The point of using "goals"

[Esfirius]

Hi!
Being an adapt of the GTD system, I still don't quite get the point of
using goals in MLO. I mean, I can set the due date within a week or a
month - well, then what's the point of using the "weekly goal" or
"monthly goal" property?
Would be nice to hear some conceptual explanations :D
thanks!

[chuckdevee]

I suspect this is an early concept that is somehow now largely
redundant.
But I do actually use the funcionality this option provides to give an
additional 'dimension' to my todo list.
Basically, even though my ToDo list has some rough ordering it's still
a mix of important and non-important tasks.
I set a rule to tone down the colour of tasks I mark as "Year" goals
to grey.
So my ToDo list is 2-tone (black and grey fonts) with less important
tasks effectively slightly muted.
Seems to work pretty well and allows me to focus on the more important
tasks when I need to, irrespective of urgency.
I guess I could effect the same recult using categories but I find it
cleaner to do it this way.

[MrJo]

I'm not sure of the original intent, but I've aligned the goal property to work with vertical perspectives in GTD.  In my system, a weekly goal is a yearly goal, a monthly goal is a 2-3 year goal, and a yearly goal is a 5 year goal.

[dwight]

I’m sure this was not the intended use, but I set “weekly goal” for tasks that I need to do right now but can’t get to. There are usually three to ten of those kinds of tasks active at any moment. The weekly goal designation causes them to display at or near the top of my queue, and I use a view filtered on goal=weekly to make sure they all get completed.

 

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• The point of using "goals" [1 Update]

 Topic: The point of using "goals"

MrJo <alan....@gmail.com> Apr 21 04:55AM -0700 ^

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[Lisa Stroyan]

I don't like defining hard due dates unless they are actually real dates.  Much of my life is defined in relation to other tasks or interrupts, so when I set a due-date that is not true, it often will go by without the task being completed.  Goals give me a way to set a rolling target -- these are tasks that I would like to get to roughly within the next week or so. If something else higher priority shows up, I still want to do that task the following week. 

So I guess for me it is something of a rough overall urgency marker, though I admit I haven't been using it enough recently.

Lisa

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Lisa Stroyan, mailto:lstr...@gmail.com
http://www.empathic-parenting.com

[daneb]

Hi,

I use due dates as ticklers (as decribed by GTD). I do not consider
them a hard deadlines, I just want to be sure that I do not forget
these 6 important or not very important tasks I want to do on
Monday... When I want to emphasize that due date is really a deadline,
I set due date and put equal sign (=) in title (and autoformat such
tasks to be highlighted). Although it is not "fundamentalist" GTD, but
rather a mix of GTD and Covey system, it suits me best - I have both
daily plans/daily ticklers and context set etc.

Now, this is not very good system for emphasizing importance (which
GTDers does not like but I do :). That is why I also use Goals for
setting strategic and important tasks. Apart from long-term goals, I
set monthly goals (not more than 7) and weekly goals (not more than
5). The biggest advantage is that you have dedicated view for Goals
(Treeview/goals) where you can focus on these important tasks, prepare
subtasks etc. I have autoformating set to distinguish goals among
other tasks (by icon). I do not use due dates in goals, unless I want
to do this task (e.g. weekly goal) on specific day during the week.

(I also use stars for marking other important tasks I want to focus on
these days. It is not effective to have too many goals, of course. So
the rest of all important tasks I want to focus on goes "starred" and
I can see them during the day in special "starred" view).

It works for me best and utilizes the most important features from
both GTD and Covey dayily plan/priority lists. If you want to use only
strict GTD, then you can use MLO Goals for 20.000, 50.000 ft goals or
how it is named in GTD...

Daneb

[Lasse Pedersen]

I haven't started using them yet (and would also love to hear more about the initial philosophy behind). But I see them as a kind of guiding post or beacon. The manual says the goals are what the actions should be oriented towards.

There are also goals or targets that are not necessarily just tasks on a list.

For example, a quota about a certain thing you want to achieve at a certain time.

Or something about your policy or way of operating. Something as simple as "Be in bed at my proper planned time at least 4 times this week".

[Stéph]

Hello Lasse,

Just to add to the mix: I use a combination of Steven Covey's 7 habits of highly effective people and David Allen's GTD system. My tree structure has areas of life at the top (personal, home, work, community), then my roles in each area, then a mixture of goals and projects. Goals are those I set myself or ones set for me for the year, in my annual progress review with my boss. By organizing projects under my roles and goals, I try to make sure that I'm prioritizing those projects and activities which align with my goals.

I MLO, I use the annual goal tag to identify my goals (which brings up a target icon in position 0, in my Automatic Formatting rules).

Does that help... or just confuse things?

Stéphane

[Lasse Pedersen]

Stéph, thanks for the feedback and sorry for the late response. Seems I had forgotten to subscribe for email updates.

I'm not familiar with the 7 habits other than by name and brief outline. So haven't played with it. (I like your idea of defining roles. Is this from the 7 habits concept?).

I think it is helpful to blend in (or top-load) other models that help go beyond the very task-driven philosophy of GTD.

Yes, GTD sort of covers it with reviews and the "altitude concept" - but it tends to get too little attention because it is not as nuts-and-bolts as all the rest. It is not described in detail and it is not as easily rolled into a tool that supports it.

I find the goals important for the "altitude concept" or whatever way strategic goals are arranged. But since goals on a year-level or more are on a strategic level, I don't find it terribly important to have them embedded/included in my every-day productivity/action tool. (And I think that's another reason Goals don't get a lot of attention in MLO talks or in the manual).

It is good to have them handy and to look at them often - if for nothing else, simply to keep them top of mind. But I could have them in whatever list or document on my phone that is easy to call up. (Perhaps combined with various visualization / affirmation / motivation information).

The actual execution on my high level goals would be "bridged" through one or more strategic plans (that often involve several goals) and then high-level projects ("programs" really) with many projects below them.

For example, if I wanted to change career this might involve several goals both for work and private (e.g. moving to a different city). Clever strategy and brilliant planning is when one can "merge" goals into these kind of strategies that cover all / make the best compromise. In that example, I would have to take both my career ambitions, my lifestyle preferences and relationship goals into perspective in the plans. A project of "survey new place to live" would be referring to all 3 of these in some way.

I could of course also put them in MLO but right now I am holding off, as I am considering to use those goals for something more "custom" which is not (always) tied up on week, month or year. (So I might use the week/month/year setting to signify another meaning and keep my yearly goals elsewhere).

I support that MLO has goals or some kind of projects/tasks which are kept out of the normal to-do centric lists and more of a "review and check off periodically" thing. But with an extra option that is not a hard setting with week/month/year.

To use this for achievements that are not about specific one-time tasks but more about HOW (my policies, habits, ways of doing things - ie. QUALITY you might say) and HOW MUCH (as in, quota. E.g. "call 10 new leads" or "send out 10 job applications). The HOW I operate can also be used for various kinds of habit mastery.

About habits and routines, some of them could be permanent "policy", others could be temporary to handle some situation. Such as: "For the next two weeks, use 30 minutes daily to sort and clean up that huge box of paper mess". (Of course, when it gets that specific, it could be a recurring task, I know).

There are many variants of HOW, HOW MUCH or REGULARLY (temporary or permanent) and I will be analyzing this further. I find that I often pause and ponder when defining work in my projects because part of the solution falls under this.

Sorry if this became TL;DR but it is a sort of fishy subject with many loose ends. I'd love if it could stimulate others to give their own views and ideas.

In short about MLO features it would be nice to have a variance of goals that are not forced on a fixed time schedule.