it today.

I've tried to start a lot of habits in my life, but I've historically been
very bad at sticking with them for very long. It's so easy to give into the
"I'll just do that tomorrow" syndrome.

As an example, here's my Beeminder graph for "tidying up":
[https://www.beeminder.com/jds02006/tidyup](https://www.beeminder.com/jds02006/tidyup)

I love having a clean desk, but historically I'd have a clean desk every 6
months, followed by a slow accretion of messy crap. Now, if I don't spend 5
minutes tidying up my work area every few days, I'll have to pay Beeminder
$30. Result: my desk area is completely clear.

It sounds crazy (to my wife, at least), but it's ridiculously good at bringing
your long-term goals (and the consequences for not achieving them) into the
present.

Disclaimer: I have no association with Beeminder, but they have sent me
stickers for making bug reports. :)

~~~
daveguy
Three questions:

How much have you had to pay beeminder?

How do you make payments (escrow, credit card, PayPal, etc)?

Is it a non-profit?

It seems like this would be a _great_ opportunity for a non-profit. Although
it may reduce the incentive a bit. I expect it will be psychologically
similar. Especially if the non-profit overhead is something like 10%. You are
effectively losing 10% of what could have gone directly to your non-profit of
choice.

~~~
passivepinetree
Their FAQ is here:
[https://www.beeminder.com/faq](https://www.beeminder.com/faq)

1\. You set the payment amount, but the default is exponential. (Edit: didn't
read your comment thoroughly enough the first time to know you were referring
to the OP, not the general policy.)

2\. Payments are done via credit card, although Paypal support seems to be in
the works.

3\. It does not appear to be a non-profit. It looks like a business where
Beeminder's living is made off of people paying when they fail their goals.

~~~
infinityplus1
Their company's success depends on their product's failure. Pretty funny if
you ask me.

~~~
dreeves
Oh man, we really need to bump this to the top of our FAQ :)

[https://www.beeminder.com/faq#qcoi](https://www.beeminder.com/faq#qcoi)

But maybe the best way to refute that is that we've been around 5.5 years and
our long-term churn (not counting short-term churn of dabblers which is
embarrassingly high cuz Beeminder is super nerdy and intimidating-looking!) is
only 2%/month.

PS: Huge thanks to enoch_r for the beautiful testimonial!

~~~
daveguy
Premium seems really pricey as the only one that has a "give to charity"
option. I expect some increased options to give to charity (10,20,40,60) would
be a significant boost to good will / advertisement. "50% but only if you pay
us $30+/mo" comes off as kind of greedy.

~~~
dreeves
Super valuable feedback; thank you!

I realize your feedback is about the impression it gives, totally separate
from how greedy we actually are, but we're still tiny ($22k/mo revenue with
3.5 FTEs). And like enoch_r and mgiannopoulos have averred, paying the
penalties to Beeminder generally feels super fair. So that's why we've limited
the charity option to the ultra-VIP plan. (We're super open to more feedback
about this though. We tend to get a highly biased sample of opinion from our
users, i.e., the people who weren't immediately put off by our apparent greed.
:))

------
firehawk895
David Allen's getting things done hands down. You don't even need to read the
book to implement it, although it's a great read. here's the 15-minute summary
that will get you going right now -
[https://hamberg.no/gtd/](https://hamberg.no/gtd/) \- I have used Trello to
implement it - here's a screenshot.
[http://i.imgur.com/dbH8yGq.png](http://i.imgur.com/dbH8yGq.png)

specifically answering your question - this framework makes you regularly
review your task list and ensures that you have a quantifiable next action for
every large scale (1-year project) that you can do to reach your final goal.

~~~
renaudg
The problem with GTD is that it explicitly discourages you to schedule tasks
at a specific time unless strictly necessary : you're always supposed to do
whatever is "next" in the "context" you're in. You're never done, and this can
be taxing and make you want to give up.

Newer research (Dan Ariely's IIRC) has shown that having tasks on the calendar
improves the chances of actually doing a realistic number of them.

~~~
codemac
Personally, I've found that if I put something on my calendar that I don't do,
it really starts to spoil my calendar.

When I "trust" my calendar, I eventually have become able to put something on
there, at a specific time, that I'll actually do as if it's a committment to
someone else.

I do think there is a psychology about how you approach your work. My personal
anecdote is that because I believe that I'll always have more committments,
more work, and more tasks than I can _ever_ get done, GTD works wonders for
me. I put things in their relevant contexts, and I do whatever the next most
important is. As long as I know I'm doing the next most important thing in the
context I currently am in (including NOT doing something from my lists), then
I have a calm confidence in what I'm spending my time.

Others really like to have a "daily calendar" where they put what they think
they should get to in the day, and then work through the list to "finish" the
day. I tend to get too many interruptions, and too many bombs from others at
work and home to really trust that I can say I'll get any _specific_ action
done today, and certainly not in what order. Day specific events in the
calendar I have found very useful though.

------
steventhedev
Google calendar and an hour each morning to move actions related to long-term
goals into your short term todo list (notebook in your case).

However, bear in mind that plans are rarely followed to execution perfectly.
You may meet someone who wants you to stay, or you may get a really good
offer. You might experience financial hardship and need to settle down for a
while.

When I go on a hike, I spend a good hour or two studying maps (topographical,
orthophoto, etc) before picking a trail. It means that I can decide on a whim
to follow another trail halfway through if conditions call for it (mud, rain,
wild animals, etc). Planning is about mapping out all possible outcomes, and
not so much about following one plan to the letter.

~~~
newbear
Thanks for this. I usually rush through planning/organization because I think
it shouldn't take long, especially just for day to day things. But you
mentioning that you give an hour is eye opening. Do you do this at work or
before? How do you stay motivated/consistent to do it everyday?

~~~
hvidgaard
An hour seems quite a bit much for day to day. If you have trouble organizing
things, a Bullet Journal might bea good starting point.

In any case, long term goals often don't require much day to day action. Let's
the long term goal is to save money for buying a house. That involves making a
budget and sticking to it. Once a week you go over expenses and see if you
need to make corrections.

If the goal is to travel the world, you start by planning where to go to. Then
you figure out what medical actions you need to take, what VISA you need to
apply for, ect. All of this requires some timeframe - you have to plan this
and put it into you calendar. And once every month you go over what you need
to do this month, and every week you go over what needs to happen this week.

The motivation to do this is the end goal. I wish I could tell you something
magical, but it is dedication and deciplin. Make it easy for yourself, do it
while you have a nice cup of coffee or whatever you like.

------
nzjrs
> moleskine notebook

Ok. That's a weird detail to bother hipsterbragging about.

