A goal with no project under it is a dream

Years ago I watched every series I could get my hands on. There was no Netflix yet, you got the seasons from friends, and I worked my way through them, every evening. At some point I asked myself the question I have asked about almost everything since: why, actually? I couldn’t find a why. Not a social one, I never talked to anybody about those series. Not the simple one either, that I had too much time on my hands. The only thing I came up with: you can become world champion at watching series. I didn’t want that. From then on I barely watched a series at all and went back to reading a great deal more.

In GTD the why question isn’t a motivational trick, it’s a lift. You ask it about a next action (why does it say “buy milk” here?), you land on a project, you ask again, you land on an area of responsibility, and eventually you’re standing on Horizon 3, at your goals. Most people have something written there. It has just been sitting there unchanged for quite a while.

The level that never speaks up on its own

Every level below your goals has a trigger built into it. You look at next actions the moment you ask yourself what to do now. Projects speak up in the weekly review at the latest, and also whenever a context list runs dry: a project without a next action stands out. Areas of responsibility speak up when something in your life shifts, a new job, a move, a child leaving home.

Goals have no trigger. Nothing runs dry, nothing turns red, no list stalls. A goal nobody has touched for six months looks exactly like a goal that is being worked on right now: one line of text. The most common state at this level is therefore not the badly worded goal, it’s the declared one. Neatly written down, properly filed, and underneath it nothing happens. In coaching I see this regularly: the project list is well kept, the weekly review has been running for years, and the goal list dates from the year the system was set up.

The done test for GTD goals and areas of responsibility

Before you start working on wording, sort the levels. There is exactly one useful question for that: what actually gets finished here?

Level	What gets finished	How you recognise it
Next action	a single action	you could film it with a camera
Project	a desired outcome	several steps, one ending
Area of responsibility	nothing	a standard you hold
Goal	an outcome made of several projects	projects fit underneath, not actions
Vision	open	you don’t yet know how you get there

The interesting entry is the third one. The area of responsibility is the only level in the whole model where there is nothing to complete. It’s a standard: being healthy, keeping a good relationship, keeping the flat liveable. Nothing there is ever closed off, which is why there is never a tick beside it.

This is exactly where most goal lists fall apart. “I want to be fit” feels like a goal because it sounds important. It just never gets finished, so nothing on the goal list ever moves, so at some point you stop opening the list. Filed one level down, the same sentence becomes useful: the area is called fitness and health, and inside it there may well be a goal that has an ending.

My own areas have barely changed over the years, only the names got more precise: adventure, leisure and creativity. Development. Family and friends. Finances. Fitness and health. Self-employment. Home. My children had an area of their own for years. They are 17 and 18 now, the older one is moving into a flat of his own, and nobody wants to go to the theatre with dad every other week any more. The area hasn’t disappeared, it has been absorbed into family and friends. Areas are allowed to do that.

A project without a goal is a hobby

I say that sentence often, because it sticks. It’s still useless as a diagnosis, and I’ll correct it here myself, straight away.

Most projects in a well-run system contribute to no goal at all, and that is perfectly normal. My tax return contributes to none of my goals. If I hadn’t done it I would have paid a fine, and that’s the entire reason. That isn’t a gap, it’s an obligation. An obligation is a goal that comes from outside, that’s how Paul Martin put it, and I’ve never read it put better anywhere. The rest are hobbies, and hobbies are good. The sentence is a sorting tool, not a verdict.

The other direction is the expensive one. A goal with no project under it is a dream. A dream costs nothing as long as it’s labelled as a dream, and then it belongs on Someday/Maybe, where the weekly review reliably puts it in front of you again. On the goal list it does damage: it takes up space, it produces a guilty conscience every quarter, and it dilutes the list until the real goals disappear in it too.

The rule behind it is unspectacular. A goal isn’t made of next actions, it’s made of projects. If you can’t get a single project underneath a goal, then either it isn’t a goal, or you haven’t yet decided to really pursue it.

When no project will form at all

Then it’s usually down to how the goal is worded. Three formats help with that, and they help with different problems.

Most people know SMART from work. The core is good: a goal is worded usefully when two people can tell independently of each other whether it has been reached. The weakness is well known and real. SMART rewards whatever is measurable and tempts you to cut goals so small that a tick is guaranteed. I still like using it, because it delivers the traceability this level otherwise doesn’t have.

WOOP comes from psychology, from Gabriele Oettingen, and takes the opposite route to positive thinking. Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan. The active ingredient sits at the back: the obstacle is explicitly the inner one, not the circumstance, and you put an if-then plan on top of it. If I get cravings in the evening, then I drink a large glass of water and eat the bowl of fruit I prepared. In the moment of temptation your head no longer has to decide anything.

