Goals & Progress
Turn your month into three things you will do this week
Planning the week in the Goals & Progress Life Goals App takes about 8 minutes with three annual goals. The estimate sits at the top of the screen, and planning the day takes about 3 minutes. This guide covers that planning: three main focus items for the week, then today’s three tasks out of them. The look back has its own guide, Close your day and your week.
Where you are in the journey
Your quarter and month are planned already. That was the guide before this one, Plan your quarter and your month. Here you turn the month into a week, and the week into today. The guide after this one, Close your day and your week in the Life Goals App, is where you tick what you finished.
What you will learn
- Where the three main focus items of your week come from.
- What a deliverable is and how to write one.
- How to pick today’s three tasks from your week.
- What the daily value line gives you each morning.
What goes into the week plan
The Life Goals App gives the week three main focus rows and a list of deliverables under them. The Plan tab opens with one question: what can you do this week to come closer to your monthly goals? Under the question the app repeats your month’s main focus and deliverables.
You write your week in the next card.
The example plan belongs to Maya Chen, a bank branch manager. Her month’s main focus reads: “Capstone outline + the Q2 ranking review with the team. Add a 4th run day.”
Plan your week in eight steps
- Open Execute, then press this week in the row of periods, such as W36.
- Read your month’s main focus at the top of the Plan tab.
- Type your first item into the row marked Main focus.
- Open the picker beside the title and choose what this item moves forward.
- Set the hours you plan to spend on it.
- Fill in Main focus 2 and Main focus 3 the same way.
- Under List the deliverables, write what you want to finish.
- Press Set this week’s plan.
On the phone you answer one question per screen, five screens in all. The button at the bottom reads Next main focus, then Next twice, and the last screen adds up your hours. On the computer the whole week is one page.
The Review tab of that week is the subject of the guide after this one.
Write three main focus items you can finish
Grey wording in the first row means the app filled it from your month. Type over the grey and the row becomes yours. Three rows is all you get, so pick what you would still do in a bad week. Start with the first row.
Rows 2 and 3 take the same three parts.
Maya wrote these three for her week:
- “Capstone outline v2 sent to the advisor · Tue and Thu evenings”, 2 hours.
- “Add 4th run day (Tue or Sun)”, 1 hour.
- “One-on-one time: milkshake run with each kid”, 1.5 hours.
The picker between the title and the hours box ties the item to a milestone, to a number you count, or to an annual goal. Maya’s first item points at the milestone “Module 6 passed, capstone topic approved”. The app calls that chain the Goal Cascade. Read goal cascading from vision to daily tasks for the same chain from a five year goal down to Tuesday morning.
The hours box is your own estimate. In Essentials Mode you do not see it, and your numbers stay saved.
List the deliverables under them
A deliverable is what remains once you finish the work. Keep each one small, dated and finishable. Each row has a tick box and a date. You fill in the title and pick an effort of Small, Medium or Large.
Press Add deliverable when you need a fourth row.
Maya listed three: “Capstone outline v2 sent”, “4th run day logged” and “Q2 ranking review booked with the team”. The first time you open the list, the app copies your main focus items into it in grey. Edit a row and it stops being a suggestion.
Pick deliverables you will enjoy finishing, because life goals that actually stick are the ones you keep doing.
Plan your day in nine steps
- On the phone, tap Execute, then Plan the day.
- On the computer, open Execute and press today in the row of periods, such as Tue 1.
- Read your week’s main focus at the top of the Plan tab.
- Type your most important task into Priority #1 · Main focus.
- Open the picker beside the title and choose the week item it moves.
- Set the hours you plan to spend on it.
- Fill in Priority #2 and Priority #3.
- Press More tasks for anything outside those three.
- Press Set today’s plan.
The question at the top of the day is plain: what can you do today to make progress on your main focus this week? The three rows under it work like the week’s rows, with minutes instead of hours.
You tick that box after you finish the task.
Maya’s Tuesday holds three tasks. “Diploma study block before opening” at 30 minutes, “Run · 20-min M/W/F” at 24 minutes, and “Phones-away family dinner” at 30 minutes.
A day you never plan costs you nothing, because no empty row counts as a miss. One line over the rows adds up your estimates, and it counts down as you tick the tasks. Record what you did, compare it with the plan, correct one thing.
How the daily value line works
One of your five values comes to the day with a line about using it. Maya’s Tuesday reads “Today’s value: Let Discipline into the plan before the day fills up”.
The value rotates through your top five, so it is not always your first one.
In the evening you tick whether you brought it into the day. A blank day counts as unanswered. To turn the line off, open Settings, then Appearance, then Daily value line.
What happens when the month is empty
You can plan a week with no month behind it. The week then names the gap: “No monthly goals set yet, so this week has nothing closer to connect to”. Next to that sentence, Plan this month takes you up one level.
The day does the same when the week is empty.
Try these tips and tricks
- Press Plan today from these under your week plan, and the day opens with your week in the picker.
- Tie a task to a number, and ticking it adds that amount to the number.
- Turn Daily planning off in Settings, Cadence and the day goes out of the row of periods. Your days stay saved.
- Press Mark as a break on a week you plan to skip. Nothing counts as missed.
- Press Change plan on a plan you set, and the rows open for editing again.
Key takeaways
- The week gives you three main focus rows, with the deliverables under them.
- Today takes three tasks from your week, and the rest go under More tasks.
- A picker ties each row to the milestone or the number it moves.
- Planning takes about 8 minutes a week with three goals and 3 minutes a day; the reflections come on top, about 10 and 3 minutes.
- Set this week’s plan locks the week and opens today for you.
Plan the rest of today before you close this page
Open Execute, press today, and write one task into Priority #1 · Main focus. Tie it to a main focus of this week, and you have the whole chain in one line. The app’s own recipe, turn your year into today’s tasks, walks all five levels.
