Ask HN: What do you use to align your daily todos with your long term goals?

[mboperator]

Hey HN,

I'm trying to figure out how a better way to stay on track with my long term (1 year) goals.

Currently I have a list of measurable 1 year goals (eg: Explore and work out of at least 3 cities this year)

I also write daily work/life todo lists in a moleskine notebook to keep myself on track during the day.

Does anyone have any recommendations/tools for keeping these daily goals todo list goals in alignment with the big picture?

[imranq]

Advice from my physics professor: make a detailed plan and then discard the plan and do what you feel.

This doesn't mean the plan was unnecessary...rather the plan carves out the neural pathways in your mind. The feeling part is important too since if I am so rigid then I am going to be crushed by the randomness of life.

[LVB]

"Plans are nothing; planning is everything." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

I used to hear this a lot from one of my better bosses. I agree with it. It is, however, important to capture "planning". Any form is fine, whether scribbles or a list or a picture of a whiteboard. Trying to organize the raw info was usually a waste of time, but having it accessible as a reference wasn't.

[cJ0th]

That's what I arrived at as well. However, sometimes it's good to make a new plan after a while and then discard that one as well and so one. One could call it "iterative creation of intention".

[tablet]

This strategy is an epic win. It totally resonates with my experience.

[tajen]

"Write a business plan to prove the idea is feasible, then throw it away".

[renaudg]

A critical factor of success in achieving long term goals is to schedule corresponding daily todos on a calendar. Because if something isn't either obviously urgent or scheduled on a calendar, it never gets done.

For this reason, I sorely miss the Timeful app (bought and shut down by Google) which nailed the process perfectly, integrating one-off todos, habits (e.g. 3 runs/week) and calendar management in a single system. AI-based suggestions for scheduling todos was the icing on the cake.

To this day, sadly I still haven't found a decent replacement.

Google Calendar took the automatic habits scheduling engine from it but is otherwise inadequate for todos, and well-established todo managers like Things / Wunderlist stubbornly refuse to allow something as simple as drag+dropping todos onto a calendar at a specific time of the day (which is the critical bit), and they don't support habits ("tick this box n times a week")

Plan (getplan.co) seemed promising but is too alpha for daily use and development seems to have stalled. SkedPal nails it in theory but is over-engineered and bloated, its UI asks too many questions and cognitive load is high, it needs "Apple-ification".

Any other recommendations very welcome ! Even happy to beta test or collaborate on something new (I know the world already has too many productivity apps, but it lost the "right" one with Timeful IMHO)

[molloy]

I use org-mode for daily todo tracking (and more); I have it configured to auto-generate a TODOS.org file at every project root. I add these to my org-agenda and can easily capture todo items, schedule them (with a calendar view), view my daily/monthly/yearly agenda, and more (i.e. org-pomodoro) with a quick keyboard sequence.

I recently decided to start tracking my life todos in addition to the work projects, which was as simple as creating a life directory and running `git init`.

Org-mode does require using emacs, if it is too crufty for you or you don't like the learning curve, try spacemacs! Its org layer[0] is well configured, and it is also well suited for modal editing if that's your thing.

[0] http://spacemacs.org/layers/+emacs/org/README.html

[creativityland]

I do wish Wunderlist will add more calendar integration, it is more useful for repeated or short-term goals for me. Basecamp works well for team collaboration, but it is getting quite busy UX wise.

For long term goals and planning, I prefer to break things down into bullet points, and categories, and check them off as I go. https://taskade.com has been great for that (though no calendar integration), especially with their Chrome Extension that loads your most recent list on each new tab.

Todoist is replacing Wunderlist for me with their more frequent updates.

[blowski]

A frequent-ish review. About once a month, I get a nice coffee and cake and spend a couple of hours thinking about the last month, my current todo list and my long term goals. I try to remove anything that doesn't contribute to the goals, and intentionally put tasks which will move me toward my goals.

