I’ve blogged about this earlier, but I thought Joe’s Goals deserved more comment and made a worthy beginning to my new and continuing (I hope) Wednesday blog topic.

Due to my trip to Florida, I have fallen away from using it. But I will get back in the saddle soon because I have found it very helpful.

Joe’s Goals allows you to set positive and negative goals for yourself and track your fidelity to your decisions to do or avoid doing certain things. You simply check the box when you do an action on a daily or weekly basis. If you have listed the activity as positive, you score a point and if you have listed it as negative you lose one.

What I have found works best is to open a logbook under most of my goals. Rather than the point system, Joe’s Goals allows you to actually keep a daily journal entry. Typically for each activity (“read fiction,” “eat after supper,” or “publish heresy on the web”), I have a logbook on the same topic. While each new category appears on the bottom of your list, a control panel is provided for re-ordering them. That way, I can list what exercise I actually did as well as checking off the box.

I think Joe’s Goals looks like a great way to undertake disciplines and follow through on commitments.