Anyway, I have a post it on my monitor that says. "Just do the fucking thing
and stop doing busywork". I have a second one that says "Successful people
have better things to do than arguing on reddit/hn"

Tldr; constant visible progress, cut distractions

~~~
kittenmittens
Consider for a moment that it might not be a "hipsterbrag" and just a
colloquial name for a type of notebook. The concept of "Syncing" to paper is
quite common[1][2].

[1][http://robertgreiner.com/2013/03/sync-to-
paper/](http://robertgreiner.com/2013/03/sync-to-paper/)
[2][https://www.hanselman.com/blog/TotallyStressedOutSyncToPaper...](https://www.hanselman.com/blog/TotallyStressedOutSyncToPaper.aspx)

~~~
xiaoma
I've been going through notebooks (both lined and plain), doodling and
journaling on and off for a long time but I've never owned a moleskine. I
generally just go with whatever notebooks they have in stationary stores or
Daiso.

What type is "moleskine" a colloquial name for, exactly? I had thought they
were just pricey notebooks with hard covers but I've never seen one except in
ads...

~~~
detaro
> _What type is "moleskine" a colloquial name for, exactly?_

All notebooks with black covers, at least in some circles. (As in, anything
that looks somewhat like the products by the brand moleskine. Which are nice,
but as you say pricey and not necessarily better than other brands, even if
you care about details in your notebooks)

------
hbt
I like the 4dx approach. Lead measures vs Lag measures.

you pick a long term goal and associate a metric to it.

Example: weight from 180 to 170 That's your lag measure.

Your lead measure are the activities you get done daily.

\- Daily caloric intake

\- sleep schedule

\- exercise routine

\- water intake

\- intermittent fasting

Your lead measure influence your lag measure but as the name indicates, it
takes time before you notice the effect.

Focus on your lead metrics and adjust when they are not working.

~~~
taude
I read about this in the book, Deep Work. I guess there's a book just about it
(that my boss forwarded to me once).

------
mgiannopoulos
Beeminder ([https://www.beeminder.com/](https://www.beeminder.com/)) is
mentioned below, I've been using it for 2.5 years. The last 3 months I'm also
doing some planning in a digital form (but all manual) of the paper-based
Bullet Journal method [http://bulletjournal.com/](http://bulletjournal.com/)

------
egypturnash
Train yourself to think the following:

Any day in which I do not make progress towards one of my Big Goals is a
failure. Any day in which I do make progress is a success.

Remember this when you decide what today's todos are. Remind yourself of this
when you have to juggle priorities and ditch half of your list for today
because something came up. And forgive yourself for the times you fall off the
wagon; shit happens. But let that little bit of "I got fuck-all done today"
guilt carry over to the next morning to spur you to the Big Important
Projects.

This is how I kept myself working on long projects, first one that took a
year, then one that took five years. Some parts were slower than others. Some
were interrupted by life.

The fewer Big Things you have to juggle, the easier it is to keep returning to
them.

Use whatever todo list makes you happy. Personally I use a lightweight version
of the Pomodoro method; I write down 3-5 things to do with my day on a post-
it, with 4-8 checkboxes total next to them, each representing a half an hour.
I usually never check all of them because Things Come Up. This post-it stays
on my desk, and gets the next day's stuck on top of it. Every now and then I
look at old ones and toss them.

------
hoodwink
Stop focusing on long-term goals (outcomes) and focus on daily habits
(process). For example, rather than focusing on learning French, do 15 minutes
of Duolingo every day.

~~~
mboperator
Ahh how could I forget the "systems based" approach.

Relevant: [http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102964992706/goals-vs-
systems](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102964992706/goals-vs-systems)

I think aligning daily habits with long term goals could be beneficial

------
laktek
You can apply the concept of OKRs [0] for this. Think Objectives as your long
term goals and Key Results as your routine tasks. When you pick a daily task
you should be able to point to the objective it'd satisfy.

I've been ignoring it thinking it's corporate BS and doesn't really apply to
personal life. But I tried it in last year (where I quit my day job to
bootstrap my own startup) and felt having a systematic thinking is actually
productive.

[0] [https://library.gv.com/how-google-sets-goals-
okrs-a1f69b0b72...](https://library.gv.com/how-google-sets-goals-
okrs-a1f69b0b72c7#.nlpxbxyo4)

------
beat
Someone once said look after the molehills, and the mountains will take care
of themselves.

The best thing I ever did for my to-do habit was to get rid of the backlog. I
don't backlog tasks now. I only track things I am working on now, or will be
working on immediately after. The backlog caused an urgent-vs-important
conflation that led to a lot of analysis paralysis.

If something isn't important enough to stay at the top of my mind, it's not
that important.

------
jwdunne
Interesting because I looked at goal setting some time ago. If you Google
"goal setting doesn't work", you'll find as much against it.

Having a rough idea of where you want to go and setting yourself a number of
small wins in the right direction could help you. Get into the habit of daily
small wins that you know is moving you towards your true north.

As another point, I see systems and habits referenced below. Interesting
because I'm midway through Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. Here is what he
did:

He worked out a set of virtues that he thought he ought to have, such as
temperance, industry, silence, etc.

Using that, he then used the calender method that's proposed a lot on each
virtue to instill​ them as habits!

I'm inclined to say he was an early self-help author but also one that has
something other than success in self-help as a justification for his methods.

~~~
ianai
I've found todo lists help, but "done" lists help almost more. It gives me a
larger sense of accomplishment.

------
XFrequentist
[https://complice.co](https://complice.co)

Complice is aimed at exactly this problem. Integrates a bunch of other
productivity hacks as well, I love it.

The founder was interviewed on indie hackers recently:
[https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/complice](https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/complice)

~~~
poppingtonic
You can also use Complice in a group setting, using rooms, if you think you
might need accountability buddies.

~~~
malcolmocean
Here's the Hacker News room, for instance:
[https://complice.co/room/hackers](https://complice.co/room/hackers)

(Not a lot of people in it lately, but we could change that ;) )

~~~
omgdlight
hey not to derail a thread recommending your app (which I think is pretty
nice! I drop into the lw coworking room sometimes), but I've never quite
figured out how to take advantage of it, despite feeling like I should be the
kind of person who can (I do daily intention / outcome logging, I have a
premium beeminder sub, I do pomodoros and stuff like that). I've done the free
trial a couple times but never managed to get it into my flow in a way that
quite justified the cost.

Anyway this post isn't going to give you enough information to recommend
anything highly specific, but do you have any ideas what I might have been
missing?

Maybe I've just already got that kind of thing well enough sorted, but then,
I'm not entirely satisfied with my current approach to self planning.

------
iamnothere
I use Panda Planner, a physical notebook designed to help you with monthly,
weekly, and daily prioritization. I have found that the process of physically
writing down and tracking goals each day forces me to sort through my mental
clutter and decide what is important.

For me, this priority-setting process is really a separate domain than daily
task tracking, project-level organization, and so on. As long as I do that
daily review, it doesn't really matter where I keep my task breakdowns. I
actually use several of those to keep tasks separated based on the project
domain -- Visual Studio Online for development, Todoist for marketing, and so
on.

