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Goals move when tasks get done.

A goal is the big thing, like monetize the channel. Projects sit under it, and tasks sit under those. The percentage on a goal is counted from the tasks you finish, so there is no number to type in.

35%

Monetize the channel

Active

8 of 23 tasks done across 3 projects

One goal, Monetize the channel, marked Active. A ring reads 35 percent, and beneath the name a line reads 8 of 23 tasks done across 3 projects.

Where the hours actually went.

An area is a part of your life, like Work or Health. A goal belongs to one, and so does every task underneath it.

So the app can answer a question no task list can. Patterns adds up the hours you finished, by area. Settings keeps a running points total beside each one.

That is what a goal buys you. Not a folder, but an honest answer about where the week went.

Where the time went

By hours, not by number of tasks. Ten errands and one long job are different answers.

Last 30 days

The Patterns screen, showing the last thirty days of finished work split by area: Work 18.5 hours, Health 9.5, Side project 7, Home 4.5, Admin 3.5, Family 2.5, and 1.5 hours on tasks with no area set.

How a goal reaches today.

  1. 01

    Three levels, and you use what you want

    A goal holds projects. A project holds tasks. You can stop at any level, and a task that belongs to nothing behaves the same everywhere else.

  2. 02

    The percentage counts itself

    It comes from tasks marked done across every project under the goal. One small finished project cannot make the goal look further along than it is.

  3. 03

    The points land somewhere

    A task can carry an area. Finish it and its points are added to that area's total, so effort collects against the part of your life it came from.

A goal you look at, or a goal you work on.

Most goals are written down once, somewhere else, and read again a year later. Nothing in between was connected to them.

A goal in a document

Still just a sentence

  • It lives in a note or a doc
  • Nothing under it is a task
  • You update the progress by hand

You read it in January and again in December. None of the days in between knew it existed.

A goal in Actto

Made of tasks you finished

  • Projects sit under the goal
  • Tasks sit under the projects
  • The percentage counts itself

The thing you care about turns into something you can do on a Tuesday, instead of staying a sentence.

What it won't do

A goal is a place to put work. It is not the work.

  • A deadline is something you write down, and nothing more. Nothing counts down to it, nothing turns red, and no task is moved into today because the date is close.

  • It isn't a numeric tracker. A goal counts tasks finished, not miles run or dollars saved, so anything you measure in units has to become tasks first.

  • It won't decide which goal matters this week. Your three priorities are still yours to pick, and a goal being important does not push its tasks into today.

Questions

No. You can use just tasks and never build the rest. A task with no project and no goal works exactly the same everywhere else in the app. Plenty of things never need more than that.
The broad part of your life a piece of work belongs to, like Work, Health or Home. You write your own, you can reorder them, and each one gets a color. Goals, projects and tasks can each sit in one.
To the area on the task, if it has one. Settings shows a running points total beside each area name. Patterns is separate and answers the other half, showing which areas your hours went into over the last week or month.
Set it to Paused or Someday. It leaves the active list and nothing is deleted. Neither one is a penalty, and you can put it back to Active whenever you want.
Its projects stay exactly where they are. They stop laddering up to anything, and every task under them is untouched.

The rest of Actto

Every part of Actto is here because something kept going wrong without it. Each one works on its own, and you never have to use all of them.

See how it all works

Try it with one goal you already have.

Pick the thing you actually want, put one project under it, and write down a single task.