Add, follow, change or stop a goal

A goal is something you want to reach, such as "run 10 km without stopping by June". Godspeed researches it at night and works on it every day (How the daily work runs).

Say it in your own words:

Make this a goal: run 10 km without stopping by June

"Work on this for me" works too. It saves the goal and tells you its name.

A wish you mention in passing never becomes a goal. To keep an idea for later without any work on it, say "park this idea".

1. Open the notebook and click Goals in the sidebar.
2. With no goal yet, you see Your first goal. Type it into What do you want to reach? and click Start. Your first goal starts the routines.
3. For each further goal, use Add a goal at the bottom. Fill in What do you want to reach? and How will you know it is reached?, then click Add this goal.

The Goals page shows each goal in a box, from top to bottom:

• The weekly number: one number, counted every week, that shows whether the work moves the goal, such as "words in the draft". You see the latest reading, the change since a week before, a line of the readings over time and Every reading.
• Today's decision: what the morning decision wrote about this goal.
• What each step should do to the number: each step's expected effect, such as "Expected: 8,200 to 9,500 within a week of going live". A week later it says what the step did: "It worked", "It moved the number, but less than expected" or "The number did not move".
• Steps and their checks: each step and where it stands, such as "Done on October 8. Its check passed." A step counts as done only when its check passed.
• What went out: steps that went out, or go out tonight unless you say stop (Approve, stop or allow a step).
• What the research says: how far the nightly research got, and what holds the goal back now.

Above the goals you see this morning's decision and when the next one runs. If your routines cannot reach your AI, a warning says so first (First setup).

Some numbers only you can count. Tell it, and each step is judged by it a week after it went live:

• On the Goals page, type the number into This week's number under the goal and click Save the number. Where you read it is optional.
• Or say it in the chat: "I wrote 1,400 words this week for my novel".

A goal without a weekly number yet shows Name the weekly number. The morning decision names one from the research, or you name it there: what is counted, whether in total or each week, and where it is read.

Say what changed and why, for example "change my running goal to 5 km by May, my knee needs time". The new version and your reason are kept on the goal.

On the Goals page, click Change this goal under the goal. Edit it, fill in Why it changed, and click Save the change. The steps planned for the old version are set aside, and the next decision plans new ones.

Say it in the chat with your reason: "pause the running goal, I have no time this month". A paused goal gets no research and no daily work until you resume it.

On the Goals page, each goal has Pause (or Resume), Goal reached and Stop pursuing. They save a fixed reason, such as "Paused on the Goals page". To keep your own reason, say it in the chat.

To stop the daily work on all goals at once, pause the routines instead (Pause, move or run a routine).

Each goal is a small text file in the goals folder of your mission control folder, with every change and its reason.