Dreams are the soil within which great achievements grow. The tools you use to achieve your goals are fertilizer. Lots of people try to use goal or task apps to do course plotting. But individually, these apps can't take you all the way.
In this article, we're going to explore what to-do and goal apps individually bring to the table, and how to combine them for a perfect roadmap to reach your goals and get where you want to go in life.
Both tool goal apps and task apps have a purpose. To understand which app you should use, it's important to see what each of these helps you accomplish.
Task apps help you:
Goal apps help you:
Many people who use goal apps have a good understanding of where they would like to be in 20 or 30 years and what they need to do to get there. People who use all apps generally have excellent time management skills 9 Surefire Ways to Track Your Time Management Goals 9 Surefire Ways to Track Your Time Management Goals You want to meet your time management goals, but you can't seem to fulfill them. These tips and tools will help you take them more seriously. Read More
The problem with just using a goal app alone is that those big dreams take a backseat without a solid step-by-step plan. Just using to-do apps keeps you running on a treadmill without the help of direction.
In my case, I use Goalscape for goal planning, but it doesn't matter which goal app I use. They are all basically the same..
They allow you to identify those big high-level dreams. You can then break them down into sub-goals, down to individual tasks that will get you done.
This example is a complete target map, but if you look closely at how it's laid out, it's obvious how it works.
You start with your highest level goal and build the sub-goals around it.
In this example, my highest level goal is to end up having The Perfect Life .
Around this high-level dream, place general dreams that describe what that dream looks like.
Your own description of "a perfect life" may seem completely different. Or you could even start with some other "higher level goal." That's not a perfect life. It could be having a highly profitable startup or achieving true happiness.
Under each high-level sub-goal, you're going to reverse-engineer the path to get there.
For example, starting with Massive Residual Income , you could describe that as:
Simply repeat this process, building additional legs that more specifically describe what the previous top-level target looks like.
Let's go down one more level in a simpler section so you can see how lower level goals are imported into the task app.
Taking Investment Income leg, you could describe this as:
Once each leg of your complete goal plan is fully tailored to the more specific and immediate goals, you're ready to start creating tasks in your to-do application.
Next, work through all of the lower level goals in your overall life plan.
Make a note of each of those lower level goals. To achieve your goals, these are the first hills you need to ascend on the mountain path 7 Time Management Lessons I Learned From Mountain Climbing 7 Time Management Lessons I Learned From Mountain Climbing How You Manage Your Time from the first moment in the morning, until the last moment when you go to bed, it is very much like climbing mountains. I learned these lessons the hard way. Read more.
These are the items that you will upload individually as projects in your to-do app. Now it's time to build and organize your tasks in your to-do app.
There are countless to-do apps to choose from. I use RememberTheMilk for a number of reasons The Best Making App - Why Remember The Milk Wins The Best Making App - Why Remember The Milk Wins Remember The Milk is one of the best apps available today. But how does it do against Wrike, Any.do, Todoist, Microsoft To-Do, and Google Tasks? Read More
Take each of those lower level life goals and create a project in your to-do app for those.
For each of those projects, develop a low-level plan in the form of a series of tasks that will accomplish that project.
Obviously, the more specific you've made those goals, the easier it will be to develop your to-do list.
To have IRA funds and 401K funds, I know what I need:
Now, in the back of your head, you know that these tasks you'll be working on are going toward that high-level dream of having "massive residual income" years from now. But in your to-do app, you're not thinking about it's. You're only thinking this year, this month, this week, and today.
Your goals app should have the ability to prioritize goals. Make sure your scheduled tasks match those priorities.
Always work on high-level tasks first. In this example, owning the IRA/401K and the low-risk mutual funds are the same. The next thing is investing in small businesses, and the last thing is high-risk investments..
Back in your to-do app, start with the highest-priority projects and set those due dates as soon as possible.
Be realistic about how long it will take to accomplish this. For example, I know I can't afford to open a new Roth IRA until after Christmas, so the expiration date is early next year.
Finally, work your way down to the lower priority tasks. These may take longer. Be very flexible with these due dates. Put them much farther.
You now have due dates for individual tasks, each of which meets that life goal. They have expiration dates for which you will be responsible.
You no longer have to think about those big goals in life. You just need to do those smaller tasks one by one.
Advance to the next lower level goals from your goals app and repeat the process explained above.
As you complete tasks in your task app, remember to go back and update your target app.
In Goalscape this actually appears as a shaded part of that goal.
This is a nice piece of positive feedback that shows you how much closer to those big life goals you are getting.
And when you start making great progress on all the little tasks that seem meaningless in the to-do app, the visual indication of progress from the shaded areas is real motivation to keep going.
This is where the magic happens. The biggest obstacle to reaching your goals is the everyday things that get in the way. You're too busy working, paying bills, and doing chores.
When you have the opportunity to think about what to do next, your mind automatically turns to one of those everyday things. It's easy to forget those life goals because there's nothing holding you accountable.
So add the daily tasks you have to do. Do what you have to do to make ends meet. But keep them to a minimum. Most of your pending projects should be actions that bring you closer to those great dreams of life..
If all of this sounds good but you really don't know what your life dreams are, spend some time watching some motivational videos. How watching 3 motivational videos a day changed my life How watching 3 motivational videos a day changed my life Do you want to see if it's motivational? Do videos have any kind of impact on your life? If you have a dream that you've been putting off, try a life experiment by watching motivational videos every day. Read More Having dreams is what makes us human. So find those dreams and start working on those goals every day.
