How to define goals 🎯?

[SimonLab]

The idea behind the product is to have a system that help us to achieve our goals.
However having the best intentions for self improvement is often not enough.
Motivation and energy go down and obstacles appear which make your goals farther to reach.
A system that keep you effective should also take in consideration common obstacles (eg, tiredness, stress...) and remind you how to avoid them when possible similar to the idea behind the to don't, see dwyl/product-ux-research#26

having a guideline on how to set goals in the app and evaluate if the goals are achievable might hep us being more effective.
Do we want to extend on this point: "Set goals that are "SMART" either freeform or using the OKR framework." in the readme. This might also be a features of the app that we could possibly create.

[nelsonic]

Hi @SimonLab excellent question thank you for capturing it. 🙌

As James Clear eloquently put it in Atomic Habits:

"You do not rise to the level of your goals.
You fall to the level of your systems."

Having a goal in your mind, or even writing it down on paper is almost useless if we don't have a system for achieving the goal. In that regard we need to have a systematic approach to each type of goal that people typically have.

1. Health - without optimal health everything else is sub-optimal.
   i. Sleep: track your sleep and how you feel the next day.
   ii. Nutrion:

   • A. Avoid specific items: e.g. Alcohol, Sugar, Soda, Nicotine, Takeaways
   • B. Batch-prepare meals for the week
   • C. Consume more plant-based foods (evidence-based longevity-boosting)

   iii. Exercise/Fitness: help people log their 4 x 30 mins / week of exercise.

2. Relationships: without good relationships most people cannot function. e.g:
   i. Call parents and just "chat" for 20 mins per day/week (whatever you think is sustainable).
   ii. Set a calendar date to spend time with specific loved ones in your life; even if this feels overly "structured" it's better than never having enough time to connect.
   iii.

3. Work: are you already doing work you love that is well compensated? If not, what do you need to do to get to that point?

4. Learning: almost all of us are either "Knowledge Workers", if we aren't learning new skills related to our chosen career, we are stagnating and thus the value we can create/capture is going down.

5. Finance: do you have a retirement fund/income target? and are you saving/investing regularly?

6. Self-actualisation: does your life have meaning/purpose and are you making progress towards a higher goal?

7. Giving Back: how are you systematically giving back to society and helping people less fortunate than you?

This is a much bigger issue than simply capturing goals; but helping people to think about how to achieve their goals is the first step. I don't know if you remember Healthlocker, but it was attempting to help people with mental health problems to focus on improving their sleep quantity/quality. Sadly, the project stalled (for a number of reasons), but I still think this is an excellent place to start in the pursuit of all life goals.

From what I've read/researched, we need need to build a mechanism for consistency, e.g: the "streak" system famously employed by Jerry Seinfield:
https://jamesclear.com/stop-procrastinating-seinfeld-strategy

We can easily implement this in software and visually display the days where progress has been made toward the goal (or not).

Note: the GitHub Contribution streak is not a good example because it's easily "hacked".
But the UI is an example. A better example might be: https://goalstreaks.com see: dwyl/product-ux-research#27 note: the app is still woefully incomplete.

Answer:

We need to build a system that:

1. Guides people to define SMART Goals for the areas outlined above.
2. Prompts them to include the smallest "Next Action" that can be done

If they don't know what to do next, maybe our App can make a suggestion ... initially this will be need to be a "Concierge" service #29 this is why Phoenix Presence/Channels dwyl/learn-phoenix#142 need to be baked into the "core" of our product. So we can help people who are stuck in the process until we have "AI" that can help them. 💭 🤖

3. Has a clear Goals & Next Actions dashboard that displays their daily Todo List / Calendar.
4. Visualise the days where you have made progress (or not) toward your goal.
5. Set reminders for the specific time of day where you are most likely to complete the desired action

Totally agree with expanding on the Goal-setting, Tracking & Visualising in the README.md.
Or even creating a new goal-tracker.md file just for this purpose.
I see this as a major feature of the App. Do you agree?

[SimonLab]

I see this as a major feature of the App. Do you agree?

Yes!
Having a visual goal tracking system was the main feature for me to create and stick with new habits.
One of the problem is when the goal is too general it is difficult to see your progress and to know when you'll achieve your goal.
That's why helping people creating SMART goals and like you said, guiding them to the next step is important. We want to make sure that goals are achievable and validated first before starting a "streak".