5 ms·

Ask HN: How do you track your personal goals?

17 points by mezod 9y ago

I wonder if you just have a todolist or if you have other ways to break your goals down into actions that you can execute on on a daily basis, to break through the noise of every day life...

cvaidya1986 9y ago
Apple Notes app
roryisok 9y ago
Text / markdown file on Dropbox
willidiots 9y ago
Habitica - if you're into gamification, it's a cool way to build positive habits, daily todos and long-term todos.
matchmike1313 9y ago
I have been using a Google Sheet
muzani 9y ago
What I do is pick one goal for a period of time and focus on that. Sometimes that goal is simply getting my job done - get enough sleep, get up early. Sometimes it's to learn something, read a book, finish a personal project, get a job, win a game. In these cases I'd break down what I need to accomplish these tasks, along with a plan. Sometimes it requires more information and so the plan becomes to set the timeline. The biggest issue in this field is that there's a bottomless amount of interesting things to do. So if you do whatever just feels interesting, you bounce from one thing to the next without really getting anything done in depth.
Someone1234 9y ago
May I recommend you check out Trello with the "Trello Card Repeater[0]." Trello without the repeater is a really powerful way to organize your life, turning your life into a series of big cards with tasks in it, that give you a sense of accomplishment when you close one. You then tack on automatic cards which appear on a schedule (e.g. "take out the trash," "clean this," "fix that," etc) and you have a even more useful productivity tool. You could of course use a traditional digital calendar for these with reminders, but pop-up reminders can be distracting/overwhelming, or ignored. A Trello card can sit in a bucket waiting until you have time in your schedule. You can then combine it with something like the Pomodoro Technique[1] to help with uncontrolled procrastination. Best of luck! PS - There are other competitors to Trello which offer a great list experience (e.g. KanBanFlow, Microsoft Planner, etc). They're all good. Unfortunately few offer the Card Repeater. KanBanFlow offers built in Pomodoro timers tied to particular cards which is a huge win (Trello has third party support for Pomodoro timers, but that doesn't follow you cross-device). [0] https://blog.trello.com/trello-card-repeater https://blog.trello.com/trello-card-repeater [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique
- ioddly 9y ago
  I did something similar for 2-3 years, then eventually wrote a piece of software that handles specifically this use case: https://github.com/ioddly/meditations https://github.com/ioddly/meditations (It actually doesn't repeat automatically, but you can copy monthly tasks down to the day). I also have it doing a little bit extra, tracking completion rates.
_Chief 9y ago
Todoist, ui/ux is intuitive, allows you breakdown tasks into subtasks, set reminders, group project tasks, can sync to google calendar. Though what I like most about it is the 7-day tasks view's simplicity. (I'm on premium, the free version losses a bunch of features eg reminders) I was using Trello for a while but found the UI to be a bit of a pain as both mobile and desktop require a lot of horizontal scrolling and it was hard to take a high-level view of upcoming tasks. Maybe I was just using it wrong.
skinnymuch 9y ago
I use Complice.co[0]. I switched to it because it is centered around goals and daily intentions. My todo lists can get bogged down after some time. Also the post is for personal goals so this works even better. Complice has you set goals up, optional milestones, optional reviews weekly and monthly, and the biggie is daily intentions. You set your todos or intentions daily. Intentions are also set using which goal an intention is geared toward. You can have repeating or saved intentions too. It’s hard to describe because it’s pretty unique. It also has virtual coworking rooms. I hover usually in one of them[1]. [0] https://complice.co https://complice.co [1] https://complice.co/room/open https://complice.co/room/open
- dubin 9y ago
  Yes! I also use Complice and think very highly of it. Coworking rooms with friends are incredibly useful at turning nights I otherwise would be slacking off into productive nights. Another feature that I find useful (aside from the core feature set) is the Beeminder integration, which lets me update all the things I Beemind w/ little effort. I do use Complice in tandem with Omnifocus. I use Omnifocus to store big picture planning and all the tasks I want to do in the future. Then on a daily basis I set intentions for the tasks I want to do that day in Complice.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    Yeah I use Complice in tandem with either Basecamp or Asana, whichever one I'm not switching away from. Helpful that way.
jolmg 9y ago
Pocket notebook. Some pages have notes of stuff I think about during the day (for future goals). Mostly, though, I have per-day todo lists. I leave a blank line between items to add optional metadata later, like scheduled/due time, category, time estimate, when I started and when I finished. I chose paper media because it makes it easier to experiment with different formats. The pocket form factor allows me to carry it everywhere. When I want to track my goals and progress on a software project, though, I opt for org-mode in emacs. It's mostly because it's faster to type than to handwrite and staying on the computer keeps me in tune. Also, it gives tremendous freedom to organize notes and tasks. There's a lot of features and minimal clutter despite that. It's too bad it's lacking a good android app.
itake 9y ago
Daily Goal Tasks with Todoist. In order to accomplish goals, I set regular repeating tasks that I do to help me accomplish the goal. For example, I want to learn Spanish, so every day my task is to study 3 new Spanish words and once per week I review the words I learned. I found if a goal (like a software task) was too broad, it wouldn't get accomplished. Breaking my goals down into small repeating tasks has helped me accomplish them.

