How to Accomplish Big Life Goals Every Quarter using the GoFAR Framework
A simple, life-changing planning framework used by highly effective people.
We have aspirations. We make to-do lists that make us hopeful that someday we’ll make them a reality. Right now, though, there are far more pressing matters than these wishful goals. Work, errands, kids, eating, sleeping, TV, rinse, repeat.
I’d like to present to you my GoFAR framework, which has helped me achieve goals I consider significant (like starting my photography podcast and launching several apps) despite having a demanding engineering job at a startup. It’s a simple quarterly planning system that can be done on paper or digitally.
Why a quarter? Because a quarter (13 weeks) is the ideal timeframe for planning. A month is too short to achieve anything significant. A year is too long–plans become hypothetical.
G–Goals
Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible. — Tony Robbins
Always start your quarter with a clear goal. Having more than one goal is OK, but the closer you are to one, the more effective it is.
For each goal, write down the following:
- Why it’s important to you.
- A rough plan on how you’ll achieve it.
- First few action items that’ll get the ball rolling.
A goal is easier to achieve when you are clear with the What, Why, When, and How.
Tip: Start with the end in mind. If you accomplish only one big thing by the end of this quarter, what is it that would make you happy and feel accomplished? Make that your goal.
O — Organize
Now do a brain dump. All those pending things nagging you — get them out of your mind. Start with a mindmap to get your ideas flowing.
Then organize your ideas and action items into lists representing your projects, hobbies, and other life areas. These aren’t things you are necessarily going to get to this quarter. But when you make goals in the future, your starting point will be here in these lists, not a blank slate.
And don’t be shy to make plenty of lists. These nagging items are better off in lists than in your head. I maintain my lists in Roam Research, and I have lots of them.
Tip: Don’t just do this at the beginning of the quarter. Keep adding to your lists as and when you get ideas.
F — Focus
You’ve made goals. You’ve created to-do lists. Unfortunately, most people stop here…which is why they never reach their goals. Stop at GO, and you won’t go FAR!
If all you have is a to-do list, you can’t pace yourself effectively because a list doesn’t give you a spatial sense of your priorities across the quarter.
By visually spacing out your priorities and tasks, you can see what your focus should be today, tomorrow, this week, next week, and any part of the quarter, and you’ll have the wisdom to say no to anything that threatens this focus.
To gain this perspective, let’s create three sheets: a bird’s eye view of the quarter, a zoomed-in view of the approaching week, and a clear list of action items for the next day:
Quarterly Sheet
- Get a sheet of paper (or several if needed) and make 13 columns (representing weeks).
- Break down your goal into 13 or so intermediate steps. Make these your top priority for each week. Add one to each column. (It’s OK to have more than one, but the closer you are to one, the more effective it is.)
- Choose a few other things you can take on this quarter (see your lists from the O step) and spread them out across the weeks.
This gives you a bird’s eye view of your quarter, and it’s OK to be a little vague here. At this stage, we just want a rough idea of where our focus should be in the next several weeks.
Weekly Sheet
Every Sunday, zoom into the upcoming week and repeat the process for the days of that week.
1. Get a new sheet and make seven columns. (Or five if you’re just going to binge-watch Netflix on the weekend.)
2. Decide on one top-priority item for each day of the week. (Again, more than one is fine, but the closer you are to one, the more effective it is — you get the idea — the power of one!)
3. Bring in this week’s tasks from your quarterly sheet — space those out across the seven (or five) days. You might have more context on these now — so refine, break down, or add more tasks as needed.
The weekly sheet gives you the visual clarity to see your baby steps toward your goals, among other obligations and urgent tasks. When new requests come your way, as they always do, you’ll know exactly where to place them in the week (if at all), so you don’t get overburdened on any day.
Daily Sheet
Every evening, prepare a daily sheet for the next day:
- Get a new sheet (a post-it note or a new page in your notebook works great) and write tomorrow’s date.
- Decide on one top-priority item for tomorrow. When you look back at the end of the day tomorrow, what’s one activity that will make the day a win for you? Jot that down.
