...or just all around organization and self-improvement.
QuicKnack: Use Joe's Goals for daily goal tracking, Remember the Milk for list keeping, and Mission 101 for a sense of purpose or a "life list."
1. Joe's Goals. I've been using this for almost a year, and it just keeps getting better and better. This is a daily checklist style where you can weight each item as positive or negative. Worked out? +5 Bought something unnecessary? -2. This is reminiscent of the gold star chart from your childhood, but it renews every day. I like tha you can add multiple checks in each category. You can even tailor the list to the day of the week. There's also a logbook feature where you can add small bits of text instead of just checks, so you can keep track of something specific, like how much you spent on food that day or what kind of exercises you did.
2. Remember the Milk. I love having my to-do lists online, and the clean layout and easy keyboard shortcuts makes Remember the Milk my list organizer of choice. You can also share tasks with others who have accounts. We organized our entire very DIY wedding with Remember the Milk. I've also used it for shopping lists, job search goals, and to keep track of things like the books I've borrowed/loaned. I also like the colored-coded prioritizing options, which sort things into red, yellow, and green in order of urgency.
3. Mission 101 is a bigger commitment than New Year's resolutions. Those who embark on the mission set out to complete 101 tasks in 1001 days. There's also a popular Mission 101 livejournal community. Doing Mission 101 and editing and reediting my list really taught me how to set very specific, achievable and quantifiable goals. For example, on the first draft of my list I had "Have a cute, functional wardrobe." If I were to revise it, I might say "Have 10 interchangeable career separates." My spouse, who is the Getting Things Done acolyte in our household, says that it is the difference between action items and projects.
I have my Mission 101 in an Excel document that I can sort by frequency and category, but there's no reason you couldn't successfully use something like Remember the Milk to track your goals. The categories I came up with for my Mission 101 list are:
- Home (decorating, organizing, pets, possessions)
- Art/Craft
- Money
- Career and Education
- Lifestyle (catch-all)
- People
- Destination