Monthly Goals Journal

About this template

Yearly goals are too far away to feel real and daily goals are too small to add up. A month is the unit that works. This template asks for three goals at the start of the month, the reason each one matters, and the very first step, which is the piece most goal-setting skips and the reason most goals stall. At the end of the month the same entry gets a review: what got done, what did not, and what to carry over.

It is for anyone who sets goals and forgets them by the second week. Schedule it monthly and the app reminds you on the first. The goal-completion number and the month rating build a chart across the year that shows more clearly than a resolution list whether things are moving. Twelve of these entries make a surprisingly good annual review.

How to use it

1. Fill in the top half on the first of the month and leave the review blank until the last day.
2. Limit yourself to three goals. A fourth reliably comes at the expense of the first three.
3. Write the first step as something you can do this week, ideally today.
4. In the review, carry over at most one unfinished goal. The rest are either done or dropped.

What’s inside

8 prompts · 1 number · 1 rating. Every prompt is editable once it is in the app.

• Start of the month
• Goal 1, and why it matters
• Goal 2, and why it matters
• Goal 3, and why it matters
• The first step for each, this week
• What I am not going to do this month
• End of the month
• Goals completed number
• What worked
• What got in the way
• Carrying over
• How was this month? rating

monthly goalsgoal settingmonthly reviewplanningnew month