I also pray quite frequently (I'm Christian, but I believe some types of meditation are just as effective here). I look at my principles and ask myself whether I'm genuinely living up to them, and ask myself how I can improve.

I have tried using OmniFocus and MyLifeOrganised, but I found both tools got in the way of my thought process. Now I just use paper and coloured pens.

[fsiefken]

Yes, I'm an eclectic christian, I find 'the daily examen' an Ignation spiritual exercise - useful. Agnostics, atheists can perhaps use the same procedure and replace the first two steps with mindfulness and gratitude meditation and the last with goal attention. http://www.loyolapress.com/our-catholic-faith/prayer/persona...

[awjr]

I have a trello board with the following columns:

"Good intentions" :- Things I think I'm going to do. I investigate then put in other columns.

"Next Up" :- Need to have a go at next.

"Working On" :- Actively doing.

"Done/Dead" :- Things that I did as well as things I failed at or discarded.

"Follow Up" :- Something happened, so need to wait on something/someone to then allow me to continue.

"Asleep" :- Sometimes things are not 'Dead' they are just really not worth looking at for another year or so. I evaluate these projects once a year or and move them into Next Up if viable again.

It's my home page when I fire up my browser. ;)

[macNchz]

> It's my home page when I fire up my browser. ;)

That's maybe what I've been missing with this approach...I've set up very similar Trello boards in the past only to have them get stale because I only looked at them on a 'pull' basis rather than having them 'pushed' to me automatically.

[illuminea]

That sounds great, but doesn't it get gigantic and hard to focus on at a certain point?

[bharatkalluri]

Hey, Random person on the internet here!

Your method just made me realise where I am in my life and how much more I need to accomplish.

Thank you!

[m3adow]

This sounds very useful. I used to have something similar in a smaller scale on a whiteboard a couple of years ago. I guess a Trello board is just a better iteration.

I'll be trying this the next couple of weeks.

[samridh90]

Is this roughly based on the David Allen's "Getting things done" method?

[turc1656]

Thank you for this. This sounds like a solid approach that I can benefit from.

[enoch_r]

I cannot possibly recommend Beeminder highly enough, if you happen to have the personality type that it works well with.

The basic idea isn't too far off from the million other "habit" apps out there. I say I want to meditate X days a week, tell Beeminder whenever I meditate, Beeminder gives me a pretty (okay, decently attractive) graph of how I'm doing, and they tell me if I'm not meditating as much as I want to.

The key that makes Beeminder stick (heh) is that it makes use of commitment contracts. I don't just say I want to meditate X days a week, I promise Beeminder that if I don't meditate X days a week, I will pay them $5 (or $10, or $30). You can cancel or decrease your goal at any time, but only with a week of heads-up, so you can quit for a well thought out reason but not because you just don't feel like it today.

I've tried to start a lot of habits in my life, but I've historically been very bad at sticking with them for very long. It's so easy to give into the "I'll just do that tomorrow" syndrome.

As an example, here's my Beeminder graph for "tidying up": https://www.beeminder.com/jds02006/tidyup

I love having a clean desk, but historically I'd have a clean desk every 6 months, followed by a slow accretion of messy crap. Now, if I don't spend 5 minutes tidying up my work area every few days, I'll have to pay Beeminder $30. Result: my desk area is completely clear.

It sounds crazy (to my wife, at least), but it's ridiculously good at bringing your long-term goals (and the consequences for not achieving them) into the present.

Disclaimer: I have no association with Beeminder, but they have sent me stickers for making bug reports. :)

[passivepinetree]

Wait, do you pay the company Beeminder that money?

Or is it paid into a savings account or something for you to have access to later?

If you actually pay the company that money, and if their app is based around that pricing, that's a pretty unique business model idea.

[daveguy]

Three questions:

How much have you had to pay beeminder?

How do you make payments (escrow, credit card, PayPal, etc)?

Is it a non-profit?

It seems like this would be a great opportunity for a non-profit. Although it may reduce the incentive a bit. I expect it will be psychologically similar. Especially if the non-profit overhead is something like 10%. You are effectively losing 10% of what could have gone directly to your non-profit of choice.