- Bring in tomorrow’s items from your weekly sheet — whatever is still relevant. Add anything else you can think of for tomorrow, considering unfinished items from today.
The daily sheet is way more effective than an alarm clock. People wake up late because they don’t know what to do after they get up. The daily sheet cuts out decision paralysis by giving you a short and clear list of items to focus on. You’ll be jumping out of bed daily.
Together, these three sheets give you a clear roadmap to your goals. If you noticed, what we did here was narrow your focus step by step — first, dividing tasks into different week buckets, then zeroing in on a week to assign tasks to days, and then finally zooming into a day for time blocking. This is the art of focusing only on what’s important in each timeframe we’re dealing with.
Tip 1: Don’t try to be perfect. Don’t make these sheets beautiful. Keep them rough and open to change. Your plan should serve you, not the other way around. Also, it’s OK if you can’t plan all 13 weeks upfront. Do a few weeks at a time. Just keep revisiting.
Tip 2: You could use Trello instead of sheets of paper. Even better, I’m making Qtr, an app specifically modeled around the GoFAR framework.
A–Appointments
Work meetings, doctor appointments, social events, flights…they’re all on your calendar, right? Why? Because you can’t afford to miss them. You want to be on time. You don’t want to commit to something else at the same time.
That’s the relationship you want to develop with your own work.
So, as funny as it sounds, make appointments with yourself.
Because nothing happens until it’s on your calendar.
Every evening after you’ve made your daily sheet, move whatever you can to your calendar. This will be a reality check of what you can actually pull off in a day rather than a wishful list of things you might have added to your daily sheet.
This practice, called time blocking, separates those who make plans and those who get things done. Time blocking helps you do things whole-heartedly — work when you have to work, play when it’s time to play.
You could also do this on a Sunday evening for the entire week. Just expect change — review and fine-tune your time blocks daily.
Tip 1: To keep it simple, you can group related tasks as a single event. For example, a work block can represent all your work-related tasks.
Tip 2: For unrelated tasks like checking email, making phone calls, or paying bills, create an admin block and attack them all in one shot. I recommend reading Deep Work by Cal Newport for more insight into batching and time blocking.
Tip 3: Be flexible. If you are in the momentum with a work task, for instance, and your work block is coming to an end, just pause and assess: is it ok to keep going? If so, then extend your work block and revise your other blocks. The point is to be intentional, not rigid.
R–Reflect
My tennis coach always emphasized that the follow-through (the final part of your racket’s motion) is the most critical part of your swing. I used to wonder — what does it matter what I do with my racket after the ball has left? But she’s right. The follow-through ensures you approach the ball correctly, modulates the ball’s trajectory, and prevents you from injury.
Many people romanticize the idea of daily reflection, but they don’t think of it as a critical activity. But like the follow-through in tennis, daily reflection ensures you approach the next day with the right mindset, modulates your journey through the quarter, and prevents you from burnout.
Every evening, ask yourself:
- What were the wins today?
- What lessons did I learn?
- What’s one way I can improve tomorrow?
- What am I looking forward to tomorrow?
- What am I grateful for?
Do a weekly reflection on Sunday — with similar questions.
Tip: You can use the back of your daily and weekly sheets for this. This way, your plans and reflections are together — a valuable record for your future self. Though you’ll need something larger than a post-it note.
Closing Thoughts
In my quest to find the optimal way to balance my day job, hobbies, and side hustles, I experimented with various planning systems, task management apps, and paper-based planners.
Most of them fell apart. Only a few practices stayed with me. It’s kinda like evolution — only the fittest ideas survived. These have become the GoFAR framework. Try it, adapt it to your flavor, and crush your quarter!
I’m building Qtr, a planning app that’s designed around GoFAR. Qtr will let you manage goals, drag tasks to weeks, zoom into a week to plan days, zoom into a day for time blocking, and prompt you for daily and weekly reflections. If Asana, Trello, Google Calendar, and a paper-based journal came together, that would be Qtr.
