I've been thinking about goals differently recently. More like "intrinsically valuable visions."

Thread on how I use @RoamResearch to track visions/activities/projects/intentions (kind of like @Complice but I needed stepping stones between goals and intentions).

#roamcult

To outline "Visions": one way to start is with any goal you have or thing you might care about doing, like "run a marathon."

But ask: why? *Why* do I want to do that?

Keep asking until the answer is just something like "because it's good."

Example internal convo:

- I want to lose 10 lbs.
- Why? Why do you want to lose 10 lbs?
- Because it's better for my health.
- What does it matter to you if you are healthy?
- If I am healthy, I will feel fully alive.
- Why do you want to feel fully alive?
- *I just do*.

IMO people often set goals because they *seem like* good goals, without introspection re: why the goals matter. By asking "why", you end up with a set of statements that boil down to "I think it's intrinsically valuable to do X", which you can interrogate productively.

Once you've narrowed to something intrinsically motivating, you can describe any particular vision a little better.
e.g. What does feeling "fully alive" look like, for me? I expanded: "I want to feel healthy, alert, vibrant, focused, at ease."

I ended up with 6 of these statements, that do a pretty good job of spanning my overall lifespace. Any goal/activity/project I take on should be in accordance with at least one of these. If I feel like I'm missing something, I'll add it later.

OK, how do you do decide what to do on any particular day, given that you've got a sort of outline now of what it looks like for you to live well?

Under each vision, I ask: what am I pretty sure I have to *maintain* in order to achieve this vision? E.g. to "feel alert", I'm pretty certain now that I need to consistently eat a low-carb diet, and exercise at least 3-4 times a week. These just seem to be empirical facts.

This is how I generate a list of "activities to maintain." I create notes for these prefaced with "A:" in Roam, nested under each of the Visions.

Next step: for each vision, ask: what are concrete things I could do that would improve my likelihood of realizing this vision?

E.g. for "feel healthy, alert..." I could hire a coach, or consult a nutritionist, etc.

I create a "Project" page for any of these that are multi-step, nested also under the Vision. Each project page has a Next Steps block, which contains a list of /TODOs suggesting next possible actions to move the project forward.

Note though my "run a marathon" goal is just GONE now. It turns out running a marathon is not particularly causally linked to anything I intrinsically value. Neither is something like "lose 10 pounds." So I got rid of these sorts of unjustified goals.

OK, now I have a list of "Activities" to maintain, and a list of "Projects" that will help me realize "Visions." How do I decide what to do on any given day?

I scan across all Activities and just check intuitively how well I'm maintaining. Am I eating well, sleeping enough, writing daily, etc? What areas need renewed attention? Remember these are all things I've decided are *necessary* to achieve the visions I described.

Monthly: I choose the Activities that need the most focus/attention, create resolutions for the next month about how often I'll engage in those activities, and then add them to a [[Monthly Resolutions]] page. Monthly seems like a good timescale to review these sorts of things.

Weekly: Then I set [[Weekly Priorities]]-- the two or three projects that I am choosing to prioritize that week. On the [[Weekly Priorities]] page, I block reference the Next Steps block of each priority project.

Daily: I use a Daily page template that has block references to the current month's Resolutions, and the current week's Priorities. So I set intentions each day *in the context of my resolutions and priorities*, and create /TODOs for each intention under an "Intentions" block.

Periodically I review which intentions I fulfilled on the [[Intentions]] page, which has backlinks to all the daily entries, so I can see anything left undone, look for patterns in what I'm maybe procrastinating on https://twitter.com/hardy_lisa_a/status/1276602482962034688?s=20

Still slowly adapting this, but it has been working pretty smoothly for me so far for intention-setting in Roam!

(Even though I swore to myself I wouldn't use Roam for project/task management... I got sucked in.)