Set up your first plan in 90 minutes
In nine steps you go from an empty app to a plan with goals, a first week and daily habits.
Short on time? Four of the nine steps take about 20 minutes. Come back for the rest next week.
What is on this page
Before you start. Open your Gumroad receipt so the code is ready. Turn off your notifications. This is a thinking session.
How the nine steps fit together
The row of steps at the top of the app shows where you are. Each step uses what you did in the one before it.
What you see on every step
Two layouts repeat through the app.
Work through the tabs of a discovery step
Values, Purpose, Life Areas, Vision and Summit Goals each open as a row of tabs. Work from left to right. The last tab of every step is Where it shows up, with a link to each step that uses your answers.
Values and Strengths Profile have a Restart this step link next to the headline. You confirm first. It clears only that step.
Read a planning screen
Day, week, month, quarter and year use the same layout, top to bottom.
- The panel title, and the five tabs for day, week, month, quarter and year.
- A numbered headline and one line about what you do here.
- A notice for anything that needs you now, such as an overdue milestone.
- The level up from here, so a week plan lists your monthly goals.
- The short friendly lines, such as the greeting and your daily value line.
- Your own work, the part you fill in.
The app groups your milestones into one card for each state: Still open, Due today or Coming up.
The calendar bar follows the level you are on. Day, week and month show the next two weeks. A quarter shows its three months, a year its four quarters. Press a cell to go there.
Too busy, or too bare? Open Settings, then Appearance, and change Header density. Compact hides the detail and Expanded shows it.
Pick your five values
You end with five values in rank order, picked from a deck of 28 cards.
- Open Play your hand.
- Tap a dealer card, then a card in your hand, to swap them.
- Keep swapping until your five feel right.
- Open Rank your five and drag the cards into order.
- Open Where it shows up, then press Continue to Purpose.
Watch out for values you wish you had. Ask yourself which of your five you broke this week. If nothing comes up, the list is a wish list.
Write your purpose in one sentence
You end with one sentence that says what this year is for.
- Open the Purpose step.
- Pick one of the three drafts, or fill in the three fields yourself.
- Press Use this sentence when the wording fits.
You fill in the action, who it serves, and the change you want.
Do not polish it now. You rewrite the sentence at the quarter check-in.
Write it for this year, not for your whole life. A year of recovery has a different purpose, and that is fine.
Set your scores and pick your focus areas
You end with a score for each life area and two or three areas in focus.
- Open Rate your areas.
- Move the two sliders for each area: satisfaction and importance.
- Open Choose your focus and mark two or three areas.
- Open Where it shows up to see where your focus shows up.
The ten areas are Physical Health, Emotional Wellbeing, Relationships, Career, Financial, Growth & Learning, Fun & Recreation, Purpose & Meaning, Environment and Contribution.
Is your area missing? Press Add life area at the end of the row of areas and type your own. A custom area gets the same two sliders and the same focus mark.
Mark three areas at most. Past three, the planning stops working. Pick three this year and add the others next year.
Do not pick three weak areas. Keep one focus area where you are already strong, so you are not rebuilding everything at the same time.
Write three futures and make one active
You end with one picture of your life five years out.
- Open Three Futures. Plan A is there already.
- Write each plan in the present tense, as if you are there now.
- Make Plan B active picks the plan the later steps use.
- Open Interview with your future you to turn it into one picture.
Compare Three Futures opens Plan B and Plan C so you can sketch them next to Plan A.
- Pick Plan A to continue what already works.
- Pick Plan B for something different and reachable.
- Pick Plan C for the stretch you would never choose when playing safe.
The plans you did not pick stay where they are. You reread them at each quarter check-in.
Do not stop at Plan A. Plan A is usually more of the same. Without Plan C you have one option written out three times.
Write one Summit Goal for each focus area
You end with one Summit Goal with a date for each focus area.
- Pick a focus area and write the outcome you want.
- Pick the years under Look ahead: 3, 5 or 10.
- Add a target date. The picker opens on the last year of your look ahead.
- Add a measure, so you know when you got there.
- Repeat for each focus area you picked.
If your Summit Goal points away from your vision, one of the two is wrong.
Publish 12 long essays this year and pass 1,000 newsletter readers by December.
Have 50 family dinners this year.
Turn the drafting switch on or off
On Where it shows up you find Draft annual goals from my Summit Goals. Leave it on and step 7 starts with a first draft. Turn it off and every annual goal starts empty.
The same switch is in Settings, under Planning. Turning it off later never deletes what is already drafted.
A Summit Goal is not a habit. If you can do it again tomorrow, it is a habit. A Summit Goal has a date, and you can prove you reached it.
Name one or two habits for each Summit Goal
You end with a short list of daily habits, one or two for each Summit Goal.
For each Summit Goal, name the habit that would make the goal almost certain. Write three things down.
- Write the smallest version of the thing you would do.
- Write when you do it, right after something you already do.
- Write what you give yourself for doing it.
Read how a habit loop works and why the moment you name matters most.
Right after my morning coffee, with my shoes ready the night before.
A black coffee at the cafe on long-run days.
Keep it to one or two habits for each goal. One habit you keep beats five you drop. Read the two-day rule for what happens when you miss a day.
Write down when you will do it. A habit with no set moment is the first one you drop.
Plan your year, quarter and week
You end with a plan for the year, for the quarter and for this week.
The Execute step has five tabs: Year, Quarter, Month, Week and Day. Open Year first and work down.
Fix the drafted year goals
The first time, Year asks Which year do you want to plan? Pick Calendar year or My own year.