[firehawk895]

David Allen's getting things done hands down. You don't even need to read the book to implement it, although it's a great read. here's the 15-minute summary that will get you going right now - https://hamberg.no/gtd/ - I have used Trello to implement it - here's a screenshot. http://i.imgur.com/dbH8yGq.png

specifically answering your question - this framework makes you regularly review your task list and ensures that you have a quantifiable next action for every large scale (1-year project) that you can do to reach your final goal.

[renaudg]

The problem with GTD is that it explicitly discourages you to schedule tasks at a specific time unless strictly necessary : you're always supposed to do whatever is "next" in the "context" you're in. You're never done, and this can be taxing and make you want to give up.

Newer research (Dan Ariely's IIRC) has shown that having tasks on the calendar improves the chances of actually doing a realistic number of them.

[amykhar]

The whole 'Next Action' is what really makes this method work for me. What is the one thing you need to do next to move this goal or project forward? Keeping goals actionable transforms them from ideals to reality.

[steventhedev]

Google calendar and an hour each morning to move actions related to long-term goals into your short term todo list (notebook in your case).

However, bear in mind that plans are rarely followed to execution perfectly. You may meet someone who wants you to stay, or you may get a really good offer. You might experience financial hardship and need to settle down for a while.

When I go on a hike, I spend a good hour or two studying maps (topographical, orthophoto, etc) before picking a trail. It means that I can decide on a whim to follow another trail halfway through if conditions call for it (mud, rain, wild animals, etc). Planning is about mapping out all possible outcomes, and not so much about following one plan to the letter.

[girzel]

I agree that regular assessment sessions are crucial.

If you, like me, are vaguely afraid of facing the future, it's enormously helpful to have a todo list, and to set aside a small part of every day for tending the todo list.

It's hugely helpful to have a moment in the day when you tell yourself you're not actually going to do any work (you are off the hook), but you're going to look at your list and poke and prod it in advance of such time as you're ready to work again.

Simply forgiving yourself the need to actually take action on any given item, and focusing on organizing what you've got, is immensely freeing, and sets you up pretty nicely for the next morning.

[newbear]

Thanks for this. I usually rush through planning/organization because I think it shouldn't take long, especially just for day to day things. But you mentioning that you give an hour is eye opening. Do you do this at work or before? How do you stay motivated/consistent to do it everyday?

[nzjrs]

> moleskine notebook

Ok. That's a weird detail to bother hipsterbragging about.

Anyway, I have a post it on my monitor that says. "Just do the fucking thing and stop doing busywork". I have a second one that says "Successful people have better things to do than arguing on reddit/hn"

Tldr; constant visible progress, cut distractions

[kittenmittens]

Consider for a moment that it might not be a "hipsterbrag" and just a colloquial name for a type of notebook. The concept of "Syncing" to paper is quite common[1][2].

[1]http://robertgreiner.com/2013/03/sync-to-paper/ [2]https://www.hanselman.com/blog/TotallyStressedOutSyncToPaper...

[erelde]

> Ok. That's a weird detail to bother hipsterbragging about.

> "Successful people have better things to do than arguing on reddit/hn"

[hbt]

I like the 4dx approach. Lead measures vs Lag measures.

you pick a long term goal and associate a metric to it.

Example: weight from 180 to 170 That's your lag measure.

Your lead measure are the activities you get done daily.

- Daily caloric intake

- sleep schedule

- exercise routine

- water intake

- intermittent fasting

Your lead measure influence your lag measure but as the name indicates, it takes time before you notice the effect.

Focus on your lead metrics and adjust when they are not working.

[taude]

I read about this in the book, Deep Work. I guess there's a book just about it (that my boss forwarded to me once).

[mgiannopoulos]

Beeminder (https://www.beeminder.com/) is mentioned below, I've been using it for 2.5 years. The last 3 months I'm also doing some planning in a digital form (but all manual) of the paper-based Bullet Journal method http://bulletjournal.com/

[egypturnash]

Train yourself to think the following:

Any day in which I do not make progress towards one of my Big Goals is a failure. Any day in which I do make progress is a success.

