New Feature Launched: Subgoals
It’s been another week. After quite some beta testing, bug fixing, and last-minute finetuning, I am happy to annouce today that we’ve launched the new “Subgoal” feature.
Subgoals can help you break down a larger, more difficult goal into much smaller goals that are easier to accomplish. While accomplishing your subgoals one at a time, you know you are making progress on the overall goal, and completion of the bigger goal is just a matter of completing these smaller subgoals. “Subgoal” feature in GOT is designed for exactly such purposes.
For GOT users, functionally, a “subgoal” is not much different than existing goals that you’ve setup already. You can add tasks, track progress on any subgoals just like you do on any normal goals. However, an important feature of subgoals is that any progress made on them is directly reflected in its parent goal progress. You will see it in action whenever you complete a task under a subgoal.
To creat subgoals, go to the main “Goals” tab, and under each goal, there is now an extra button called “Add a subgoal“. The subgoal creation form is similar to normal goal form, except that you don’t need to enter description and categories fields, but instead you need to enter a percentage value for the subgoal, in a field called “Parent Goal Completion %”.
It means how much progress completing this subgoal will contribute to its parent goal completion. It’s important that you enter a percentage so that the software can track how much progress is made on a parent goal whenever a subgoal’s progress is updated.
Once you’ve created subgoals for any of your goals, they can be viewed on your Dashboard page, as shown in the example screenshot below.
You should notice that each subgoal is listed under its parent, along with their goal status, due date, progress etc. This helps you see all your goal progress at a glance.
We added another feature which allows you to control whether a goal should be visible on Dashboard page. Now you can selectively show which goals you’re most actively working on to be displayed on dashboard.
I am planning to create a tutorial video to explain more about subgoals, so here is a brief introduction and hope it helps you get a general idea of how to use subgoals. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to let me know.
Upcoming new feature: Subgoals
We’ve been working on a new feature which allows you to break down a larger goal into subgoals. The purpose of this feature is to help you create action plans for goals that may seem too general, or too far away in future. Here is the quick peek of how it looks like when it’s available.
An important feature for this is that when you complete tasks that have made progress on your subgoals, the parent goal progress is automatically updated.
Also because of structural changes introduced by subgoals, we feel necessary to add a function that user can choose which goals to show on dashboard. That way, for any subgoals that you’re not actively working on, you can hide them on dashboard.
We’re in the process of final testing on subgoal features and it will be launched by the end of this week.
Keeping Yourself Motivated
Author: Ryan Cash (Marketing and PR Coordinator for Marketcircle)
Staying motivated isn’t easy – we often convince ourselves not to be. We often give ourselves excuses, allow other people to put us down, or look at the success of others and think, “That’ll never be me.”
There are two basic types of motivation: intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivation comes from the feeling of self-achievement inherent in the task or project achieved, i.e. solving a puzzle, completing a school assignment, or finally publishing that website you were working on for a client.
Extrinsic motivation is the reward you get from others – or outside “forces”. This includes money and other financial or tangible rewards, such as a free vacation for achieving your sales targets, a trophy for winning first place at the Olympics, or even the crowd cheering as you overtake car #2 in the last stretch of the race. This explains the “home team advantage” methodology.
Extrinsic motivation (namely money) is often the primary basis for our motivation. Everyone needs money, and wants as much of it as possible. That’s no secret. However, I believe the feeling of self achievement is equally important when it comes to staying motivated.
When you’ve finished the design work for a client, what feels better? Getting paid or seeing your client smile, succeed, and receive brand recognition partly due to your efforts? If you picked getting paid, try thinking about it this way:
A small, startup company seeks your help in setting up their identity (logo, business card, website, etc.). The company is completely unknown but happens to take off. All of a sudden the company is everywhere – the NY Times, TechCrunch, CNN, a trending topic on Twitter, you name it.
Do you still feel the same? Okay, that might have been a bit of an exaggeration, but hopefully my point was made.
But what about the money?
There are many ways that you can use money and your personal financial status to keep yourself motivated. Here are a few ideas:
- Reward yourself: decide on an amount (that doesn’t cut into your bill paying or savings) and reward yourself after a job well done. Of course you don’t want to spend every hard penny you’ve earned on your favourite hobby, but if it’s all work and no play you’ll get burnt out. Reward yourself as a reminder of what you’re working towards.
- Financial status: do you want to put a down payment on your own place in 2 years? Pay off the house in 7? Have children and send them to private school? Remind yourself how much money you need to earn each month in order to support your desired lifestyle. If you’re not quite there yet figure out the steps needed to get there and write them down.
- It takes money to make money: do you have any business plans that require startup capital you don’t currently have? Do you plan to buy and rent properties? Invest? These are other good ways to remind yourself to keep at it.
What else?
Networking. It’s easy to meet other people in your industry on the internet these days (especially if you’re a designer). If you don’t already have a blog, consider starting one. Sign up for Twitter and get out there! Meeting other people in your line of work helps you to learn the language and communication styles that are effective in your industry.
If you know a lot of designers, for instance, they can refer clients to you when they’re overbooked, or when a client requires something beyond their expertise.
It’s also a good idea to try to network in person. It’s refreshing to get out of your home or office and meet people face to face. People will often share more in person than they will on their blog or via Twitter. Escaping your workstation every once in a while will give you that added fuel you need to move forward when you return from your mid-day vacation.
When all else fails, I tend to go on a “success story” binge. Take an hour to watch a few TED Talks, read a few articles about people on the Forbes 400 list, or poke around the Small Business Success Stories page on BusinessWeek.
Stay motivated – and if you can’t, try something new.
