User guide

1. What this app is

The companion app is a guided, browser-based version of the Life Goals Workbook (29 pages, 4 phases, 11 reusable templates). It walks you through every template the workbook contains, from picking your top 5 values to checking off today's habits, and it does the bookkeeping for you so you spend your time thinking, not formatting cells.

Everything runs in your browser. Your plan stays on your device. Nothing flows to a server I control unless you explicitly connect Dropbox sync.

You should still read the workbook PDF at least once. The workbook explains the why behind each template. The app handles the what and the when.

2. Getting in: the password gate

When you open the app, you land on the unlock screen. Two ways forward:

• Unlock with your password. The password came in the welcome email when you bought the program. Type it, tick "Remember on this device" if you trust the device, and click Unlock.
• Try the demo first. Click "Try the demo" on the right to explore the full app with sample data (a fictional user named Ramon, with three years of plans, goals, and habit history). You can leave demo mode at any time and your real plan is untouched.

The gate exists for one reason: this is a paid product in beta, and the gate keeps it that way. There is no server-side account, no email-and-password, no analytics tied to you. The password is a SHA-256 hash check that runs locally. If you forget yours, search your inbox for "Life Goals Program beta invite" or email support@goalsandprogress.com.

3. The 90-minute first session

The workbook calls this the Initial Assessment: a one-time, all-life-areas pass that gives you a foundation. After this, you only ever revisit it once or twice a year.

Block 90 quiet minutes. Tea, no phone, no Slack. Sit through these in order:

1. Values (about 5 min)
2. Purpose (about 5 min)
3. Life Areas (about 8 min)
4. Vision (about 12 min)
5. Summit Goals (about 2 min base + 6 min per goal)
6. Annual goals inside Execute (about 2 min base + 8 min per goal)
7. Quarter, month, week, day plans (cascade, fast: 2-4 min each)
8. Pick 1 to 3 habits to track for the year

The app shows a live time estimate at the top of each step, scaled to how many focus areas you have set up. Trust it. The estimates are calibrated against real testers, not against an "ideal user." You can leave any step half-finished: your plan saves automatically to this browser as you type.

If you only have 30 minutes today, do Values + Purpose + Life Areas. The rest can wait until the weekend.

4. The 9 cascade steps

The stepper across the top of the app shows all nine cascade steps in order. Each one feeds the next.

Each step has the same shape: a short brief at the top, the work area in the middle, and a "next" prompt at the bottom. The stepper above shows where you are. Click any earlier step to jump back and revise.

4.1 Values, about 5 minutes

A values deck of 28 cards, played as a card game. Click Play your hand to start. You see five cards, swap any you do not love for the next card on the deck, and keep going until your final five feel right. Then rank them by dragging. Position 1 (far left) is your North Star: the value that wins when two of them collide.

Why this matters: every later step asks you to make tradeoffs (do I take the promotion, or do I see my kids more?). Your top 5 in rank order is the tiebreaker.

If your values change later, click Restart this step. The whole deck resets.

4.2 Purpose, about 5 minutes

One sentence on why you do what you do, drawn from your Top 5. The step gives you two ways to write it:

• Option A: Pick a starter sentence. The app drafts three sentences from your Top 5 values. Tap whichever one fits.
• Option B: Craft your own from three pieces. Fill three slots: an action verb (To build), whom this serves (for myself and my family), and the change you want (so that the right people stay safe). The app stitches a clean sentence live below as you type.

You can revise this sentence at any time. It shows up on your daily greeting, on your purpose card, and on the splash screen, so make it one you want to read every morning.

4.3 Life Areas, about 8 minutes

Rate each life area on two scales: satisfaction (how is it right now, 1 to 10) and importance (how much it matters to you, 1 to 10). The app shows a satisfaction-by-importance map on the right and highlights your two biggest gaps (high importance, low satisfaction). Those gaps are your priority focus areas for the year.

The workbook lists 10 candidate areas: Physical Health, Emotional Wellbeing, Relationships, Career, Financial, Contribution, Time Management, Spirituality, Environment, Recreation. The app uses friendlier labels (Health & Energy, Romantic & Family, Friends & Community, Career & Calling, Money & Finance, Personal Growth, Recreation & Adventure, Spirit & Service, Home & Environment, Lifestyle & Identity) but the mapping is one-to-one.

You can add a custom area if none of the ten fits.

4.4 Vision, about 12 minutes

The Vision Interview: one unified picture of your life five years from now, in the present tense, sensory, as if it were already true. Your selected focus areas all show up in this single vision (you live one life, not separate ones).