~~~
tedmiston
Knowing nothing else about this planner yet, you really gotta give it up to
the founder for what he's persevered through to launch it:

> WHY I CREATED PANDA PLANNER

> For over five years of my life, I was hampered by Lyme Disease, Traumatic
> Brain Injury (TBI), and most recently, Cancer. Each of these on their own
> was enough to knock me on my back and render me mostly useless, but the
> combination resulted in a perfect storm of depression, anxiety and inability
> to think clearly. Naturally this was something of a bummer!

[https://pandaplanner.com/pages/about-
us](https://pandaplanner.com/pages/about-us)

------
AJRF
I started looking at GTD and then just thought, some of these ideas are good,
others I don't need, so I just made my own version of it.

So I have the following Cards in a Trello Board;

1\. Inbox -> Things I can reasonably expect to complete in a day or less 2\.
In Progress -> Limited to 5 per day 3\. Projects -> Working on an app? Put
details in here 4\. Reminders/Waiting -> I've sent a form in, waiting a
response before next action 5\. Some Day -> Things I would like to tackle some
day (Good for reviewing long term goals) 6\. Complete / Split into smaller
tasks

------
VohuMana
Not sure if this will help but one way I have helped map my todos with my long
term goal is: \- Get a large white board or sheet of paper, the key here is a
lot of space to write/draw. \- Draw a circle and write one of your goals. \-
Now think of everything you need to do to accomplish that goal and create
circles with those things written in then and draw a line to the main goal. \-
Now repeat the same process for each of the smaller circles and keep going
till you have a feeling that everything is in bite sized chunks. (These are
essentially your todos) \- Now create a timeline and add milestones (eg:
Monthly milestones) figure out how many circles you need to get done before
each milestone. \- Now you should have a good idea of what you need to have
done and by when to be on track.

it doesn't work very well for goals that are hard to measure but it can be
applied in a lot of situations. Good luck tackling all your goals :)

~~~
nefitty
Awesome idea. A good mind-mapping app should do the trick for this as well.
I'm gonna give it a go tonight!

------
koliber
For me, it involved making the big picture __big __, vivid, specific, and
tangible.

I was introduced to the idea of a Painted Picture. It is a goal setting
methodology that involves heavy visualization. This particular incarnation was
developed by Cameron Harold, as part of his coaching activities.

It made a big impact on my life.

The gist is that you write down, in narrative form, what your day will look
like exactly 3 years from now. You write in the first person form, diving into
various areas of your life. It should involve as much detail as possible.
Ideally, these should be very optimistic goals which you dream of, rather than
safe ones you are very likely to hit. It's OK if all of them don't
materialize.

Example:

On March 13, 2020, I will be sitting in my comfortable arm chair in my living
room. A fire will be roaring in the fireplace, and I will be looking over my
emails. The kids just left to school. My wife drove them in our BMW VJ850. She
is currently at work at MegaCorp, giving a presentation to the board about the
XYZ initiative, which has a huge chance of success and will give her a real
chance at the CXO position.

You continue on for two pages or so, going into minute details. Talk about
your kids, your home, your relationship with your friends, the kind of food
you want to be eating, professional activities, health, hobbies, charitable
activities, political activism, and whatever else you want to affect
positively. To keep it interesting, you can talk about what just happened ("We
recently returned from a two week cruise in the Bahamas") or what is coming up
("I will be spending a week with a new client doing KJI advising. This is the
biggest deal I've landed thus far. They have agreed to my $2,000 per diem
rate. I'm confident they will be happy with the value I provide for them.")

Dream big. Share it with your significant other, if they're in it. Encourage
them to write one of their own.

How does this help with the day to day goal setting and decision making?

It's uncanny! The imagery is so vivid that it permeates my daily life. My wife
and I talk about it regularly. Whenever daily decisions need to be made, the
painted picture comes to mind and guides me towards my goals. When I need
decide what to do today, this week, or this month, and choose between the
infinite possible activities I could be doing, having this powerful
visualization in the back of my mind aligns me with my goals.

------
mmattax
Disclaimer: This is my startup.

We're building Jell ([https://jell.com](https://jell.com)) to tackle this
problem. We have 2 sets of core functionality: OKR tracking, and "checkins"
which can act as a daily/weekly/monthly "standup".

You can add plans/tasks to your checkins (and mark them as complete), and link
these items to your OKR's.

We've seen a lot of companies have success with our tool (many replacing daily
standups with it). We'd love feedback.

~~~
nikisweeting
What does Jell do better than
[https://www.workingon.co/](https://www.workingon.co/)?

------
Joeri
For my personal life I don't write down long term goals, because I want to
live in the now and not in the future.

Professionally, I use outlook's todos with three priority classes: some time
(low, where long term goals go), soon (normal), and today (high). Each list is
organized like a backlog with most important first. I also color-code them by
type (coding, process improvement, personal, and delegated). I scan the list
regularly, and promote, split, join, add, remove or move down items as needed.

~~~
BiohaZd
Sound like you are scared of the future. I am the same, don't have long term
goals...

~~~
stinos
_Sound like you are scared of the future._

Depends on what you mean with _future_. I also don't have long term goals and
you could say I'm actually _not_ scared of the future because it's impossible
to know what it will be (well, only death is a certainty) so to me it is
illogical to be scared of it. Or you could say I am scared of a 'known
future'. Like, If I'd set a goal to finish the renovations on my house in 1
year, I'd feel somewhat uneasy because I would know there is a possibility I
might get bored over a year becasue there's no more renovation work to do. At
the same time though I'd realize such a goal is unrealistic at best (again,
impossible to predict what you'll encounter, delays due to physical problems,
...) so I wouldn't be scared about whether the goal would be reached.

------
everyone
I have a LIFE trello board for big things, and various other trello boards for
individual things which will have daily tasks on them. So one card on the LIFE
board will spawn an entire other board when I actually start properly planning
it, and the initial cards will also multiply into many as I actually start
doing them and breaking them down into their smallest component parts (ie. if
it was programming, some thing I could do in one sitting if possible)

ps. In terms of timelining stuff I just make schedules in my notebook. Each
line in my notebook might be a day or a week or a month depending. They
usually dont last very long and I am always sketching new ones. I do tend to
write and sketch a lot and draw the aforementioned timetables and also
diagrams which really help me think about stuff. I try and keep that in
chronological order in my notebook (rather than just be drawing on random
scraps of paper), so only the last few pages are really relevant to me now but
I can also go back and look at older long-term timelines.

So my 'what to do' and 'when to do' are seperate. Thats makes sense imo, as
the way to do the best job would just be to work through the what to do in
order and take as long as it takes. The 'when to do' is often an external
artificial deadline or whatnot

------
mysterydip
One thing I think is missing from a lot of processes or tools is feedback of
some kind comparing expectations to reality to help you set more achievable
goals and better timelines in the future.