Remember this when you decide what today's todos are. Remind yourself of this when you have to juggle priorities and ditch half of your list for today because something came up. And forgive yourself for the times you fall off the wagon; shit happens. But let that little bit of "I got fuck-all done today" guilt carry over to the next morning to spur you to the Big Important Projects.

This is how I kept myself working on long projects, first one that took a year, then one that took five years. Some parts were slower than others. Some were interrupted by life.

The fewer Big Things you have to juggle, the easier it is to keep returning to them.

Use whatever todo list makes you happy. Personally I use a lightweight version of the Pomodoro method; I write down 3-5 things to do with my day on a post-it, with 4-8 checkboxes total next to them, each representing a half an hour. I usually never check all of them because Things Come Up. This post-it stays on my desk, and gets the next day's stuck on top of it. Every now and then I look at old ones and toss them.

[hoodwink]

Stop focusing on long-term goals (outcomes) and focus on daily habits (process). For example, rather than focusing on learning French, do 15 minutes of Duolingo every day.

[mboperator]

Ahh how could I forget the "systems based" approach.

Relevant: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102964992706/goals-vs-systems

I think aligning daily habits with long term goals could be beneficial

[hvidgaard]

Long term goals should be the basis for what to focus on as a daily habit.

[laktek]

You can apply the concept of OKRs [0] for this. Think Objectives as your long term goals and Key Results as your routine tasks. When you pick a daily task you should be able to point to the objective it'd satisfy.

I've been ignoring it thinking it's corporate BS and doesn't really apply to personal life. But I tried it in last year (where I quit my day job to bootstrap my own startup) and felt having a systematic thinking is actually productive.

[0] https://library.gv.com/how-google-sets-goals-okrs-a1f69b0b72...

[beat]

Someone once said look after the molehills, and the mountains will take care of themselves.

The best thing I ever did for my to-do habit was to get rid of the backlog. I don't backlog tasks now. I only track things I am working on now, or will be working on immediately after. The backlog caused an urgent-vs-important conflation that led to a lot of analysis paralysis.

If something isn't important enough to stay at the top of my mind, it's not that important.

[jwdunne]

Interesting because I looked at goal setting some time ago. If you Google "goal setting doesn't work", you'll find as much against it.

Having a rough idea of where you want to go and setting yourself a number of small wins in the right direction could help you. Get into the habit of daily small wins that you know is moving you towards your true north.

As another point, I see systems and habits referenced below. Interesting because I'm midway through Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. Here is what he did:

He worked out a set of virtues that he thought he ought to have, such as temperance, industry, silence, etc.

Using that, he then used the calender method that's proposed a lot on each virtue to instill​ them as habits!

I'm inclined to say he was an early self-help author but also one that has something other than success in self-help as a justification for his methods.

[ianai]

I've found todo lists help, but "done" lists help almost more. It gives me a larger sense of accomplishment.

[XFrequentist]

https://complice.co

Complice is aimed at exactly this problem. Integrates a bunch of other productivity hacks as well, I love it.

The founder was interviewed on indie hackers recently: https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/complice

[shennyg]

It takes some time to get used to but is completely worth the investment.

If you want to know if I had a productive day or not ask if I started my day in Complice

It doesn't try to reinvent the productivity wheel, it uses what works. Pomodoros, long term goals, tracking, weekly / monthly reviews, positive reinforcement, optional social accountability.

Plus the guy building it is always adding new things while keeping it familiar.

[poppingtonic]

You can also use Complice in a group setting, using rooms, if you think you might need accountability buddies.

[iamnothere]

I use Panda Planner, a physical notebook designed to help you with monthly, weekly, and daily prioritization. I have found that the process of physically writing down and tracking goals each day forces me to sort through my mental clutter and decide what is important.

