Tracking goals

I love this quote from Patrick McKenzie:

Every spreadsheet shared in a business is an angel announcing another SaaS app still needs to be built.

Well the inverse is true too: Many SaaS apps could be replaced by a spreadsheet that’s better suited to your needs.

I’ve tried so many apps for tracking long-term goals and none really clicked until I ended up building a spreadsheet instead.

Inspired by GitHub’s commit squares

and Simone Gertz’s Every Day Calendar

my goal tracking app is a Google Docs spreadsheet:

For privacy I'm using slightly scrambled data in this post.

It has a combination of features that I haven’t found in any other app.

Simple interace

I open the spreadsheet, type anything in the relevant cell, and it turns green with a conditional formatting rule.

Non-daily tracking

Unlike streak-based apps, I can track intermittent activities. I don’t want to run everyday, and I change my running schedule few months to fit around other aspects of my life.

Forgiving of life’s realities

I don’t need to stress about losing a Duolingo streak when skipping an entire day flying over the international date line

or feel pressured to continue running while recovering from an injury.

Long and short term views

Square-based design makes it easy to see both long term trends as well as how I’ve done over the last few days. I can begin a new goal without committing to a certain frequency.

Quality implementation

Google Sheets is a much better app than any productivity startup could make. It’s responsive and cross-platform. It has cloud syncing, offline editing, csv exporting, two-factor authentication, and API access.

Google as a company is stable and wont run out of funding in a few weeks. Yeah Google doesn’t have a great track record with product longevity, but their record a lot better than VC funded B2C apps.

Customisation

My week starts on a Monday.

.

I like green.

I don’t use week numbers.

I only want to track binary yes/no goals.

Streaks/chains just don’t work for me. I’ve been using this spreadsheet for over a year now, and it really has helped me achieve some long term goals.