# Goals

Route: /goals · Status: stable · Checked against code: 2026-10-13 c31da22

Goals is where you say where you are going and what you are trying now. A **direction** is a
long line in your life with no number and no end. A **goal** is a concrete bet with a
deadline — and, written before you start, the condition under which you will stop.

## What you see

Three tabs:

- **Month** — the goals you took into this month, as a flat list. Each card shows its
  direction, its exit (*I quit if …*) and how far it got. A date turns amber when the deadline
  is within a week. Old short goals with no deadline sit apart.
- **Directions** — the whole tree: direction → goal → monthly goal, each with what carries
  it. A goal opens in place. Goals you **put aside** wait, greyed, under their direction.
- **Closed** — goals you reached or let go, with the reason.

The header counts directions, goals, overdue ones and goals nothing carries. **New goal**
opens the form; **Open in Atlas** shows them on a board.

## How to use it

1. **New goal** → choose *Direction* or *Goal*. A goal needs a deadline (a month out by
   default) and *I quit if …*; *how I'll know*, *why* and *if something gets in the way* can
   stay empty.
2. Attach what carries it: projects, habits, or a number of your own (*2 of 5 talks*).
3. Not for this month? **Put aside** — it waits under its direction; **To this month** brings
   it back.
4. When the deadline passes, a quiet marker appears on the row with the choice right under
   it — *What about it?*: Reached, Partly, Extend, Rewrite, Let go, or Discuss with OnePuls.
5. Empty page? **I know what I want** starts from an example; **I don't know where to go**
   opens a talk with OnePuls — three questions, one at a time, ending in a plan card.

## How it works

**The deadline decides the floor.** A goal due within about 45 days counts as a monthly goal,
a longer one as a goal; under a long goal only short ones can sit. A direction never has a
deadline or a progress bar.

**One at a time.** Adding a second short goal under the same parent asks one question: after
the running one, instead of it, or urgent beside it. If urgent, you choose what the running
goal gives up — a later deadline, or a smaller scope.

**Progress** is read in this order: your own number, then the tasks of the goal's projects,
then the habits carrying it (days kept, over the last 30 days for a long goal). A project
nobody touched for three weeks is flagged on the goal it carries.

**Letting go is not failing.** *Let go* moves the goal to *Closed* with your reason; its
habits stay unless you tick them, and its tasks leave Focus only if you tick that. Before the
deadline, letting go or deleting a goal that has an exit opens a talk with OnePuls, where you
argue with your own *I quit if* — except for a goal set in the last 24 hours. *Delete* is for
a goal set by mistake.

**Elsewhere.** A goal can have a plan — a page in Notes linked to it. Projects show the goal
they serve, and Focus says what a task's project is for. OnePuls brings goals into a
conversation only when the talk is about goals or plans, never into unrelated answers.

## What OnePuls can do here

- goals — links to projects and habits too (goal.create, goal.update, goal.delete, goal.link_project, goal.unlink_project, goal.link_habit, goal.unlink_habit, goal.propose, goal.rewrite, goal.release)