A goal planner for goals you will actually follow through on.
A goal is a value with a deadline. This goal planner turns the things you care about into clear, SMART goals — then into tasks you can act on this week.
“More,” “better” and “someday” are not goals. They’re moods.
You know roughly what you want. Fitter. Further on with the business. More time at home. But nothing with an edge on it, nothing with a date, and nothing that would tell you at the end of March whether you were closer or further away. So the year passes and the answer is neither.
“Every year the same goal, in the same words, no closer.”
“Get fitter. Read more. Neither of those is anything you can start.”
“I set it in January and next saw it in December.”
“I’d have said I was working on it. I couldn’t have shown you where.”
What are SMART goals?
SMART goals are goals written to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. The acronym works as a checklist: what exactly, how much, is it possible, does it matter, and by when.
Most goals fail on the M and the T — there is no number and no date. That is why this smart goal planner asks for both before anything else.
The answer
Say the number and the date. That’s the whole trick.
Name the thing, put a number on it, give it a date. Read twenty-four books this year.Friday afternoons off by June. The planner holds the target and the count, and shows how far there is left to go.
Then tie it to a role — as a parent, as a builder — and it stops being a line on a list and starts being something you are doing on purpose.
“Add goal read 24 books this year”
It’s on the board with a target, and the bar starts at zero.
Life Planning › Goals › + Add
Same result, if you’d rather type it.
Three goals on the free plan. The pages are all there from the start.
What the research found
Across 35 years of research, specific and challenging goals consistently beat “do your best.”
Specific goals work through four routes: they hold your attention, they mobilize effort, they keep you going longer, and they push you to find better ways. A goal you can measure is a goal you can hit.
The same wishes, rewritten so they can be started:
Get fitter→Run a half-marathon in May
Read more→Read twenty-four books this year
More time at home→Friday afternoons off by June
Finish the boat one day→Finish the sloop by the spring launch
The part most planners miss
The same goal means two different things depending on who’s setting it.
Take Friday afternoons off by June is a diary change. As a dad, take Friday afternoons off by June is a decision about the kind of father you are.
Same words. Same date. Completely different weight — and the second one survives a bad week, because you are not letting a calendar down, you are letting someone down.
As a dadFriday afternoons off by June
As a builderfinish the sloop by the spring launch
As a learnertwenty-four books this year
For years my goals were whatever the business needed next. I hit most of them. I could not have told you why any of them mattered, only that they were on the list and the list was mine.
The ones I remember are the ones I picked as a father, not as an owner.
— Dave Rees, Founder. From boatbuilder, to business owner, to Founder.
Break a goal into a week of tasks
With Pro, the AI proposes a week of tasks toward any goal — up to ten, over the next seven days. The goal stops being a line on a board and starts being something in your week.
Read twenty-four books this year. Friday afternoons off by June. Each has a number or a clear outcome, and a date.
Is there a goal planner app?
VoiceFirstPlanner’s goal planner holds the target and the count, and shows how far there is left to go. Three goals on the free plan; Premium takes every limit off.
Pick three. Put dates on them. See where you are in June.
Free account. No card, no clock. Your goals sit in Life Planning, in the same app as your daily planner.