Before you draft the vision, you sketch Three Futures: three plausible 5-year paths.

• Plan A (best of current path). The best version of the path you are already on. Same career, same city, same key relationships, just executed with care over the next five years. If this is the one that pulls hardest, that is fine.
• Plan B (pivot). The path you would take if Plan A closed.
• Plan C (wild card). No constraints.

Tap to mark one as your active vision. The active one flows downstream: it frames every Summit Goal you write, surfaces in every Quarter Recap re-read, prompts you when goals get stuck on the Insights coach, and resurfaces every year for an annual wrap-up.

Picking one does not delete the others. They sit in the background as a comparison whenever you do an annual wrap-up.

4.5 Goals: Summit Goals (scales with focus areas)

For each priority life area, name the highest peak you can see from where you are right now. One bold, undated, dated sentence. 5 to 10 years out. Big enough to flinch when you say it out loud. The Summit Goal sets the every annual goal, quarterly milestone, and weekly priority below it will point toward for the next decade.

This is what the workbook calls a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal). The companion app uses the term Summit Goal because that is the metaphor that does the work: a single peak, visible from where you stand, that you build a route to.

For each focus area, you can:

• Compose your own sentence in the goal card at the bottom.
• Tap one of the starter templates if your blank-page brain is stuck.
• Switch your active vision (Plan A / B / C) at any time. The Summit Goal compounds what is already working when you stick with Plan A.

Time estimate scales with how many focus areas you are tackling. Two areas = about 14 minutes. One area = about 8.

4.6 Execute: year, quarter, month, week, day

The Goal Cascade in action. Five nested cadences, each one inheriting focus from the level above.

• Year: name 1 to 3 annual goals per focus area. Each annual goal is one rung down from your Summit. The app supports the Goal Plan pattern (your Outcome Map: what success looks like, and your Friction Map: the obstacle that will trip you up plus the if-then plan to handle it).
• Quarter: pick 1 to 3 quarterly milestones per annual goal. These are the "by end of Q2" deliverables.
• Month: focus areas for the month, drawn from the quarter.
• Week: your Sunday plan. The top stripe shows the active Week of the year (W21, W22, etc.). Pull priorities from the month.
• Day: three priorities for today, drawn from the week. Plus a 2-minute reflection at end of day.

The calendar bar at the top shows the next two weeks. Click any day to plan it. The big card below shows whichever cadence chip you have selected (2026 · Q2 · May · W21 in the screenshot).

Coming-up items (overdue or due-soon) sit at the top of every cadence so you cannot lose them.

4.7 Habits: the Habit Garden

One habit per page. Each habit has five parts:

1. Habit: what you will do. "Write 800 words on the active article."
2. Identity statement: I am someone who writes before the world distracts me. Name the person you become each time you do it.
3. Habit stack: after an existing routine you already do, I will do this habit. Stacks beat willpower.
4. Lazy day version: what counts if you only have 5 minutes. The loop only locks in if the brain logs a win, so a "kept the chain alive" version saves you on tired days.
5. Reward: a small positive outcome you actually want.

Then tick each day on the grid. The app uses the Two-day rule: never miss two days in a row. Miss one, the chain stays alive. Miss two, the chain breaks. The grid color-codes this for you.

Start with 1 to 3 habits. Add more once the first ones are sticky.

4.8 Insights: live from your data

Insights is read-only. It pulls live numbers from your plan and turns them into a small dashboard.

You see four areas at the top:

• Overview: headlines and celebrations. "Habits are landing (97%)." "5 quarter milestones lined up, ready to start."
• Trends: charts and year-over-year. Habit consistency, goal completion, reflection cadence.
• Detail: cadence depth (how often you actually plan the week), per-habit history, milestone log.
• Live signals: the four numbers that matter right now. Headline this week. Closing streak. Tasks completed. Milestones on track.

The Calendar / Month Recap / Quarter Recap / Year Recap chips at the top right export a printable summary you can read or share.

4.9 Wins: the Wall of Wins

Every poster-grade moment you have earned, in one place. Closed milestones, completed quarters, habit streak records, finished annual goals: they all become a card here.

The step is hidden from the stepper until you have earned your first win. It unlocks the first time you mark a milestone as done, finish a quarter, or close out a habit's annual cycle.

You can filter by category (Milestones, Quarters, Years, Other) and export the whole thing to a printable poster. Use this when self-belief runs low. Small wins make the loud ones inevitable.