For me, this priority-setting process is really a separate domain than daily task tracking, project-level organization, and so on. As long as I do that daily review, it doesn't really matter where I keep my task breakdowns. I actually use several of those to keep tasks separated based on the project domain -- Visual Studio Online for development, Todoist for marketing, and so on.

[tedmiston]

Knowing nothing else about this planner yet, you really gotta give it up to the founder for what he's persevered through to launch it:

> WHY I CREATED PANDA PLANNER

> For over five years of my life, I was hampered by Lyme Disease, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and most recently, Cancer. Each of these on their own was enough to knock me on my back and render me mostly useless, but the combination resulted in a perfect storm of depression, anxiety and inability to think clearly. Naturally this was something of a bummer!

https://pandaplanner.com/pages/about-us

[AJRF]

I started looking at GTD and then just thought, some of these ideas are good, others I don't need, so I just made my own version of it.

So I have the following Cards in a Trello Board;

1. Inbox -> Things I can reasonably expect to complete in a day or less 2. In Progress -> Limited to 5 per day 3. Projects -> Working on an app? Put details in here 4. Reminders/Waiting -> I've sent a form in, waiting a response before next action 5. Some Day -> Things I would like to tackle some day (Good for reviewing long term goals) 6. Complete / Split into smaller tasks

[VohuMana]

Not sure if this will help but one way I have helped map my todos with my long term goal is: - Get a large white board or sheet of paper, the key here is a lot of space to write/draw. - Draw a circle and write one of your goals. - Now think of everything you need to do to accomplish that goal and create circles with those things written in then and draw a line to the main goal. - Now repeat the same process for each of the smaller circles and keep going till you have a feeling that everything is in bite sized chunks. (These are essentially your todos) - Now create a timeline and add milestones (eg: Monthly milestones) figure out how many circles you need to get done before each milestone. - Now you should have a good idea of what you need to have done and by when to be on track.

it doesn't work very well for goals that are hard to measure but it can be applied in a lot of situations. Good luck tackling all your goals :)

[nefitty]

Awesome idea. A good mind-mapping app should do the trick for this as well. I'm gonna give it a go tonight!

[koliber]

For me, it involved making the big picture big, vivid, specific, and tangible.

I was introduced to the idea of a Painted Picture. It is a goal setting methodology that involves heavy visualization. This particular incarnation was developed by Cameron Harold, as part of his coaching activities.

It made a big impact on my life.

The gist is that you write down, in narrative form, what your day will look like exactly 3 years from now. You write in the first person form, diving into various areas of your life. It should involve as much detail as possible. Ideally, these should be very optimistic goals which you dream of, rather than safe ones you are very likely to hit. It's OK if all of them don't materialize.

Example:

On March 13, 2020, I will be sitting in my comfortable arm chair in my living room. A fire will be roaring in the fireplace, and I will be looking over my emails. The kids just left to school. My wife drove them in our BMW VJ850. She is currently at work at MegaCorp, giving a presentation to the board about the XYZ initiative, which has a huge chance of success and will give her a real chance at the CXO position.

You continue on for two pages or so, going into minute details. Talk about your kids, your home, your relationship with your friends, the kind of food you want to be eating, professional activities, health, hobbies, charitable activities, political activism, and whatever else you want to affect positively. To keep it interesting, you can talk about what just happened ("We recently returned from a two week cruise in the Bahamas") or what is coming up ("I will be spending a week with a new client doing KJI advising. This is the biggest deal I've landed thus far. They have agreed to my $2,000 per diem rate. I'm confident they will be happy with the value I provide for them.")

Dream big. Share it with your significant other, if they're in it. Encourage them to write one of their own.

How does this help with the day to day goal setting and decision making?

It's uncanny! The imagery is so vivid that it permeates my daily life. My wife and I talk about it regularly. Whenever daily decisions need to be made, the painted picture comes to mind and guides me towards my goals. When I need decide what to do today, this week, or this month, and choose between the infinite possible activities I could be doing, having this powerful visualization in the back of my mind aligns me with my goals.