Three rungs, and each one answers a different question.
- A goal is an outcome. "Get to the first paying customer." It has a target date and it is not something you can do on a Tuesday.
- A project is a body of work that moves a goal. "Ship the first version." It has an end.
- A task is one thing you can actually sit down and finish. "Write down what it does in one sentence."
Tasks hang off projects, projects hang off goals. That chain is what lets a goal show real progress instead of a number you typed in yourself.
Why bother with the middle rung
The temptation is to put tasks straight under a goal and skip projects. It works for about two weeks.
Projects are what let you say "this part is done" — and what stop a goal from becoming a list of forty loose tasks with no order. If a goal has more than about ten tasks directly under it, that is the signal it wants projects.
When something does not fit
A task with no project goes to Unsorted. That is not a failure state, it is an inbox — get the thing out of your head now, file it later. Unsorted staying at zero is not the aim; Unsorted growing forever is the thing to watch.
A project with no goal is fine and common. Life admin, a client, a house move. Not everything ladders up to an ambition, and pretending otherwise makes the goals list meaningless.
A goal with no projects is a wish. If it has been sitting there for a month with nothing under it, either give it a project this week or archive it.
Milestones
Goals and projects can both carry milestones — checkpoints with dates that are not tasks. Use them for the things that are true or not true rather than done or not done: "beta users have it", "manuscript is with the editor".
Priorities and dates
Priority is one to four, shown as a coloured ring on the task. Reserve one for things that genuinely have to happen today; if everything is a one, nothing is.
A due date means "this needs to be done by then", not "I plan to do it then". Dating everything is how Today becomes noise you learn to ignore.
Next
- The Today screen — where the ladder shows up day to day
- Habits and streaks — the part that is not a task
- How to connect habits to projects and goals — the longer argument for all this