If I have a goal to do X within a month and it takes me two instead, I should
look back and see where the discrepancy was. Did other things come up I didn't
account for, or did the process take more manhours, or was more
research/training required to have competency to complete the task?

------
f_allwein
Have you looked into Getting Things Done? It's a methodology for managing your
tasks based on dumping everything in one place (I made a Google sheet) and
then prioitizing. Part of it is that you make lists of your goals for
different time frames (e.g. 1 year, 3-5 years) and revisit them regularly.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done)

~~~
firehawk895
I made a trello board, lot more fun and you can use an android widget to add
things quickly into the inbox :)
[http://i.imgur.com/dbH8yGq.png](http://i.imgur.com/dbH8yGq.png)

------
yn37
I also struggled with sticking to bigger goals.

Just wrote a post about the approach that worked for me --
[http://claudiu.dragulin.com/2017/03/14/how-to-align-your-
dai...](http://claudiu.dragulin.com/2017/03/14/how-to-align-your-daily-todos-
with-your-long-term-goals/)

Short version: \- Make a list on a sheet of paper with clear, simple,
manageable steps to your goal \- Have it on your desk next to you at all times
\- Watch the magic happen

I also tried different tools and software-based approaches (reminders,
checklists, etc) but I found that they were mostly distracting.

The simpler the solution, the better -- therefore, plain sheet of paper.

Key thing here was to always have it in front of me, next to any other todo
list I may have for the day. As long as I did that, I never had to worry about
updating my daily todos, or aligning them with my goal, or anything like that.

------
vvdcect
So I use 3 trello boards and break my goals/todos into cards. My long & short
term todo boards are sorted by icebox, work in progress and done. My daily
agenda is sorted into 3 lists, morning, afternoon and evening. I've been using
this for almost 6 months and it's pretty simple to manage.

~~~
OJFord
How does daily/afternoon/evening work? Do you archive them when they're done,
rather than moving to 'done' as in the other boards?

~~~
vvdcect
Most of the cards are fixed. So for instance my morning list has checklist
cards like: Exercise, Daily reading, To Read etc.. The only exceptions are
cards based on things I need to do for that day, i.e send email to x or call
y, these cards will get archived and deleted.

------
nefitty
In terms of higher-level concepts, I've recently been thinking​ a lot about
identity-based motivation. This is basically the theory that we should expect,
even welcome, difficulties encountered when engaging in activities that are
relevant to our ideal future self. The initial step is to elucidate who we
want to be, and then bring that identity to mind when we encounter failure.
This reframing might be more effective than, say, believing I am dopamine
deficient, that I'm lazy or that I'm not talented enough to complete the task
at hand, etc. If I know the path to who I want to be (a well-traveled
explorer, to use OP's example) will be difficult and I suddenly encounter a
difficulty, instead of feeling dejected, the difficulty will motivate me
instead, as it is a signpost that I am becoming who I want to be.

Some of this may seem obvious, especially to people who are already super
achievers, but I've been finding it a worthwhile way to think about my
behavior.

Here are some links if this sparks any interest:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_based_motivation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_based_motivation)

[https://youtu.be/0bwvP-Zk_wM](https://youtu.be/0bwvP-Zk_wM)

The research conclusion so far is a bit convoluted. I don't know if any
popular writers have run with the idea yet.

To sum up:

1\. Pick who you want to be in the future (ex: a good friend),

2\. Expect to encounter difficulty on the path (ex: my friend needs help
moving, it's gonna suck and I'm not gonna be able to work on my project today,
but I know sustaining close friendships will be hard),

3\. Take actions that will be congruent with your future identity (ex: I went
out of my to help my friend move to his new apartment, I did it because every
day I try to take advantage of my opportunities to be a better friend)

------
mezod
I've been pretty obsessed with this topic for quite some time, I implemented
my own todolist, kanban, and other productivity tools and my conclusion is
that in the end what gets you far is routine/habits. In other words, doing it
every day. If in your case the goal is to explore 3 cities this year, then
have a list of small things you can do in that direction and do at least one
every day. And don't add dumb things to the list to have a false sense of
productivity, it's better to have days off than to fool yourself.

Coincidentally, I just made my own habit tracker this week to help me in this
direction too, [http://everydaycheck.com](http://everydaycheck.com) in case
you want to check it out...

~~~
suby
Looks like there's an issue rendering the page in Firefox.

[http://i.imgur.com/UizeUqM.png](http://i.imgur.com/UizeUqM.png)

~~~
mezod
edit: or better, it should be working now, care to confirm? THANKS

hmm that's very bad, thanks for letting me know!

It does seem to work properly on firefox here for any screen size, would you
mind sharing which FF version are you using? thanks again!

~~~
suby
It is indeed working now!

------
JaviLopezG
I draw on my window a dashboard with a kind of life's game. I needed 1 million
of points to get a price (allow myself to startup another company). I can earn
points and bonuses doing things like workout, travel, launch with my family,
rock climbing, party with friends, develop small projects,... I had some
additional rules. All mornings I spent a minute puting strikes near the icons
of the things I did past day. Everyday I look the picture of how well I was
doing on my life's game and once in a while y added the number of strikes to
totals and got bonuses, etc. It worked for me for a while and it was funny but
I stopped my count when I moved to other place where my window is smaller than
the previous one.

~~~
onion2k
_I draw on my window a dashboard with a kind of life 's game. I needed 1
million of points to get a price (allow myself to startup another company)._

If you've recognised a pain that you solve for people and that could turn in
to a viable business, waiting until you completed an arbitrary number of other
tasks seems like a pointless exercise.

On the other hand, if you don't have a solution to a pain point, this might be
a brilliant way to productively put off starting something you
(sub)consciously know is a bad idea.

~~~
JaviLopezG
Start a business is really hard here (Spain). With my last one I learnt a lot,
but I also lost a lot: all my savings and money from family and other people.
I invested a lot of time so I didn't spend that time with my family and
friends. Here, you can lost the rest of your life if you fail. I failed and
now I have a lot of problems for this reason. For example, I have some open
cases with government yet. I knew that it was a possibility but I chose and
lost.

With all of this, I don't think that an idea is really important. Execution is
more important. Nevertheless, I know that I will start another company
someday, but I need to be sure that I regenerate my self before value a new
idea or start the execution of one.

------
bevan
I made a web app exactly for this- for staying focused on your most important
1-year goal. It reminds you of your goal in every new browser tab (with the
accompanying browser extension), so that your goal always stays top-of-mind.
It also reminds you to record your daily progress and to track your goal-
related habits.

It has other productivity tools as well (pomodoro timer; habit tracker;
brainstorm tool) all dedicated to your top 1-year goal.

It's called Focal Point ([https://focal.pt](https://focal.pt)), check out a
demo dashboard here: [https://focal.pt/demo](https://focal.pt/demo)

~~~
markprovan
This looks pretty much what I'm after. Do you offer any sort of data export?

~~~
bevan
I've added a data export feature for journals, habits, and pomodoro sessions.

