(highlight:: This is pretty standard advice, but worth repeating:
new goals should start with a very shallow slope that is stupidly easy to achieve, or with a slope that is so egregiously lenient that the goal basically exists only to gather data.
After some experience and success you can of course start ratcheting up the difficulty.
But without that initial experience, it is notoriously hard to estimate what is actually reasonable and achievable for you
(even when taking this fact into account; this is a corollary of
Hofstadter’s Law).)
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(highlight:: Give goals time to “wear in”
You really shouldn’t create more than one or two goals at once, even if they are really easy goals and even if you are absolutely, positively, 100% sure you can handle it.)
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(highlight:: Don’t get rid of easy goals
My
flossing goal
is a good example.
You can see that I started this goal in late 2013, with the aim to floss 6.5 times per week on average.
At first I was often in the blue, but by the second half of 2014 I was almost always in the green.
By the middle of 2015, I had built up such a large safety buffer (6 or 7 days, if I recall correctly) that I decided I just didn’t need the Beeminder goal any more, so I archived it.
“My Beeminder goals pretty much delineate the whole shape of my life”
It turns out that this was a mistake.
The graph doesn’t show it, of course, but over the course of 2016 I started flossing less and less;
by the middle of 2017, when I restarted the goal, I was probably only flossing once every two weeks!)
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(highlight:: And you know what?
There’s nothing wrong with having a bunch of easy goals!
When I wake up in the morning I might have nine or ten beemergencies, but I just start knocking them off one by one and it feels GREAT.
By the time I get to more difficult goals I am already in an accomplished and productive mood)
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(highlight:: Track
inputs, not outputs!
This is especially important when you have a lot of goals, since when you are staring down multiple beemergencies you really need to have concrete, manageable things you can Actually Do ™ to dispatch them.
Goals that track indirect outputs tend to require more foresight: for example, by the time you are in the red on your weight goal it is probably already too late; to stay on track you have to be thinking several days ahead and figuring out what actions are likely to lead to your desired weight.
With 50 goals I don’t have time for that kind of advance introspection.
I just want to have concrete actions I can do now, today to make progress on the goals that need attention.)
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