Tracking Your Goals

As I mentioned a few days ago, it is not enough to set goals, we have to find a way to track our progress towards reaching those goals.  One great tool I recently discovered is a web-based program that helps you monitor your goals.  Meet Joe's Goals.  This simple to use program was actually inspired by Benjamin Franklin's 13 Virtues.  How cool is that?  The aim of Joe's Goals is to make it "stupidly simple to create, track, and share your personal goals".  

Since Joe's Goals is a free web-based program you do not have to download any software.  Setting up an account is easy, all you need is an email address.  You can list as many (or few) goals as you like and indicate whether they are positive or negative.  For example, exercising every day would most likely be "positive" goal, while smoking a cigarette (if you're trying to quit) would be a negative goal.  You even have the option to weight each goal by assigning them a point value.

With Joe's Goals, you record your progress each day with recoding a check or an x mark.   For open-ended goal, you can opt to create a logbook for adding in descriptive text.  The logbook feature is ideal for goals that require you to record a written response (ex. What you are grateful for each day?). 

To make the program available for free, you will notice ads displayed at the top of the screen.  If you find them annoying, you can always choose to pay the $12 yearly fee and become a full-fledged Joe's Goals subscriber.  To be honest, I barely even notice the ads and none of them seem to be annoying or offensive.

For those folks that like to be accountable to the world, you can post your goal progress to other websites (ex. your blog, facebook, etc).  To do this, you simply create a Joe's Goals badge that will always be up-to-date and reflect where you stand with your goals.

Finally, what I really like about the program is that I can set up an alert to remind me when I've forgotten to record my progress.  The options for receiving an email alert are after:  2 days, 7 days, or 30 days.  There is even an option of "Never", just in case you don't like be nudged at all. 

Recalling how Ben Franklin took the time each night to record in a book his progress on attaining his goals... I cannot help but think how much he would have loved Joe's Goals.

Homeschool Tech Mom
Joe's Goals Demo