Goals & Progress
Come back without filling in the days you missed
Your plan is exactly as you left it, however long you were gone. In the Goals & Progress Life Goals App you close a little of what you missed, then plan forward from today.
Where you are in the journey
You know the five cycles of the rhythm. That was the guide before this one, Check in on the month and the quarter, close the year. After this one you read your own numbers, in Read your Insights and share your Wall of Wins.
What you will learn
- What the Life Goals App shows you after a few days away.
- How to close a missed day, week or month.
- What happens when you come back after 3 months.
- What breaks a habit streak, and what keeps it alive.
- How to mark a break before you go.
What you get when you come back
Come back after 3 days or more and you get a Welcome back line with the count of days away. Maya was gone for 8 days, so hers shows 8. You find that line on the Next step card, on Home on the phone and inside Execute on the computer.
Under the line you get one thing to do. It is a review you left open, or this week’s plan, or the list of everything you left open. After months away it offers the quarter instead. The orange chip counts the open reviews, and Open shows the list.
Close a day you missed
One unrecorded day changes nothing in your plan. Never miss two days in a row: close a missed day on the next one. The two-day rule is the same idea written out.
- Open Home on the phone, or Execute on the computer.
- Find the Next step card with Reflect on yesterday.
- Press Start. Yesterday opens on its Review tab.
- Tick the habits you did.
- Leave the reflection field empty when you do not remember the day.
A day further back has no card of its own. Open Execute and press the Previous day arrow beside the date until you reach it, then open the Review tab.
Start again after a missed week
A week that closed with no reflection goes into Open reviews. Both faces show that list, with one row per period.
Maya’s list holds three days and one week. Work down it in five steps.
- Press Open on the Next step card, or the chip with the count.
- Find the week in Open reviews.
- Press Review now on the computer, or Review on the phone.
- Write this week fresh, and say what the gap was.
- Mark only the habit days you remember.
For the next few days, mark each habit Lazy day instead of Done. Go back to full days once your rhythm is back.
A row you will never write goes away with Let it go. That stops the reminder, and a toast with Undo follows. A reflection written 2 weeks late is guesswork, so let that row go.
Start again after a missed month
A month with almost no entries has nothing useful to check, so skip that month check-in. Do these five things instead.
- Write one paragraph in this week’s reflection about what stopped you.
- Open the milestones of a Summit Goal that slipped.
- Mark the one whose date passed Off track.
- Mark one habit Lazy day today instead of dropping it.
- Add the other habits back, one a week.
Give each habit a trigger you already have, as the trigger, action and reward loop describes.
Why missed days stop showing
A missed day stays in Open reviews for 3 days. A longer period stays longer.
| Period | Stays in Open reviews | |—|—| | Day | 3 days | | Week | 7 days | | Month | 14 days | | Quarter | 28 days | | Year | 28 days |
After that the row goes out of the list, so it never piles up. The day keeps everything you wrote, and Execute still opens it. To see every period you left open, go to Settings, then Planning, and set Missed periods to All.
Come back after three months away
A gap of 90 days or more opens a window titled It has been a while, before anything else. Maya’s window names the gap and the periods still open.
Press Revisit Vision & Summit to open the Vision step. Read your active vision and your Summit Goals, and change what no longer fits. Press Skip ahead, plan today to go straight into the ordinary catch-up. Close the window without pressing either one and it comes back on your next visit. Once you choose, it stays away until another 90 days pass.
What a broken streak means
Only an empty day resets a streak. A Done mark keeps it going, and so does a Lazy day mark. Open Habits and press a day in the grid: once for Done, twice for Lazy day, three times for Not yet.
Mark a day you missed later and the run counts it, because the app counts back over every day you marked.
The lazy day version is the smaller form of a habit, written in advance for a hard day. Maya’s version of her 30-min diploma study block is 10 minutes of flashcards on the phone with coffee, and that counts as kept. Other habit trackers treat a missed day in different ways.
A reset takes nothing away from you. Open the Year view under Habits to see both numbers at once.
Mark a full day after a lazy day and you earn the comeback badge.
Nothing marked for 90 days is different. The habit card then has a Start again button, which marks today and starts your count at 1.
Mark a break before you go
A break is for time you decide to take: a holiday, or one rough Tuesday. Mark it, and that time never counts against you.
- On Execute, open the day, the week or the month you will be away.
- Press Mark as a break next to the headline.
- Press Unmark break on the same screen when you are back.
A break month tints every week and day inside it, and a green line appears under the headline.
You unmark a break where you set it.
The execution score in Insights skips break days. Your run of days at 85 percent or better pauses while you are away, and starts again from where it was. Break days pause the catch-up clock, so a holiday you marked does not count as time away. Days you did not mark still count. The app’s mark a month as a break recipe covers both.
Try these tips and tricks
- Mark the month a break before you travel, not after. The catch-up clock then skips those days.
- Press Let it go on a week you will never write up. The row goes, and the reminder stops.
- Mark one rough Tuesday as a break on its own. A break day never tints the week around it.
Key takeaways
- 3 days away brings up a Welcome back line with one thing to do.
- Open reviews holds what closed without a reflection, with Review now and Let it go on each row.
- A gap of 90 days opens the It has been a while window, with two ways on.
- A Done or Lazy day mark keeps a streak, and an empty day resets it.
- A break pauses the prompts and keeps that time out of your numbers.
Open the app now and find the Next step card. Do that one thing, and leave the rest of the list for another evening. The app’s start again after a missed week recipe has its own version of these steps, with pictures.