Top 10 Small Business Goals for 2010
Have you wondered what the top 10 goals are for small businesses for 2010? SmallBizTrends recently published survey results that show the top ten most voted goals. See if any of those may surprise you.
How to Live in Present while Achieving Your Goals
If you are fan of Eckhart Tolle, or have ready his book “The Power of Now”, you may wonder if what he preaches in his book or teachings can be helpful in achieving goals. I’ve been having the similar question as the one people asked him about in this video below.
At first, it can be very confusing. But after giving it much thought, I seem to understand that what’s important is perhaps not in how Echkhart Tolle’s teachings can help you achieve goals, but rather about how it can help with the reason or purpose behind the goals you want to achieve.
Anyway, it’s always a great pleasure to watch Echkhart Tolle speaks. Check out this video and let me know what you think.
Ultimate To-Do List for Everybody
Men’s Health magazine published a “Ultimate To-do List for 2008″. It’s a great list and I think it can benefit every one, even in 2010. From fitness and sex advice to health and money tips, these lists will help you achieve every goal.
Among them, these are just a few you may find useful:
- 6 Painless Ways to Build Wealth
- 4 Rules from the Worlds Most Organized Man
- 5 Ways to Double Your Salary
- 5 Ways to Add Years to Your Life
- 5 Ways to Meet the Love of Your Live
- 5 Ways to Turn Your Bed into a Lust Zone
- 5 Vacations Worth the Journey
- 6 Ways to Save Time Now
- …
For the entire list, go check out http://www.menshealth.com/ultimate/.
Calendar Tool Launched!
We’ve just recently launched a new feature on GoalsOnTrack which allows you to schedule and manage tasks for your goals through a calendar tool. It’s accessible as the “Calendar” tab on the main navigation bar.
Currently there are two “views” on the calendar interface, weekly and monthly views. You can switch between the two views by clicking on the small gray buttons on the top right corner on the calendar.
To add a new task to your goal via calendar, just click on any blank date. If that date already has tasks, simply click on the blank area not covered by those tasks. To edit or complete a task, click on the task itself.
To schedule your tasks, simply drag and drop a task to any other date you want. This is probably easiest way to schedule a task with GoalsonTrack.
You can also view only those tasks that belong to a certain goal, by selecting from the dropdown list at the top of the calendar. Please note that at the moment, the calendar displays only active (uncompleted) tasks. For completed tasks, you can see them on the goal’s page.
I hope the new calendar tool is helpful to you. If you have any feedback, please don’t hesitate to let me know, either by leaving comments here, or sending me email through the contact us form.
Paper based Goal Setting Tool
Are you more a paper and pencil type of person when it comes to goal setting?
If you are, you may want to check out this neat little tool called “5×5p5 Goals Booklet“. It’s a free PDF download that you can print it out on a nice sheet of paper, and fold it up into a neat little booklet. You can keep it in your wallet and keep track of your goals anywhere you go. What a nice idea!
Goal Setting Booklet
Upcoming new features in GoalsOnTrack
We have been busy developing new features and making improvements to the app. Thanks to the feedback of many GOT users, I was able to identify several features that people want to see most in the product. We’re taking an incremental development and improvement approach. New upgrades will be rolling out in the coming weeks.
First to be available in GOT is a new full view calendar tool, which allows you to manage goals and tasks on a calendar interface. This will make your job extremely easy when it comes to re-scheduing your tasks under different goals. Also a calendar view of all your tasks will give you a better view of what your schedule is for the month, or the week. Here is a sneak peak at how it looks like.
In addition to the calendar features, we’re also working on two main improvements. One is the recurring tasks, and the other is sub-goal support. We’re making changes to the way how recurring tasks work so that it’s more compatibile with the way it works in programs such as Google calendar, Outlook that most people are familiar with.
We’re also going to support adding sub goals for parent goals, so that all progress made on sub-goals will be reflected in parent goals. This may help you better break down a bigger goal and achieve it more efficiently.
Beyond, we’ve also done some work with the new iPhone/mobile version of GoalsOnTrack. However, it’s just started so I don’t have much to share at this point. So please come back and check this blog often to see what’s new with the site.
What Should You Write About in Journal For Your Goals
GoalsOnTrack comes with a feature where you can write journal entries for your goals. Some people may wonder, “What should I write about in my goal journal?”
Well, this is all up to you. There are many things you can write about in there. For me, I don’t write much about my goals, but I do write one thing in it pretty much on a daily basis. That is, my goals themselves. Just all my active goals.
Everyday, I write them out in the journal what my long term, mid term and short term goals are. That’s it. I occasionally try to phrase the same goal a bit differently, but generally it’s just repetition of writing down all my goals every day.
I’ve been doing this for about two years, and I think it has done wonders for me. At least there are a few benefits of doing this from my own experience.
- 1. Writing down my goals on a daily basis helps me remember them. Believe or not, many people fail to accomplish their goals, only because they have forgotten about them after a little while.
- 2. Writing down my goals helps me think about if they’re indeed what I want. Strangely sometimes we set goals that aren’t actually what we want for ourselves, but rather someone else’s wishes, society’s conditioning, etc. Writing them out gives me a chance to really reflect on them and decide for myself if it’s something I truely want to accomplish.
- 3. Writing down my goals helps me clear my mind and block out all other distractions that seem to pile up more and more on top of my goals. Without doing this, I usually find my goals tend to slip beneath more and more unimportant things.
- 4. Writing down my goals helps me subconciously find ways to achieve them. I don’t know exactly how it works, but I just find myself achieve far more goals that I’ve been writing down on a regular basis than all other things I once set for myself to accomplish but never get to write them down.
So that’s how goal journal has helped me. I believe if you start writing down your goals on a regular basis, you will also reap the benefits as I did.
