Financial and Academic goals

Most goals are Standard. Two others exist because money and study do not describe themselves well in a generic form, and each has its own create form rather than a variation on the same one.

Financial goals

A Financial goal is for anything where the honest measure is an amount: saving towards something, paying something down, reaching a level of income. Because the form is built for money, the goal reads as an amount throughout rather than as an abstract score, which makes it far easier to sanity-check against reality.

Direction matters here more than anywhere else. A savings goal climbs to its target; a debt goal falls to it. Getting that the wrong way round produces a goal that looks finished on the day you start, so decide which way the number should travel before you fill anything in.

Academic goals

An Academic goal is for study and results. It is the right type whenever the outcome is a grade or a level of performance rather than a pile of completed work, and its own form asks for what that context needs.

Academic goals pair naturally with the assessments section on the goal page. Progress is not only what you tell it — it is what your results say, gathered in one place over the term rather than remembered vaguely at the end.

Picking the type, and changing your mind

The first step of the wizard shows three cards, described as The work gets done, A number moves and Time invested. Once you have chosen, a Change type link stays on the step so a wrong turn costs seconds rather than a restart.

You can also narrow the goals list to one type. The filter panel offers All Types, Standard, Financial and Academic, which is the quickest way to review just your money goals or just your study goals without the rest of your life in the way.