One objection to that, and it isn’t mine: in the standard example (wish: ten kilos lighter, outcome: feeling awake in the morning) a few steps are missing. Between weight and morning energy sits sleep, and whether that improves depends more on what’s on your plate in the evening than on the number on the scales. The point is a methodical one: the outcome has to be the state you actually want, not a chain of cause and effect you have no evidence for.

HARD, from Mark Murphy, starts somewhere else entirely. The assumption is that goals don’t fail because of poor wording, they fail because of a missing emotional bond. Heartfelt, Animated, Required, Difficult: it has to mean something to you, you have to be able to picture it, it has to feel necessary rather than nice, and it has to stretch you, otherwise you’ll get bored with it.

SMART when you lack clarity. WOOP when you know exactly what’s in your way. HARD when what you’re missing isn’t the clarity but the energy.

The check where you don’t look at a single next action

I look at my goals once a quarter. The difference from the weekly review is the altitude, and it’s stricter than it sounds: I don’t open a single context list and I don’t read a single next action. That’s exactly why the run-through doesn’t take long.

It runs in two directions. Top down, I go through every goal and ask which projects contribute to it. If I can’t think of one, I have two options and both are fine: I word a project now, or I delete the goal. Deleting isn’t failure. A goal that no longer pulls a quarter later was either set wrongly or has been overtaken.

Bottom up, I go through the projects and ask of each one whether it still contributes to the goal I filed it under back then. A project should be worded so that I see its desired outcome immediately. If it isn’t, that’s the first repair, before the goal level.

If your project list is sorted by areas of responsibility, you see both at a glance: which area something is moving in and which one has had nothing for months. That’s the real reason for sorting it that way, not tidiness.

For me the check sits on a list as a recurring task, not as an appointment in the calendar. It’s allowed to be two weeks overdue and glowing red. I need the right day and a quiet spot for it, and an appointment I move three times gives me neither.

Where it typically goes wrong

• Standards are sitting on the goal list. “Stay healthy”, “keep a good relationship”, “keep up professionally”. Nothing there ever gets finished, so nothing ever moves, so the whole list feels dead. The done test settles that in ten seconds per line.
• Not a single project underneath. Test it hard: over the next four weeks, is there at least one next action that contributes to this goal through a project? If not, it’s a dream, and that’s where it belongs.
• Other people’s goals aren’t labelled as other people’s. Some goals are on the list because somebody else wanted them there. That’s fine, as long as you know it. What isn’t fine is the state in between: declared, not wanted, a guilty conscience every quarter. That isn’t a question of discipline, it’s a question of labelling.
• The goal level rides along in the weekly review. Weekly is too often for this altitude, and in a run-through with a hundred next actions it goes under. It needs a run-through of its own, and a rarer one.
• The list never gets shorter. Goals may be trimmed, changed and deleted. If you never delete, you collect ballast at exactly the point where clarity would have the biggest leverage.

Common questions

How do GTD goals differ from areas of responsibility?

Ask yourself what gets finished. A goal has an outcome that can happen, an area of responsibility is a standard you hold permanently and where nothing is ever completed. “I want to be fit” is an area of responsibility, “by the end of next year I’ll run a half marathon” is a goal within that area.

How long is a goal allowed to take?

The original definition in GTD puts it at twelve to twenty-four months. For my own goals that’s too short, I think in three to five years there, and I consider the time horizon the weaker criterion anyway. The structure is more reliable: what you reach with a few actions is a project, what you need several projects for is a goal.

Does every project need a goal?

No. Most projects contribute to no goal, they’re obligation or hobby, and both are legitimate. The only thing that matters is that you know which of the two it is, because a project you wrongly believe is bringing you closer to a goal distorts your sense of how far along you actually are.

What do I do with a goal I might never reach?

First check whether it’s in your hands at all. What you can’t influence is not a goal but a wish, and that belongs on the vision level or on Someday/Maybe. If it is in your hands, the honest question is whether you have so far done everything in your power, and the project list underneath answers that more reliably than your gut does.

How often should I look at my goals?

Once a quarter is enough, as long as you really limit the run-through to goals and projects and don’t look at next actions. You look at next actions daily, projects weekly, goals quarterly. Every level needs a different frequency, because every level changes at a different speed.

---

Take your goal list and go through it with a single question: which project in my system contributes to this goal? For every goal where you can’t think of one, decide one of two things right now, word a project or delete the goal. Both are a result. Leaving it standing is not.

Setting up the goal level is little work, and the check takes half an hour a quarter. It almost always jams one floor further down: wording and sorting projects so that a check becomes possible at all. That’s exactly what the Workflow Setup is for. Write to me if your goal list has been sitting there unchanged for months and you aren’t sure whether that’s down to the goals or to what’s missing underneath.