Experiments

Goal progress calculatorAhead or behind?
There is a number for that.

Progress on its own means almost nothing. Forty per cent done is excellent in week two and a crisis in week eleven, and the only way to tell is to put it next to how much of the time has gone. Almost nobody does that sum, which is why goals are discovered to be behind at the point where being behind is unfixable.

Free, no sign-up. Worked out in your browser, nothing sent anywhere, and the result imports into EvyOS.

The deadline needs to be after the start date.

Everything is worked out in this page and saved in this browser only. Nothing is sent anywhere.

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✦ How to use it

Three things that make it work.

1
Use the real numbers

Where you started, where you are, where you are going, and the two dates. Estimating any of them defeats the exercise.

2
Read the gap

Progress against time elapsed. Anything more than about ten points behind needs a change this week rather than next month.

3
Act on the required rate

It is the only output here you can actually do something with, and it tells you whether the deadline or the scope has to give.

This compares the two directly and then answers the question that follows: at the rate you have managed so far, when do you actually finish, and what rate would you need from here.

The required-rate number is the one that changes behaviour. “Behind” is an adjective; “three a week instead of two” is a decision.

✦ The limit

An answer is not a record.

This works something out and then forgets it. It cannot tell you whether the number moved, because it has no memory of the last time you ran it and no idea what you did in between. Every calculator on the internet has that limit, and if it has never bothered you then this one is yours for free for good.

EvyOS is the same structure with the work recorded against it. Send the result across and it becomes real goals, tasks or habits with their dates — then the next answer is computed from what actually happened rather than from what you remember typing.

Questions

Goal progress calculator, answered.

That the share of the work done is within a couple of points of the share of the time gone. Both numbers matter: 40 per cent complete is excellent in week two of twelve and a crisis in week eleven, and progress quoted without the calendar beside it cannot tell you which.
Because the projection uses the rate you have actually managed since you started, not the rate the plan assumed. When those disagree, the projection is the one with evidence behind it.
Up to about ten points is normal noise — work is lumpy and a slow fortnight is not a trend. Beyond that the required rate usually has to rise by more than half, and rates rarely do that without something else being dropped.
One of three things gives: the deadline, the scope, or something else in your week. The value of the number is that it forces the choice now rather than in the last fortnight, when only the worst of the three is still available.
Yes — anything with a start value, a current value, a target and two dates. Set "started at" to your real starting number rather than zero, or the percentage will be wrong.

Keep the answer.
And the record of doing it.

Goals, projects, tasks, habits and skills in one system, with the work logged against what it belonged to.

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