------
gits1225
Every time I'm faced with a decision, I close my eyes and see the same
picture. Whenever I consider an action, I ask myself, will this action help to
make this picture a reality? Pull it out of my mind and into the world? And I
only act if the answer is yes.

\- Little Finger

Deliberately add your to-dos. Before adding a to-do (to asana / on paper) ask
this question: Does this to-do get you closer to what you want to accomplish?
If no, do not add it. If yes, prioritize first (no two to-dos are equal,
choose the ones with the most impact) and then bucket it according to
Eisenhower Decision Matrix.

As your morning routine, review your matrix to stay on track.

------
phugoid
For the big projects in my life right now, I just keep track of my time spent,
on a daily basis, in a text file. I've found that if I spend enough time,
things get done. A simple breakdown of 30 minutes on this, 90 minutes on that
is enough.

Looking back at what I've been doing this week, it's pretty clear what areas
I've been neglecting.

Anything more than this would not get updated regularly. My time log also
works like Jerry Seinfeld's Xs on the calendar; I'm motivated to put in a
minimum of effort today to avoid breaking the chain.

------
welanes
> I'm trying to figure out how a better way to stay on track with my long term
> (1 year) goals...Does anyone have any recommendations/tools for keeping
> these daily goals todo list goals in alignment with the big picture?

Here's my approach: Define the goal, measure progress, complete todos.

 _Define the goal_ : I use Onenote. It's so freedom enabling (click anywhere,
type) that it's perfect for jotting down all parts of your long term goals. At
this stage a todo list is too rigid to record something this abstract. A
mindmap is also good but the Ctrl + E search in Onenote is the best. You'll
visit this once a week or so.

 _Measuring progress_ : Again Onenote, list the months and add new checkboxes
(Ctrl + 1) under each month for each subgoal you want to get accomplished.
You'll visit this a couple of times a week.

 _Completing todos_ : This is where your todo app comes into play. Map your
subgoals to todos and record how much time you spend on them. At the end of
each week all your completed todos should see you tick some of the checkboxes
in Onenote. You'll visit this as often as you're working on the goal.

For me, this is a simple but visual method of progress spread across just two
pieces of software.

 _May I opportunistically suggest[https://lanes.io](https://lanes.io) as that
second piece of software. It's a todo app I've built to help support this
approach - timer, charts etc._

------
mathattack
It's good to have an interim time period. I usually set my rolling To Do list
weekly. Early every Monday morning (like today) I figure out what I need to
get done, and it gives me a chance to look at the bigger picture. Some people
do this monthly, but I find weekly works better.

I use Evernote to keep track of list, but that's not based on any tremendous
amount of research. Someone else told me that's what they use, and it's easier
for me to find things there than on paper.

------
pors
Make sure that working on your long term goals gets priority over working on
the rest of your todos. It sounds simple, but it is not.

How to do that is different for everyone. What worked for me is the "Deep
Work" method as described in this book:
[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25744928-deep-
work](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25744928-deep-work)

------
EduardMe
Hi, I had exactly the same problem and was also using a moleskine
journal/calendar kind of notebook for every day. I couldn't find any apps
supporting my style of workflow, so I designed NotePlan
([http://noteplan.co](http://noteplan.co)) for Mac, iPhone and iPad:

NotePlan is a daily planner app based on markdown. You can

\- fill a note with todos and other text for every day (just like moleskin).

\- You have a calendar with an overview of all your notes.

\- Store reference material, backlogs, checklists, etc in separate project
notes.

\- Link everything together with Markdown. Use markdown also to format your
text and segment it through headers into different projects

\- NotePlan pulls your data from Reminders and iCalendar events automatically
into the calendar and every note.

\- Everything is saved and backed-up in plain text files inside your iCloud
Drive. Nothing hidden and nothing on our servers.

Learn more here: [http://noteplan.co](http://noteplan.co)

And besides using this tool, I'm writing a lot of notes. I'm writing down
everything coming to my mind. Then sorting it into project notes and finally
scheduling it into days, if those are actionable. Most importantly I'm
reviewing all notes each sunday, at least 2 hours. See my article here for
more details: [https://hackernoon.com/turn-your-todo-list-into-a-
productivi...](https://hackernoon.com/turn-your-todo-list-into-a-productivity-
machine-3577f6c9dedd#.gpjhurohu)

Let me know, if you got questions, happy to answer :)

------
erikb
My tips:

A) the next step is more important than the final goal. Always work on having
a next step not for immediate work, but for what you do after finishing
something.

B) Coop with others who are important to achieve your goal, who share your
goal, or who have your well being as one of their goals (i.e. life partner).
Have regular meetings, e.g. once a month, with that topic. Meeting to eat
something with the goal as headline helps to start talking about status
updates.

C) Have multiple goals. Often we get stuck at one goal, but at the same time
opportunity at another goal opens. It is inefficient, but that's life. Usually
we don't have to work hard to figure out multiple goals. Health, family,
language learning, holidays. There are already goals in your head you may not
currently think about.

The rest basically happens on its own. E.g. if your "next step" is too
complicated, you can't explain it to your wife in your monthly "goal X
dinner". If you can't progress with "goal X" you will automatically switch to
"goal Y" out of laziness and frustration.

------
trengrj
I use remember the milk
[https://www.rememberthemilk.com](https://www.rememberthemilk.com).

I have one list called Goals. These are my major long term goals that are very
rarely termed complete and I use more the notes functionality to mention
progress.

Then I have other lists for work, life, and personal projects.

It works pretty well though I imagine you could do the same thing with a
notebook.

------
ptero
The system that works well for me is to think (as in really think, focused and
uninterrupted) every morning and decide what I should be working on today.
Dedicate 10 minutes to this _before_ I head out to work and get distracted by
the emergencies of the day.

