Your direction · Goals & Direction

Make today part of something bigger.

Define what matters to you, turn a major goal into milestones and actions, and keep your daily plan connected to the direction you want your life to take.

Full web appFree during betaAccess by invitation
From aspiration to a day

A goal is a plan you haven't broken down yet.

A good planner tells you what's due. This page is about the other direction: starting from something you want, and ending with a task on a day you chose. Five steps, and you make the last one yourself.

Major goal
Learn photography
Shoot a set I'd frame, by spring
Milestone
A full set in manual mode
Target: October
Task
Practice manual exposure at golden hour
Added from the milestone
Choose a day
Tuesday, 6:30pm
You pick it. Nothing auto-schedules.
Planner
On today's list, labelled with its goal
Complete it in the Planner
Target-state illustration. Milestone tasks and goal progress ship today. The goal label on a Planner task is a planned detail.
Planner · Tuesday
Product concept, demo content
Personal 3 today
Practice manual exposure at golden hourBridge at 6:48pm, try 1/250Learn photography
Pick up the prescriptionErrand
Book the dentist
Creating a goal never fills today. Milestone tasks start undated in your Inbox; open the Inbox and choose a day to bring one into the Planner.
Major goals

A few goals worth a season. HeroMind calls them Quests.

HeroMind is built for a handful of major goals at a time, each with enough structure that it can actually reach your day.

A Quest holds the result you want, the purpose behind it, the milestones on the way, the routines that support it, the tasks those milestones produce, and progress computed from what you actually complete.

  • Ideas are free. Keep as many as you like in the idea stage.
  • Activation asks for three things: a result, a purpose, and at least two routines. That gate keeps a wish from pretending to be a plan.
  • Progress is earned on the goal's page. Progress comes from completed tasks, or from milestones when a goal has no tasks yet
Quest · Learn photography
Product concept, demo content
Active Started Sep 14 · 2 of 5 milestones done
Shoot a set of photos I'd frame, by spring.
Purpose: I want a hobby that gets me outside and off screens, and something to show for it.
Milestones
Learn the exposure triangleSep 21
Shoot 100 frames in aperture-prioritySep 28
A full set in manual modeOctober
Pick the best twelve and edit themNovember
Print and frame oneSpring
Routines supporting this goal
Golden-hour walk · 3× weekReview yesterday's frames · daily
Values and life areas

Direction is decision context, not decoration.

Goals answer what. Values and life areas answer why this one, and they earn their place when you are choosing between two good uses of a Tuesday evening.

  • Purpose, values, and the beliefs that hold you back live in one place, the Identity Center, where you can edit them like anything else.
  • Twelve life areas in the Life Blueprint: health, work, money, relationships, and the rest. Each one carries a premise, a vision, a purpose, and a strategy, if you choose to fill it in.
  • Optional structure, not a program. You can run the Planner for a year without opening either. When you do, a goal can point at the area and the value it serves.

I will concede the trade-off: this is the part of HeroMind that asks for reflection, and reflection takes time. It is here for the days when the urgent list is full and you still feel behind on what matters.

Life Blueprint · Quality of Life
Product concept, demo content
Premise
Screens fill every empty minute unless I plan something that isn't one.
Vision
Weekends with at least one thing made, not consumed.
Purpose
Attention is the thing I actually run out of.
Strategy linked goal: Learn photography
One creative practice with a visible result. Photography, for now.
Values it serves: Craft · Presence
In a supporting role

The habits and the reflection that keep a goal honest.

Activating a Quest asks for a result, a purpose and two supporting routines. Everything else here, journaling, the Dream List, values and life areas, is optional, and you can use the Planner without activating a Quest at all.

Routines attached to a goal

A routine is a daily habit with a streak. Attach it to a goal and the goal page shows whether the supporting habit is actually happening. Routines never show up in your task list; they have their own tracker.

Journal highlights that become tasks

Write in the journal, highlight a line, and turn it into a task, a list item, or a piece of evidence that you are becoming who you set out to be. Reflection that produces an action is reflection that lasts.

The Dream List

A short ritual for the idea stage: dream widely, decide which few matter, then let the rest go without guilt. One sitting, and you have candidates for your next major goal.

Optional perspectives

Coaches and Heroes: a second opinion you choose.

Sometimes the useful question is not “what's next” but “how would someone who thinks differently see this?” HeroMind lets you set up AI-generated perspectives and talk to them about a goal, a decision, or a rough week.

  • Coaches come with a framework: a few are included, and you can build your own.
  • Heroes are alter egos you define, informed by a body of work, a role, or a person you admire.
  • What they are: AI-generated perspectives shaped by the framework or role you gave them. What they are not: access to a real person's own judgment, or advice you should take over your doctor's.

Tell them where you are and what you're weighing, and the perspective is about your situation rather than a generic pep talk. Today they work from what you bring to the chat; reading your goals and your record (the decisions, preferences and mental models you choose to carry forward) for you is planned, not shipped.

Coach · The patient craftsman
Product concept, demo content
You: My milestone was a hundred frames in aperture-priority and I passed it last week. I've now shot two hundred and I still don't like any of them.
Coach: Liking them was never the milestone. Pick the three that are closest to what you wanted and tell me what is missing from each. That gap is the next milestone, not a reason to stop.
AI-generated perspective, informed by the framework you chose, working from what you told it.
No program required

Start with a plan for today. Add a reason when you want one.

You do not have to fill in twelve life areas or write a purpose statement to use HeroMind. Start with a day, add a goal when you want one, and reach for values when two goals compete. The structure is there when it helps, and it stays out of the way until then.

Make today part of something bigger.Back to the Planner →

Take command of your day.

HeroMind is in private beta. Request access and I'll send an invitation when a seat opens.

Full web appFree during betaAccess by invitation
A narrower Planner-only iOS beta runs on TestFlight; invitations mention how to get it.