HACKER Q&A
📣 titusnovel

How do you keep track of your goals?


I've tried various apps and pen & paper. The latter seems to work better, but it's sometimes annoying having to write so much, when an app could help and automate some things further. However most apps are paid for or oriented towards business and not individuals. Are there any good open source goal tracking apps? Or do you have an elaborate pen & paper system at hand? How much has it helped you?


  👤 robswc Accepted Answer ✓
I like to get things "out of my head" and just on to "paper."

Once I do that, I can sort them out better. I have an app called UpNote which works really well. For things with deadlines, I use ClickUp.

I personally think, after lots of experimentation, that getting ideas down and then organizing them into what can be done in the month/year works pretty well. A lot of ideas don't get done or don't make the cut but I realize that's probably for a good reason in a lot of cases.


👤 rcarr
Journaling with Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly and Yearly reviews. You set your goals for the coming week/month/quarter/year in the entry and then as part of your review process you refer back to the previous entry to see how much progress you’re making towards them and whether your need to course correct. I recommend using a personal wiki application to do this such as Obsidian as it allows you to link to other notes just by typing the note title in double square brackets e.g [[$NOTE_TITLE]]. Obsidian also has plugins to automate a lot of this (I use calendar, periodic notes and breadcrumbs).

👤 DamonHD
Goals or to-do list(s)?

For the latter, at the moment one piece of paper on my desk, and one vi-edited, networked-repository managed (so available on multiple machines) TODO.txt file. The odd shared spreadsheet (eg on Google Drive) for special projects.

Goals: high level and in my head. Fix the climate, see my kids through education, finish this PhD I started, pick up another start-up opportunity that passes by if not too much in conflict with the other goals.