“A goal gives direction. Without one, it's difficult to know whether you're actually making progress.”
Lately I've been thinking a lot about goals.
Not only for open source projects, but for almost everything.
And one thing I'm still trying to understand is:
What is the right way to set goals?
Should goals be:
- big and ambitious
- small and achievable
- short-term
- long-term
Or does it simply depend on the person?
I don't think there is a universal answer.
Some people are motivated by large goals that take years to achieve.
Others prefer breaking everything into smaller milestones and focusing on one step at a time.
Personally, I like setting goals for almost everything.
They help me stay focused and give me something measurable to work toward.
One of my current goals is related to the email subscription feature that became available a few days ago for DebugProbe.
The goal is simple:
50 email subscribers in 30 days.
Right now the project is at:
7 subscribers / 50
It's not a huge number, but every subscription tells me that someone is interested enough to follow the project's progress.
And I genuinely appreciate that.
So thank you to everyone who has already subscribed.
If you're interested in following the project, you can subscribe for free at:
Final Thought
I think goals are important.
Maybe not because of the number itself, but because they give us a way to measure progress and stay focused over time.
I'm curious how other developers approach this.
Do you prefer one big goal or many smaller goals?
Top comments (2)
I use a mix of big and small goals personally -
What I usually like to do while building side-projects is to define a strictly scoped MVP, and the time I should take to build it out ... which usually depends on the number of new things I will learn while building the project. Then I define checkpoints like "First checkpoint is to finish doing X, Y and Z by 15th June" - helps me stay on track! (somewhat!)
Of-course, this approach works for non-project related goals as well, the checkpoints approach has really helped me stay on track with progress in the gym too! 😁
I like the checkpoint idea.
I usually set goals, but I don't always break them down into clear checkpoints. That might actually make them feel much more achievable.
And you're right - it works outside of projects too. The gym is great example 😄. Thanks for sharing your approach.