Unless you switched drafting off, Year then shows a first draft. For each focus area with a Summit Goal you get one annual goal and a checkpoint at each remaining quarter end.
- Type over the goal wording so it says what you mean.
- Open Milestones and give each checkpoint a name and a date.
- Change the date when the quarter end is not the moment that matters.
- Press the bin icon to remove a row.
- Press Add milestone to write one of your own.
A checkpoint is only drafted when its quarter end is at least two months away. With Calendar year, a start after 1 November gives you none, so write your own.
Work down the five levels
- On Year, write up to three annual goals across all your focus areas.
- On Quarter, name a theme and tick the milestones you commit to.
- On Monthly focus, place each committed milestone into a month.
- On Month, set your Main focus and the Milestones this month.
- On Week, set three main focus items and list the deliverables.
- On Day, pick today's three priority tasks from the week.
For this first session, fill in Year, Quarter and Week. Month and Day fill in as you go.
What happens when you leave a level empty
You can plan a week with no month behind it. The week screen lists every level that is empty. It shows the nearest level that does have something. Press the button to fill the missing level, or carry on without it.
Each level uses the level up from it. This is the Goal Cascade. Change a milestone on Year and Quarter shows an amber dot.
Do not fill the week with 15 tasks. Stop at five. Pick the ones you would still do if everything else went wrong.
Set up your habits
You end with the habits from step 6 as daily trackers.
- Open Habits and press New habit.
- Type the habit into Habit.
- Write your Identity statement: the sort of person who does this.
- Write your Habit stack: after something you already do, you do this.
- Write your Lazy day version, small enough for a bad day.
- Open Reason why and reward and fill in both fields.
Read why a lazy day version keeps a streak going through a bad week.
Make the lazy day version small enough. For a 1,000 word writing habit, one voice memo beats 300 words.
Plan tomorrow and write your first reflection
You end with tomorrow planned and one line about today.
- Open Execute, then Day.
- On Plan, set three priority tasks for tomorrow.
- Tick the habits you already did today.
- Press Set today's plan.
- Open Review and write one line about the session.
What the daily value line does
One of your five values appears each day, with a line about bringing it into the day. You answer with one tick. A day you left blank counts as unanswered, never as a failure.
The value goes into the record with that day. Re-rank your values in three months and your history stays as it was.
To turn it off, open Settings, then Appearance, and switch off Daily value line.
That is the whole first session. Press Save in the top bar. Do not judge the reflection on day one. Insights needs a few weeks of data.
What you do tomorrow
Open the app. It opens on the day, because that is where the rhythm starts. Five minutes:
- Tick the habits you did.
- Write one line about yesterday in the reflection.
- Pick today's three priority tasks.
The next longer session is the weekly reflection on Sunday, about 10 minutes.
What you do at the end of each quarter
Open Execute, then Quarter, then Review. Review opens once you set the quarter plan. Reread your vision, rate the quarter and set the next focus. About 60 minutes.
For a recap you can share, press Quarter check-in on the Insights step and save the card as an image.
What to do in the cases the nine steps miss
If you start in the second half of the year
The app drafts a checkpoint only for a quarter end at least two months away. With Calendar year, a July start gets two. A September start gets one. A start after 1 November gets none.
Write annual goals sized for the months you have. Treat the first Year Wrap-up as a short chapter.
If you would rather start from a blank page
Switch off Draft annual goals from my Summit Goals. You find it on the Where it shows up tab of Summit Goals, or in Settings under Planning.
Switching it off later never deletes what is already drafted, so clear those goals yourself.
If you want to plan a week with no month behind it
The app allows it. The week screen lists every empty level and shows the nearest level that has something. Press the button to fill the missing level, or carry on without it.
If you want to redo a step
- On Values and Strengths Profile, press Restart this step.
- On every other step, go back and type over what is there.
Change something on an earlier step and the later step shows an amber dot. It is a prompt, and nothing gets rewritten for you.
If you re-rank your values months later
Tomorrow's value follows the new order. Days you already recorded keep the value they had, so your history stays a record of what happened.
If you are away, or you have come back
- Open the day, week or month sheet and press Mark as a break.
- Press the same button again to take the break off.
A break stops the prompts and keeps that time out of your numbers. If you are already back, write a short summary of where you stopped. Nobody asks you to fill in the weeks you missed.
If a small line is not helping you
Hover it and press the small cross on its right. It goes for good. Settings, then Reminders, then Hidden hints lists what you hid and brings any of it back.
Overdue milestones and the coming-up list have no cross. Open the milestone and change its date instead.
If none of the ten life areas fits
Press Add life area at the end of the row of areas in step 3. A custom area gets the same two sliders and the same focus mark, at every level.
If you want to see a finished plan first
On a computer, open Settings, then Your data, and press Try the demo. On a phone, tap More, then Try the demo. Press Back to my data to return. The example plan never touches your own.
If you are doing this on a phone
Everything works on a phone. The first session is easier on a computer, because you type paragraphs into Vision and Summit Goals. Run the daily and weekly rhythm on the phone.
What to do if you get stuck
- Open six finished plans when no Summit Goal comes to mind.
- Write all three plans when your vision feels fake.
- Keep one habit for each Summit Goal when you have too many.
- Press Save in the top bar when your changes are not saved.
What most people get wrong in the first session
- Keep your focus areas at three, not five.
- Write outcomes as Summit Goals, and keep the daily inputs as habits.
- Finish the Vision step even when it feels vague.
- Give every habit a lazy day version.
- Set up Year, Quarter and Week only.