5. The cadence: 5 minutes a day, 10 minutes on Sunday

The point of the cascade is that you do not need to think hard most days. The thinking happens once a year (Vision + Summit Goals) and once a quarter (review + reset). The rest is execution.

Daily (5 minutes, end of day)

• Tick today's habits.
• Mark each priority as done, partial, or moved.
• 2-minute reflection: what worked, what got in the way.

Weekly (10 minutes, Sunday)

• Read the Insights signals (your habit consistency, your closing streak, your tasks-completed number).
• Pick next week's three priorities from the month.
• Skim Coming Up for anything overdue.

Monthly (20 minutes, last Sunday of the month)

• Per focus area, mark each monthly goal: Traffic Light status (Green, Amber, Red).
• Read your Month Recap.
• Set next month's focus.

Quarterly (45 minutes, last weekend of the quarter)

• Per focus area, full Quarter Recap.
• Adjust your annual goals if Q1 numbers say you were wrong.
• Re-read your active Vision.

Annually (90 minutes, between Christmas and New Year)

• Read your Year Recap.
• Decide which Three Futures path is still active.
• Re-pick your 1 to 2 focus areas for next year.
• Write next year's Summit Goal (or restate it if it still holds).

You will probably miss a Sunday. That is fine. The Two-day rule applies to reviews too: skip one, no harm. Skip two in a row, and the rhythm breaks. The system rewards getting back on the next available Sunday, not punishing yourself for missing.

6. Save, load, and Dropbox sync

The companion app saves your plan to this browser automatically as you type. The save status sits in the top bar:

"Saved just now · in this browser only" tells you the plan is on your device and nowhere else. Click that text any time to download a .save backup file.

Manual save and load

• Save (Ctrl+S or Cmd+S): downloads a .save file. Keep it somewhere safe (Dropbox, iCloud, USB, email-to-self).
• Load (Ctrl+O or Cmd+O): opens a confirm dialog before replacing your current plan. Read the preview carefully; loading is destructive.

Two reasons to save manually:

1. Before switching browsers or devices.
2. Before any big change (loading demo data, resetting all data, browser update).

Dropbox sync (optional)

Open Settings (More menu → Settings, or Ctrl+,) and scroll to Cloud sync (Dropbox):

Click Connect Dropbox. A standard Dropbox OAuth window asks you to grant the app permission to its own private folder. Once connected:

• Sync writes to Apps/Life Goals Program/ on your Dropbox.
• Every save also pushes to that folder.
• Load any time from any device you have signed into the same Dropbox.
• Disconnect any time. Your local plan stays.

If you do not use Dropbox, just save the .save file manually before you switch devices. Both work.

7. Demo mode

Demo mode loads a sample plan with several years of values, goals, milestones, and habit history so you can see what a populated app feels like. Useful for:

• Exploring features before you have your own data.
• Showing a friend or coworker what the app does.
• Trying out the Insights dashboard with realistic numbers.
• Picking a persona whose situation is closest to yours and seeing how their goals are structured.

Open it from More menu → Load demo data…. The dialog gives you three personas, each with the full Goal Cascade filled in:

All three are screenshot-ready: 30 days of daily reflections, 3 habits with multi-month grids, monthly retros that light up the Wall of Wins, a current quarter mid-flight, and a previous year already wrapped. Pick whichever persona resonates most with your situation. Switching personas later is one click in the same dialog.

Read the rest of the dialog before clicking Load demo:

• Your real plan stays safe. Demo mode disables Save, so nothing you do in the demo overwrites the plan stored in this browser.
• A "Back to my data" link appears in the demo banner at the top so you can return any time.
• If you have unsaved work, click Save first to download a .save backup before loading the demo.

7.1 Headless screenshot URL helper

If you want to land on a specific step with a specific persona's data (for sharing with a friend, for documentation, for press), the app reads two query parameters:

• ?lgp_doc=<step> – jumps to a named step and skips the unlock gate. Valid steps: t1a, t1p, t1b, t2a, t2b, t2c, t3x, t4a, t5r.
• &persona=<key> – picks which persona's data to load. Valid keys: maya, david, catherine.

Example: https://goalsandprogress.com/lifegoalsapp/current.html?lgp_doc=t2b&persona=david lands directly on David Park's Summit Goals (CTO of a venture-backed startup, €1.5M FU number, sub-3:00 marathon).

