Simple Goals
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The method

The cascade: how a three-year direction reaches Monday morning.

Goals are not abandoned out of laziness. They are abandoned because nothing connects them to the week you are actually living. You write down where you want to be in three years, the note goes in a drawer, and Monday morning already has other plans.

The cascade is the missing connection. Five levels, each one a translation of the one above it: long term, year, quarter, month, week. You never work on your three-year direction. You work on this week — and the cascade is what makes this week count toward it.

It is written out in full below. Nothing is held back for a paid course. If you read this page and run it in a paper notebook, that is a win: Simple Goals is only the version that keeps the books for you.

The five levels

  1. 01

    Long term

    Two to three years

    Where you want to be once the current version of your life has had time to change. Two or three goals, no more: enough to give a direction, few enough to hold without re-reading them. Write each one as a state you will recognise when you get there, not as a wish. “Enough German to run a meeting” is a state. “Get better at German” is a mood.

    The question to ask
    If nothing else moved in three years, but this did — would that be three good years?
    The common mistake
    Listing ten of them. A direction you have to re-read to remember is a direction you have already stopped using.
  2. 02

    Year

    The next twelve months

    The year is where the direction becomes measurable. For each long-term goal, name what has to be true twelve months from now. These are milestones, not tasks: they have a deadline and a threshold, and you can say without arguing whether you reached them.

    The question to ask
    What has to be true by December for the three-year goal to still stand?
    The common mistake
    Restating the long-term goal in smaller words. If the year's goal is the same one with “start” in front of it, it is not a milestone.
  3. 03

    Quarter

    Thirteen weeks

    Two or three goals per category. Not four. The limit is not a style preference, it is the whole mechanism: thirteen weeks is short enough to see the end from the start, and picking only three forces the choice you have been avoiding for months. A quarter with seven goals is a quarter with no priorities — when the week tightens, and it will, you have no rule for deciding what falls. With three, the rule is already written. The rest is not deleted: it is simply not now.

    The question to ask
    If I finished only these three by the end of the quarter, would I be satisfied?
    The common mistake
    Treating the limit as a quota to fill. Two real goals beat three where the third is padding.
  4. 04

    Month

    Four or five weeks

    The control room, and the only page you open day to day. Each quarter goal is cut into milestones you can tick this month, and each milestone stays attached to the goal it serves. That link is the entire point: a month full of ticked boxes that serve nothing is exactly how the last three years went.

    The question to ask
    Which three or four things, done this month, would visibly move a quarter goal?
    The common mistake
    Filling the month with maintenance. Meetings and admin will happen anyway; the month is for what would not happen on its own.
  5. 05

    Week

    Seven days

    The only level where work actually happens. Todos come down from the month's milestones and carry their reason with them. What you do not finish moves to next week — visibly, marked as carried, not quietly retyped. A todo that has moved four times is telling you something: it is too big, it is not really yours, or it serves a goal you have quietly dropped.

    The question to ask
    What has to happen this week for the month's milestones to stay reachable?
    The common mistake
    Starting the week in your inbox. Whatever arrives will fill the space; the week has to be claimed before it is taken.

The ritual

Fifteen minutes, once a week.

The cascade only holds if something reconnects it, and once a week is enough. The same slot every week — Friday afternoon, Sunday evening, it does not matter, as long as it does not move.

  1. 1

    Close the week

    Tick what is done. Carry what is not, and say in one word why.

  2. 2

    Look up one level

    Open the month: are its milestones still reachable? If one is not, change it now rather than at the end of the month.

  3. 3

    Pick the week ahead

    Three to five todos that serve a month milestone. Whatever else the week needs comes after, not before.

  4. 4

    Note one thing you learned

    One line is enough. That line is what makes the quarter retro possible.

Once a quarter, the same review runs one level up: what moved, what did not, and what the next thirteen weeks are for.

To be clear

What this method is not.

Not a productivity system

Nothing here makes you faster. The cascade reduces the number of things worth doing — that is a different promise, and the only one it can keep.

Not corporate OKRs

No key results scored to two decimals, no cascading down to a team, no grade at the end of the quarter. This is one person's notebook. If a goal is “take my father to see the sea”, it belongs here exactly as written.

Not a streak

Nothing punishes you for a missed week. Rituals count what you did, not what you owe. A method that demands perfect attendance is a method you drop on the first bad week — and everyone has bad weeks.

Simple Goals is this method and nothing else: the five levels, the weekly ritual, the retro. The beta is free and opens up gradually.

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