This, for me, greatly helps aligning daily work with long term goals. I can
still get sidetracked, but usually not too much. YMMV.

~~~
scaasic
I usually do something similar, but write it out the night before along with
my journal entry for the day. It helps me cut down on my list of things I
_should_ do, but aren't urgent/have deadlines. I guess it works because I'm
just more optimistic about my productivity ahead of time and commit myself to
more than I would in the moment, but get it done regardless.

------
ioddly
I use a tool that I wrote, evolved from a Trello board:
[https://github.com/ioddly/meditations](https://github.com/ioddly/meditations)

Specifically, there's a daily, monthly, and yearly list, all on the same
screen. So if your goal for example is to exercise, you'd be tracking things
day by day, but get a monthly summary (e.g. I exercised 75% of the days I was
supposed to this month).

I do have some goals in mind, but I find that tying them to time is the wrong
way to go. i.e. I'd like to get back to a 2x bodyweight deadlift, but it's
better to try and make 100% of my lifting sessions and complete the programs I
am on than it is to worry about when exactly I will hit that goal.

So the actual todos are derived from a system that should eventually lead to
that goal, rather than achieving the goals. I then evaluate my progress
monthly and yearly. (did I do everything I was supposed to? Am I closer to the
goal? If not, how should I change the approach?).

------
Xeps
I've put a lot of thought into year-long planning. I've surveyed 5 of my
friends and here's the answers i got:

Q: How do you visually plan out your year and keep track? A: I use the
calendar app on my mobile phone My issue: logging stuff in a mobile device
that is really small, doesn't allow you to see big picture and serve as a
constant reminder

Q: How do you visually plan out your year and keep track? A: I use a calendar
book that i purchased My issue: the book itself doesn't give a year-long
summary, it is more of a monthly/daily note jotter.

My solution: look for something i can use to place in my room and serve as a
reminder of my year-long goals. It should be something that i can use every
year and something i should be able to modify/remove/add as days go by (goals
change, people change).

My options:

Option #1 - a real electronic device that is large enough for me to plan out
my year. Thoughts - this is not feasible. I remember back in the day when they
first tried to market "Microsoft Surface". This is before they came out with
the surface products, it was initially marketed as an electronic table board
that was large enough and interactive enough for you to comb through many
problems milennials face today (illustrating thoughts, long-term planning and
design).

Option #2 - a hard surface non-electronic annual calendar that will
immediately visualize my year and allow me to strategically segment my annual
plans visually. So i found this product listed below, and decided that i would
pin it in my room with half-inch steel top pins (these also exist) and use
dry-erase markers.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IH79IIM/ref=oh_aui_deta...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IH79IIM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

~~~
Xeps
i just realized AR/VR would be a 3rd option.

------
falsedan
Work:

* have occasional roadmap meetings with decision-makers from the department/greater org

* * discuss growth target/expectations for 1-2 years out

* assuming the growth, identify what will prevent us from hitting it

* * systems+processes that can't scale

* * long-term migration plans

* use these as long-term goals

* every quarter, look at the goals and identify something we can achieve in 3 months to get closer

* * write it down with deliverables

* * work out who is available to do the work

* do sprints/agile/etc. until the end of quarter

* review

Home:

* come up with the 1-2 year goals

* * remember them (or write them down)

* make Trello tickets in a Some Day list for things you can do right now that get you closer to your goals

* * rank them by importance/deadline (do this whenever you feel like it)

* take one from the top and put them into a Today list

* do them

* * if something stops you, put them in a Waiting… list with a deadline & indication of who you're waiting on

* * * e.g. Open a Stock Trading Account [waiting for response] [due 3 weeks] "sent off the paperwork to trader & waiting for account details"

* move them to a Done in 2017-03 list when they're done

* * archive the list at the end of the period

~~~
falsedan
I guess the thing that makes both of these work is the periodic
reprioritisations + limiting the number of tasks to manage

edit: also not allocating time for a task to be done: tasks take as long as
they need to, there's no "I will have updated my IRA investment preferences by
2017-03-14" because you'll miss those dates and then train yourself not to be
worried about them (and ignore them), OR have an introspective fugue on where
exactly you went wrong as a person who can't even complete a simple task that
other people could do in 5 minutes what is wrong with you

------
sivanesanms
I stopped relying on tools. Discipline is what it all takes.

Every year from Christmas I do a retrospective for all 52 weekends, my year
goals, personal progress and professional progress. I try to find out where my
money goes and my time as well. How Happy I was etc.

Make a year plan and print it and put it in your cube (in your home). Yes,
please set up an office space in Home. It works.

Then make detailed plan for 52 weekends and weeks aligning to your yearly
goals.

Now buy 1$ yearly calendar from dollarstore and fill it up. WHen I turn it
each month I know what I should be doing this month. Also I align or change it
with some buffer time.

Mostly I miss my deadlines, because my estimations are wrong or the new
technology or programming language I am learning takes more time than I
expected.

At the end I am happy that I am two steps ahead by planning compare to some
one who has never planned.

Now if you ask about the results between a planner and non-planner, I don't
know what to say.

------
andthenrobots
I have never in my life made long term plans and I don't know many people that
do. Maybe making long term plans is a cultural thing? Despite not having a
plan, life seems to work out just fine.

For those that do cherish long term plans: don't you get fed up with the
perpetual feeling of "being not quite there yet"?

~~~
Jtsummers
Never? You never planned to start and finish university? You never planned to
make a large purchase (like a home)? Never planned a project that was going to
take longer than a few months, possible requiring years of time? Never had a
long-term relationship, which often requires identifying shared or compatible
life-goals to make it sustainable?

At some point, like budgeting your income, planning has the effect of reducing
the rat-race feel of life. I always had enough money, but once I started
budgeting it, I had an abundance of it (recognized needless spending, directed
my goals more effectively). Losing weight was a long-term goal for me, I got
there, and then it become a long-term goal of being truly fit, not just a
healthy weight but a truly healthy body, which is a lifelong commitment.

~~~
cobalt
Hmm to that I would say, I expected to finish college (and I did) but It
wasn't something I planned. I did it one semester at a time until i was able
to leave. Also, I put money away, but I am not planning for anything (at least
at the moment) - I would say you can budget for possibilities in the future
without directly 'planning' them.

~~~
Jtsummers
Savings in a straight savings account? CDs? Investments? If the latter, you're
planning (even a little bit by selecting the right date-targeted funds).

And you just winged it in college? No clue what the next semester would hold?
Never selected classes because they were needed for future classes and/or
graduation requirements?

------
noufalibrahim
The Franklin Covey system is somewhat outdated (especially when GTD came on
the scene) but it's designed to do this.

They start from long term goals (they call it vision or something similar) and
then break it down into smaller and smaller items which you schedule on a
weekly and daily basis. This ensures that everything you do works towards a
larger goal. There will be smaller interruptions and things but the overall
direction is quite clear.

This has fallen by the wayside with our rather disruptive lives but there are
still lessons which are useful. Larger targets (e.g year goals) can be broken
down into manageable monthly targets. Then you can work towards these and make
sure that you always progress towards your larger vision.

------
jtrtoo
Investigate OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). A lot of tech companies use
them internally to align objectives and work across the organization and all
teams.

I work solo (as a freelancer and solopreneur) and I have found OKRs invaluable
in aligning my weekly and daily work to my quarterly objectives (and in
keeping me honest about my capacity).

Recently, after moving in this direction in a more ad hoc manner, I started
using [http://weekdone.com](http://weekdone.com) to bring some it together and
streamline things (WD is built around quarterly OKRs and weekly
accomplishments tied to those KRs). The process has been wonderful.

------
gottlike
Just signed up for answering this. I recently had the same issue and found a
fantastic (and hackable via JS/CSS!) tool:
[https://gingkoapp.com/app](https://gingkoapp.com/app)

Highly recommended. I use it for creating my daily todos out of life goals (I
use the template/concept of Ray Dalio's Principles
([https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsd...](https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxlYm9va3Nkb3dubG9hZG5vdzIwMTZ8Z3g6MjY3NGU2Njk5N2QxNjViMg))
for this).

