The first thing you should know is that the software's core design goal is to help you better achieve goals. Whatever you do in the software should all support making progress on your goal.

Your default screen is the main Dashboard page. Here you will have a quick overview of the most important goals and your progress. You'll also see your tasks for the day, and whatever habits you are working on.

Next you'll learn a few basic steps for setting and achieving your goals with the software.

Before you do anything else, you will need to create a goal first. It could be either a long-term or short-term goal. The software will help you write out the most important things about your goal, such as goal name, deadline, vision, purposes, obstacles and how you want to track it, etc.

We encourage you to fill out as much information about your goal as possible. The more you think about your goal, the better chance you'll take action and thus make progress.

Once you have set a goal, don't jump right in thinking about how to achieve it. Unless it's a very short-term or trivia goal, you should first try to break it down into smaller chunks and work on these smaller goals. Doing this will greatly improve your chance of moving from the goal setting and goal planning stage to the action-taking stage.

To break down a goal, use the Add Subgoal button to create a list of sub-goals for the main goal. It'll be almost identical to creating the main goal, but you do need to think about the relevant information about your sub-goal such as deadline within your main goal, what obstacles prepare for and resources required, etc.

You can further break down a sub-goal into more sub-goals. GoalsOnTrack currently supports up to 5 levels of main-sub goal structure, but it's recommended that you should not go beyond two to three levels. If you do feel you need deeper levels, consider using categories for your top-level goals. A goal should always be a goal, but not just a grouping or categorizing tool.

Once your goal has been broken down to a small enough level of sub-goals, you may start thinking about what action steps are needed to achieve your lowest level sub-goals. Each step can be recorded as a task. By completing tasks, you will be taking action to move forward on your sub-goal, its parent goal, and ultimately on the top-level goal. You will see the progress made on all levels automatically.

For repeat tasks, you can create a set of recurring tasks. Simply choose from the recurring options that best suit your needs.

GoalsOnTrack has been designed around a core principle that you must take action by completing tasks to make any progress on your goal.

Four ways of progress tracking are provided in the software. Use the method that best fits your type of goals. Your sub-goals can use different metrics other than their main goal.

You can always use manual tracking, in which case you will have to manually update the goal progress percentage yourself.

If you have done all the steps outlined above, you should be well on your way to keeping your goals organized and staying on track. There are many more features you may want to explore, such as habit tracking, vision board, goal journals, goal templates. Feel free to try them out. If you have any questions, please come back to the support page for articles that explain these features in more detail.