Check in on the month and the quarter, close the year in the Life Goals App

Look back before you plan the next stretch

Once a month, once a quarter and once a year you read your plan back. In the Goals & Progress Life Goals App those three sessions take about 10, 20 and 30 minutes.

Where you are in the journey

You close your day and your week. The guide before this one, Start a habit, mark it and change it later, set those habits up. Next comes Pick up your plan after a gap.

What you will learn

• What each of the three sessions wants from you.
• How to mark a milestone green, amber or red.
• What to do with a milestone that is off track.
• How long the app keeps asking for a check-in.

Which levels get a check-in?

The Life Goals App plans on five levels. The day and the week are reflections, about 3 and about 10 minutes. This guide covers the other three.

| Session | How long | Where it opens | How long the prompt lasts | |—|—|—|—| | Month check-in | about 10 minutes | the Review tab of the month | 7 days after the month ends | | Quarter check-in | about 20 minutes | the Review tab of the quarter | 14 days after the quarter ends | | Year Wrap-up | about 30 minutes | after you press Set this year’s plan | it never prompts you |

You can run fewer than five. The cadence page lists them and names three patterns that work. The day and the week alone are the minimum for your first 90 days.

The examples come from Maya Chen in the demo.

Run the month check-in in about 10 minutes

The month check-in states its job: “You find out here whether the quarter is on track.”

Every level has a Plan tab and a Review tab. Review stays grey until the plan is locked or the period ends.

1. Open Execute, go to the month and tap the Review tab.
2. Press Did it move? on each main focus line. It changes to Moved.
3. Tick each deliverable Done, or press Carry to next month.
4. Mark every milestone that changed under Confidence.
5. Read the habit squares for the month. You tick nothing there.
6. Rate the month with the stars, then set Energy, Focus and Momentum.
7. Answer Yes or No on each obstacle you listed on a goal’s Friction Map.
8. Write one line in Key learnings. Full Mode adds Next month focus.
9. Press Close the month.

A deliverable is one dated piece of work for the month. Carrying it keeps its title, not its date. Close the month logs the month, and Reopen the month undoes that.

On the phone the check-in comes one question at a time.

On the computer the check-in is one page. Your Key learnings line comes back in Insights and in your next quarter check-in. Maya wrote this last month: “Capstone reading on Sunday mornings, not weeknights.”

Mark a milestone green, amber or red

On every milestone card you find a Confidence row of three coloured dots. You set that colour yourself, and no number in the app overrules it.

• Green, On track. Nothing has to change this week.
• Amber, At risk. Push harder, or make the milestone smaller.
• Red, Off track. Ask for help or change the scope.

On a milestone you count up, a grey hint shows until you choose. Maya sits at 2 of 8 long runs, so hers reads “auto · a bit behind”.

Over it the same card has four more buttons: Achieved, Partial, Abandoned and Extend deadline. The colour and the grade are two separate decisions. The app’s recipe for grading a milestone shows both rows.

Run the quarter check-in in about 20 minutes

The quarter check-in opens with its own line: “You look at the trend across 3 months and decide what to change.”

1. Open Execute, go to the quarter and tap the Review tab.
2. Answer the theme question with It held, Partly or It drifted.
3. Mark every milestone that is due or late under Confidence.
4. Mark each annual goal On track, At risk or Off track.
5. Update the number in each row under Update your targets.
6. Read the habit squares for the quarter, then rate the quarter.
7. Write Key learnings and Adjustments for next quarter.
8. Press Close the quarter.

Each annual goal gets a row with a progress bar and its milestone count.

The app keeps that call for the Year Wrap-up.

Record the number, compare it with last quarter, then correct one thing. That routine is how to track progress for personal goals.

From Maya’s Q1 check-in: “Three goals a quarter is my limit. With four, something always slips.” Our 12 week quarterly planning guide runs the same weeks on paper.

The quarter check-in adds a vision screen with a Re-read button when you wrote a Plan B or C.

Choose what to do with a red milestone

A red milestone needs a decision in the same session. Two of the three ways out are buttons.

• Move it. Press Extend deadline and pick a new date.
• Retire it. Press Abandoned, then confirm.
• Rescue it. There is no button, so you add a new milestone or change the plan by hand.

The app’s recipe on a red milestone shows the same three.

Close the year in about 30 minutes

The Year Wrap-up opens once you press Set this year’s plan, or once the year is over. Your year runs January to December until you change it under Settings, Planning.

1. Open Wall of Wins first and read what you hit.
2. Open Execute, go to the year and tap the Review tab.
3. Read Your year in numbers: milestones hit, targets closed, annual goals.
4. Grade each annual goal Achieved, Mostly, Partly or Did not happen.
5. Read the habit squares for the year, then rate the year.
6. Write Key learnings and Adjustments for next year.
7. Read your active vision, press Re-read, then read each Summit Goal again.
8. Press Revisit values or Revisit Summit Goals when one no longer fits.
9. Press Close the year.

The wrap-up opens with Your year in numbers and its three counts.

Under them each outcome shows its milestone and target count.

Maya closed last year with one learning: “Handing work over beats doing it faster.” Our three question annual wrap-up asks the same on paper.

How long the app keeps asking

The bar at the bottom of the screen shows a small Check-in button while the prompt lasts. The Year Wrap-up has no prompt. Put it in your calendar.

A chip beside it counts what is open and opens Open reviews. A month stays in that list for 14 days. A quarter and a year stay for 28. Each row has Review now and Let it go.

To see every open review, not only recent ones, set Missed periods to All under Settings, Planning.

Try these tips and tricks

• In Insights, press Month Check-in, Quarter Check-in or Year Wrap-up for a recap card you can save as an image.
• Use Mark as a break on a month you travelled through. A break month never counts as a missed check-in.

Key takeaways

• The month check-in takes about 10 minutes. The quarter takes about 20 and the year about 30.
• A check-in is the Review tab of a period. It opens once the plan is locked or the period ends.
• You set Confidence yourself: green for on track, amber for at risk, red for off track.
• A red milestone gets a new date, an Abandoned mark, or a new milestone you write.
• The Year Wrap-up opens after you press Set this year’s plan, and the app never prompts for it.

Open Execute now, go to last month and tap the Review tab. Set the colour on every milestone that changed, then press Close the month.