17 points by mezod 9y ago

I wonder if you just have a todolist or if you have other ways to break your goals down into actions that you can execute on on a daily basis, to break through the noise of every day life...

cvaidya1986 9y ago

Apple Notes app

roryisok 9y ago

Text / markdown file on Dropbox

willidiots 9y ago

Habitica - if you're into gamification, it's a cool way to build positive habits, daily todos and long-term todos.

matchmike1313 9y ago

I have been using a Google Sheet

muzani 9y ago

What I do is pick one goal for a period of time and focus on that. Sometimes that goal is simply getting my job done - get enough sleep, get up early. Sometimes it's to learn something, read a book, finish a personal project, get a job, win a game. In these cases I'd break down what I need to accomplish these tasks, along with a plan. Sometimes it requires more information and so the plan becomes to set the timeline. The biggest issue in this field is that there's a bottomless amount of interesting things to do. So if you do whatever just feels interesting, you bounce from one thing to the next without really getting anything done in depth.

Someone1234 9y ago

May I recommend you check out Trello with the "Trello Card Repeater[0]." Trello without the repeater is a really powerful way to organize your life, turning your life into a series of big cards with tasks in it, that give you a sense of accomplishment when you close one. You then tack on automatic cards which appear on a schedule (e.g. "take out the trash," "clean this," "fix that," etc) and you have a even more useful productivity tool. You could of course use a traditional digital calendar for these with reminders, but pop-up reminders can be distracting/overwhelming, or ignored. A Trello card can sit in a bucket waiting until you have time in your schedule. You can then combine it with something like the Pomodoro Technique[1] to help with uncontrolled procrastination. Best of luck! PS - There are other competitors to Trello which offer a great list experience (e.g. KanBanFlow, Microsoft Planner, etc). They're all good. Unfortunately few offer the Card Repeater. KanBanFlow offers built in Pomodoro timers tied to particular cards which is a huge win (Trello has third party support for Pomodoro timers, but that doesn't follow you cross-device). [0] https://blog.trello.com/trello-card-repeater https://blog.trello.com/trello-card-repeater [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique

ioddly 9y ago
I did something similar for 2-3 years, then eventually wrote a piece of software that handles specifically this use case: https://github.com/ioddly/meditations https://github.com/ioddly/meditations (It actually doesn't repeat automatically, but you can copy monthly tasks down to the day). I also have it doing a little bit extra, tracking completion rates.

_Chief 9y ago

Todoist, ui/ux is intuitive, allows you breakdown tasks into subtasks, set reminders, group project tasks, can sync to google calendar. Though what I like most about it is the 7-day tasks view's simplicity. (I'm on premium, the free version losses a bunch of features eg reminders) I was using Trello for a while but found the UI to be a bit of a pain as both mobile and desktop require a lot of horizontal scrolling and it was hard to take a high-level view of upcoming tasks. Maybe I was just using it wrong.

skinnymuch 9y ago

I use Complice.co[0]. I switched to it because it is centered around goals and daily intentions. My todo lists can get bogged down after some time. Also the post is for personal goals so this works even better. Complice has you set goals up, optional milestones, optional reviews weekly and monthly, and the biggie is daily intentions. You set your todos or intentions daily. Intentions are also set using which goal an intention is geared toward. You can have repeating or saved intentions too. It’s hard to describe because it’s pretty unique. It also has virtual coworking rooms. I hover usually in one of them[1]. [0] https://complice.co https://complice.co [1] https://complice.co/room/open https://complice.co/room/open

dubin 9y ago
Yes! I also use Complice and think very highly of it. Coworking rooms with friends are incredibly useful at turning nights I otherwise would be slacking off into productive nights. Another feature that I find useful (aside from the core feature set) is the Beeminder integration, which lets me update all the things I Beemind w/ little effort. I do use Complice in tandem with Omnifocus. I use Omnifocus to store big picture planning and all the tasks I want to do in the future. Then on a daily basis I set intentions for the tasks I want to do that day in Complice.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  Yeah I use Complice in tandem with either Basecamp or Asana, whichever one I'm not switching away from. Helpful that way.

jolmg 9y ago

Pocket notebook. Some pages have notes of stuff I think about during the day (for future goals). Mostly, though, I have per-day todo lists. I leave a blank line between items to add optional metadata later, like scheduled/due time, category, time estimate, when I started and when I finished. I chose paper media because it makes it easier to experiment with different formats. The pocket form factor allows me to carry it everywhere. When I want to track my goals and progress on a software project, though, I opt for org-mode in emacs. It's mostly because it's faster to type than to handwrite and staying on the computer keeps me in tune. Also, it gives tremendous freedom to organize notes and tasks. There's a lot of features and minimal clutter despite that. It's too bad it's lacking a good android app.

itake 9y ago

Daily Goal Tasks with Todoist. In order to accomplish goals, I set regular repeating tasks that I do to help me accomplish the goal. For example, I want to learn Spanish, so every day my task is to study 3 new Spanish words and once per week I review the words I learned. I found if a goal (like a software task) was too broad, it wouldn't get accomplished. Breaking my goals down into small repeating tasks has helped me accomplish them.