8. Themes: 26 palettes, light or dark

Open Settings (More menu → Settings). Under Look → Color scheme you have 26 palettes:

Classic Glass, Brushed Steel, Atlas Dusk, Captain's Mirage, Carroburg Twilight, Electric Orchid, Enchanted Plum, English Daydream, Forge Smoke, Highland Mist, Iris Twilight, Library Velvet, Marsh Heron, Nebula Twist, Neon Meadow, Orbital Persia, Orchard Vespers, Polar Honey, Reef Diving, Riverside Persimmon, Sakura Twilight, Souk Night, Stardust Atoll, Sunkissed Saltflats, Vespers Tide, Wharfside Embers.

Each palette comes with three accent colors. The right-hand preview tile shows what the palette looks like applied. Click any palette to apply it instantly.

Below the palette list, Dark mode flips the surface from light to dark for whichever palette is selected. Use the system-preferences route (set your OS to Dark) if you want it to follow your laptop.

The Classic Glass palette is the default and is the safest pick for daily use. The bolder palettes (Carroburg Twilight, Neon Meadow, Souk Night) are great for short sessions and presentation but can fatigue the eyes if you work in the app for hours.

9. Keyboard shortcuts

The Jump palette is the fastest way to move around the app:

Press Ctrl+K anywhere, then type a few letters of a step name (val, pur, hab, win) and hit Enter. You can also use it to jump to a specific field inside a step.

A small floating chip in the corner reminds you about Ctrl+K until you dismiss it. Turn it off in Settings → Behaviour → Show Cmd-K hint.

10. Troubleshooting

"I lost my data"

If your plan vanished from the app:

1. Check if you have a .save file in Downloads. If yes, Load it.
2. Check Dropbox if you connected sync. The latest .save will be in Apps/Life Goals Program/ on your Dropbox.
3. Check the same browser on the same device. Plan data is stored in localStorage, scoped to one browser profile. Chrome and Safari each have their own copy.
4. If you cleared browser data or used an incognito window, the plan is gone. There is no server-side backup.

The defense against this is: save a .save file every few weeks, or connect Dropbox sync.

"The theme looks broken"

1. Open Settings → Color scheme.
2. Pick Classic Glass.
3. If that fixes it, the previous palette had a contrast issue with your OS dark-mode setting. Try the same palette in the opposite mode (light vs dark).
4. If Classic Glass still looks wrong, hard-refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R / Cmd+Shift+R) to bypass the browser cache.

"Dropbox sync stopped working"

1. Open Settings → Cloud sync.
2. Click Disconnect Dropbox, then Connect Dropbox again. This refreshes the OAuth token.
3. If Dropbox shows a permission prompt, accept it. The app needs access to its own scoped folder only.
4. If the connect button does nothing, check that pop-ups are not blocked for 127.0.0.1:8773 (local) or goalsandprogress.com/lifegoalsapp/ (production).

"Storage is full"

The companion app stores about 100 KB to 2 MB depending on how much history you have. Browsers cap localStorage at 5 to 10 MB per origin. If you see a "Browser storage is full" banner:

1. Press Ctrl+S to download a .save backup right now.
2. Open Settings → Danger zone → I understand these actions are permanent.
3. You can selectively clear old reflections, old habit history, or run a full reset (only after you have the .save file).

"I want to start over"

1. Press Ctrl+S to back up your current plan.
2. Settings → Danger zone → I understand these actions are permanent.
3. Click Reset all data.
4. The app reloads as if you had just unlocked it for the first time.

"Something else is broken"

Open the in-app Feedback button (top right, next to More) or email support@goalsandprogress.com. Include:

• What you were doing when it broke.
• What you expected.
• What actually happened.
• Browser + version (Chrome 138, Safari 18, etc.).
• A screenshot if you can.

I read all feedback personally during the beta.

11. The deal: give feedback, get the final version free

The beta runs from 21 May 2026 to 31 August 2026. Here is the trade:

• You use the app, in full, no feature limits.
• You send meaningful feedback at least once during the beta. "It crashed when I clicked X" counts. "The Vision step felt confusing because Y" counts even more. A two-line "I love it, here is one thing that bugs me" counts.
• In exchange, you get the v1.0 launch version free, with a one-click import from your beta data.

That is it. No coupon codes, no special links. If your email is on my beta list and you send at least one piece of feedback before 31 August, you get the launch version free.

Send feedback through:

• The in-app Feedback button (top right, opens a quick form via Senja).
• Email to support@goalsandprogress.com.

Both go to the same place. Both are read by me, not a bot or a contractor. Thank you for being here. The app is good already; with your input it will be excellent.