------
lukaszkups
Recently I've found a TODO app that doesn't suck and is multi-platform
(windows phone and linux included) - short review here:
[http://lukaszkups.net/2017/02/07/Shortie-2-I-ve-finally-
foun...](http://lukaszkups.net/2017/02/07/Shortie-2-I-ve-finally-found-a-TODO-
app-that-rocks/)

tldr;

TODOist

Also, I've written what I do to be more productive:
[http://lukaszkups.net/2017/01/29/In-search-of-the-Golden-
Gra...](http://lukaszkups.net/2017/01/29/In-search-of-the-Golden-Grail-of-
productivity/)

Enjoy!

------
tln
At TINT we use [https://takeaim.io](https://takeaim.io) and [https://small-
improvements-hrd.appspot.com](https://small-improvements-hrd.appspot.com)

I like setting a schedule to review monthly/quarterly goals. Friday is always
an alternate schedule for me, either hackday or story grooming/backlog
work/paperwork etc. I review the goals, AND whether I have been even working
on it, using [https://takeaim.io](https://takeaim.io) data.

------
keslert
I developed a chrome extension, Hey Habit (bit.ly/heyHabit), to help me with
this. I add my long term goals as projects and then set up reoccurring tasks
to make them happen.

There's also a web version at heyhabit.com.

------
hawkice
Beeminder. Everything from exercise to posture to meditation to work. It's one
of the most clever pieces of software I've used, in terms of domain-ideas
embedded in it.

~~~
dreeves
Wow, thank you so much for the kind words! (I'm a Beeminder cofounder.) I'm
actually also not sure what you mean about embedded domain-ideas, or I hadn't
heard it put that way. Do you mean the domain idea being aligning daily to-dos
with long-term goals by use of a commitment contract? And then our clever
implementation is how we tie the commitment to datapoints on a graph? That's
what _we_ think is clever. But I'd love to hear your take on it (also I'm sure
it would be more compelling from a user than a founder :)).

~~~
hawkice
I just meant, that, not only is the premise of commitment contracts well
thought through, the smaller choices, like the 1 week delay on changing a goal
setting, to why the exponential increase in punishments is closer to tripling
than doubling, are all thought through and justified on the blog and have been
clearly tweaked over time.

You guys even have super transparency, and iirc mention you provide it because
commitment contracts would incentive you to encourage failure, and that's not
what you want at all.

Compare that against e.g. Trello, which is good looking and usable, but it's
kanban without queue limiting. That defeats the whole point! (I explain this
in more detail here: [https://gen517.com/queue-limiting-the-whole-point-of-
kanban/](https://gen517.com/queue-limiting-the-whole-point-of-kanban/) )

The difference between trello and beeminder (to me, at least) is that the
beeminder people think about how to provide anti-akratic tools a lot, and
embed their thoughts and discoveries into their product. The Trello people
basically provide nice CSS for a tool so flexible it has nothing to say at
all. If I want digital paper, sure, Trello is nice. If I want _actual help
with something_? I'd prefer software developed by people trying to help me.

~~~
dreeves
Thanks! [glow!]

And really excellent point about queue limiting and kanban! Now I'm wondering
if there's a hack or plugin or just a convention to make Trello work that
way...

Or maybe the answer is Beeminder's Trello integration, to enforce limits on
Trello cards. :)

------
pagliara
I'm currently working on an iOS app to address this issue exactly. There's
still plenty of improvements I want to make but this is the app so far:
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/agenda-to-do-lists-
tasks/id1...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/agenda-to-do-lists-
tasks/id1182063378?mt=8)

Basically I wanted an app that let me quickly add and organize items into
different time periods.

------
Axsuul
The key is to develop a habit with your ToDo system. I use Todoist but in
order to be successful with it, you have to consistently schedule your tasks
as well as postpone any that you didn't complete that day. I also have a
recurring task in Todoist scheduled every Monday that reminds me go to through
all my projects and prune/schedule/unschedule/delegate.

~~~
ProblemFactory
The biggest issue I have with Todo lists and systems is focusing on urgent
tasks instead of important tasks.

It is too easy (and satisfying) to prioritise 10 small urgent tasks, complete
and check them off, and feel productive. But this can lead to indefinitely
postponing long-term important tasks that aren't a top priority for _this_
week on _any_ week.

Tasks like keeping in touch with old friends and new potential clients,
learning a new skill, checking that your backup-restore system works, planning
a holiday, and so on.

~~~
PlaceFan
I used to have a similar problem. One thing that helped me (which I won't take
credit for): I categorize my todo list into four groups.

* Urgent/Important (Fill out the kids' immunization forms for school)

* Not Urgent/Important (Call old friend)

* Urgent/Not Important (Pick up package from post office)

* Not Urgent/Not Important (Wrap up loose coins for bank)

It works surprisingly well, so long as you follow these rules:

1) You have to constantly re-evaluate. Urgent and important are two adjectives
that are extremely subjective and change over time.

2) You absolutely must tackle tasks in the order above.

3) Spend a lot of attention on group two (not urgent/important). You'll be
tempted to put gigantic, overwhelming tasks on there ("Learn a new skill") as
opposed to something actually accomplishable ("Go through React tutorial part
1").

You really have to be honest about what "important" means to you. Especially
group two (not urgent/important). Group one is usually pretty easy.

I'll deal with the hassle of my package being returned by the post office if
it means I can talk to an old friend instead. You may feel differently. Be
honest about it. If you find you're not accomplishing group two tasks and
procrastinating on them, maybe they're not that important to you. "Call an old
friend" sounds like something important, but maybe you've both moved on and
the friendship really isn't that important to you anymore.

------
joyeuse6701
Passion planner or bullet journal methods worked for me. Passion planner asks
the good, tough questions that get you moving with your project, breaking down
from years, to months, to weeks. Bullet journal is much more flexible,
forgiving, but not as effective. One can incorporate passion planner ideas and
questions into a bullet journal, you just have to do it manually.

------
nikisweeting
I recently discovered Noteplan after trying and failing to find a good notes
app for years. It's geared towards programmers and techy folk, and it lets you
make simple Org-mode style notes with markdown, and integrates pretty well
with your other calendar apps. [http://noteplan.co/](http://noteplan.co/)

------
obfuscatedgeek
Been trying to do this, tis year and currently using Trello.

Current organization is 52 list mentioning every week and every week has 8
cards.

First 7 cards are individual days of the week, every day card includes a
checklist in trello and the eight card is target for the week. Depending on
the schedule 1 entry from the target card is made into a checklist item in any
one of the day card.

------
codingdave
Literally align them -- whenever you make up a to do list, place it under one
of your long-term goals. That way, every time you are doing something, you are
working towards one of your goals. And if you find yourself putting together
lists that do not fit one of your goals, it is a red flag to yourself that you
are not aligned.

------
hollander
Find a coach. Find someone who can keep you on track, someone who is
independent, who knows what he or she talks about, who knows what you do and
what is good for you, personally and professionally. This is probably a
professional (life) coach with IT knowledge (assuming that is your
profession), so that means paying for it.

------
hexsprite
Have you tried [http://focuster.com](http://focuster.com)?

It automates scheduling your to-do list in your Google Calendar so you're
always working on your next top priority.

Don't finish it? It moves it forward in your calendar until you get it done so
nothing falls through the cracks.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
I write down things I want to do but am liable to forget, which are almost
always <1 day of work. The rest is in my head and the details are worked out
on the fly.

It helps to not worry about racing to a practical product as fast as you can.
Take your time and do it right. A practical product will come with time.

------
kesor
BulletJournal.com and the companion app that reminds you to reflect and to
Think(tm) once in a while.

~~~
johnnyhead
Agreed. I too think that the bullet journal is a great wat to keep track of
todos and goals, both medium and long-term ones. I do not know about the app
though.

------
partycoder
Setting goals is fine but goals are more attainable through milestones.

Set tasks and tie them to milestones that finally achieve goals.

Any todo list supporting hierarchies can allow you to achieve this. e.g:
Asana.

Then you can add more complexity like setting dependencies among tasks, adding
dates, priorities, etc.

------
stkrzysiak
A lot of my long term goals involve daily engagement, so I use a recurring
reminder service([http://coach.me](http://coach.me)) to stay on top of them.
The app reminds me to check off items and promotes streaks.

------
arvind_devaraj
use this chrome extension Limitless. "One thing I found for myself is that
simply being more aware of where and how I’m spending my time dramatically
improves my focus" writes [http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/limitless-chrome-
ultimate-produ...](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/limitless-chrome-ultimate-
productivity-companion/)

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/be-
limitless/jdpnl...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/be-
limitless/jdpnljppdhjpafeaokemhcggofohekbp?hl=en)

------
zi0nman
I use 3 lists: first for the "big picture" long term goals, the second is for
weekly goals, and third are daily todo lists. For all my planning I use paper
and colored pens/pencils.

------
henryw
I've found OneNote to be very good for journaling and plans. I have a tab for
daily journaling for each year, and I have a tab for my current long term goal
with steps broken down.

------
drelihan
Easy, construct your daily todos based on your long-term goals list. That is,
a task does not even get to sit on your daily todo list unless it supports a
long term goal.

------
vlunkr
I used Habitica for a few months. It's an RPG but you progress your character
by meeting self-defined goals. It's much better if you have a group to do it
with.

------
aboodman
I have three text files: todo.txt, thisyear.txt, life.txt.

------
ssijak
Anybody using todoist/rememberthemilk with success? Whenever I try I can not
get my self to update it regulary so I stop at some moment.

~~~
hvidgaard
I've tried many times and failed just as many times. I just cannot keep an
electronic todo list. Paper on the other hand works fine for me, so I always
carry my journal with me.

------
dominotw
This post has me worried this morning. I don't have _any_ long term goals.
Curious to see what other people have.

~~~
jmcdiesel
Set a short-term goal (a month) and set aside some time (weekly?) to spend
focusing on the task of discovering your long-term goals? :)

------
dredmorbius
Index cards. Frequent review of projects and goals, much revision of each.

------
shakkeel
Checkout this book called The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

------
Kinnard
I'm actually working on my own personal management software in arc, Paul
Graham's dialect of lisp.

I will probably open source it in April.

Mostly because I'm the best/only person who can write software that is really
for my life. It will of course integrate with many tools.

------
id122015
Why do you plan instead of living your life ?

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Because the unexamined life is not worth living.

~~~
id122015
But a life well lived is not worth to examine.

------
jansho
I agree with the others here that constant reflection is critical. But for me,
keeping track of resolutions with a calendar to do is a recipe for disaster;
good for the first two weeks then eventually it gets neglected.

So for this year, I started thinking about a tracking and recording method
that is _personalised_ to my needs, and that includes taking account of good
and bad habits. I set up a personal website which is basically a learning
log/folio, where the front page displays my five learning projects in arty
thumbnails. Aesthetics is really important to me so a good design that I'm
proud of is one way to keep me visiting the website.

Let's say that one project is French. Now it's really important to _clarify_
your goals further. It's completely unrealistic for me to be fluent in French
by the end of this year so I set a couple of goals, such as studying _Candide_
to the point that I can understand and internalise the meaning without looking
at the English parallel text. I emphasise that this goal is only for _this_
year, which means I can still keep going with French next year - so no need to
kick myself why I can't be as good as those polyglots.

OK, so far so good, I've got some fancy projects that show to the world that
I'm a keen generalist, and goals to clarify their scope. But how do you keep
track of them?

Because I've come to like writing, and it's one goal to keep practicing it, I
decided to _link every goal to my blog_. Meaning, I need to write about my
findings, achievements etc and tag the post to a goal.

I created a category hashtag and placed it under each goal. So say that one
project is Blender 3D and one goal is to get used to the different modelling
techniques - my hashtag would be something like #blender3dmodelling. This
means that I must write something about blender modelling, which means I must
study it and practice it. Otherwise if someone clicks on the hashtag, it will
display no posts ... and that looks a bit bad. (That 'someone' is usually me
haha.)

So far this little technique has kept me more focused on my resolutions aka
learning projects. But it's not enough because there's still the danger of
gradual neglect - and I've reflected enough to realise _why_ this happens.
What if I have absolutely no time to study Blender 3D because of other
commitments? I can see myself paralysed by guilt by July. So, for balance, I
decided that every month, I will write a post that reflects the previous
month, and realistically set targets for the current month. The _reflective_
part is particularly important as it not only keeps you true to your desire to
learn, you're also being honest about yourself and your current situation.

So, that's the gist of it. It's not really scientific, the way I keep tracking
and motivating myself with writing and showcasing, but it works for me. But
this is an example; you may find it too much or too little or just completely
unsuitable. That's OK. For yourself, you need your _own_ method, and this
means a great deal of introspection to understand your needs and habits. Good
luck :)

------
jezclaremurugan
Balanced score card!

------
buzzybee
Design documents.

------
contingencies
Common sense.

------
joe563323
org-mode

------
diminoten
In lieu of todo lists, schedules seem like they help me get things done
better. To back up what people are saying here, I find making the schedule
each morning is helpful, even if the schedule proceeds to go completely to
shit throughout the day.

Also, I think it's hard to have goals. I prefer systems. Rather than have my
primary driver be, "I want to work from someplace other than my home office 3
times each week" (I work from home), I say, "I work from places other than my
office sometimes." and then work that into my schedule. That way I'm not
checking a box so much as just "being" who I want to be. The externality of a
goal is gone, and "Who I am" now incorporates "work from a place not in my
home".

I dunno if any of this helps. It sometimes doesn't help me. It sometimes does,
though.

