I track my yearly goals by publishing and emailing them to my contacts:

Here are questions people have asked about my goal tracking.

How do you know that you have achieved the Better Husband tag?

In 2024, she said that I was “definitely worse in 2023 than 2024.”

In 2025, after a long pause, she finally declared “Yes”. 🙂

Your “Better husband - PASS” made me smile. How do you track relationship/soft goals without making them feel transactional?

In this case, I don’t track. But being serious about my goal makes me mindful. (E.g. during an argument, my mind-voice says, “Remember: Better husband. You’re mailing the entire world!”)

Is living with a stranger something you have never done before? Roommates, staying at hostels, etc.? How are you defining this?

Good point. I had roommates only when I was at IBM in Bangalore. They are such good friends that I forgot they were once strangers!

If I invite myself to stay for 3 nights with someone I don’t really know, I’ll count it.

What do you have planned for Live with a Stranger and what do you hope to get out of it?

  1. Changing environment helps. I hope to get a new perspective
  2. Being uncomfortable is good. It pushes boundaries. I hope to get comfortable with discomfort.

How do you track “buy low”?

By “Buy low” I mean make investmented when it roughly bottomed out. I check if I bought approximately at the bottom of a U curve.

It’s not a systematic behavior, nor a precise metric, nor a sustainable approach. So I dropped it.

What is your process to manage the discipline to stay on course?

  • Public commitment helps. E.g. I’m afraid to email everyone I know that I failed a goal. I pay upfront for courses. I get others to join me - harder to skip, then.
  • Environment & habits help. Yoga as soon as I wake up, phone automatically tracks activity, hiding junk food, etc.
  • Daily tracking helps. I know where I am and whether I’m progressing.

When you “failed” the 80 heart points in 2024, how did you process that? Did you adjust mid-year or accept and move on to 2025?

I didn’t have a choice. I felt very bad (and still feed a bit bad), so I didn’t process it well, I guess. The good part is, whether we process things well or not, live moves on.

How granular should tracking be? I’m building a Git repository with daily logs, XP points, Python scripts for reports… Am I over engineering this? (Probably yes, but tell me anyway!)

I track granularly. I prefer automatic tracking (e.g. GitHub for commits, Google Fit for heart points) over manual apps (e.g. weight on Google Fit, books on GoodReads) over notes (e.g. # of students).

  • Regular tracking feels more important than granular tracking.
  • Exception tracking seems powerful, e.g. track days when I miss Yoga. (That never happened, since I was conscious.)

How do you balance “ambitious goals” with “life happens”? Is it okay to explicitly plan for lower standards during chaos (my Q2), or is that pre-planning failure?

I’ve always aimed low - for fear of failure. I tried ambition… but not minding failure so much is working better for me.

What inspired you to start this yearly email tradition? How has it evolved over the years?

I started emailing goals in Dec 2020. Inspired by Tim Ferriss, maybe? It was a way to commit myself, stay in touch, and brag a bit.

  • My earliest goals list is from 1996. I reviewed those annually.
  • From 1999 - 2006, I tracked “achievements” on a Rating x Weightage = Points scale without goals.
  • From 2007 - 2019, I tried various logging mechanisms but don’t remember tracking goals.
  • From 2020 onwards, I use this email tradition.

What is the year on year short term to long term thread that connects these decisions to your life purpose? Horizons of Focus

I don’t know, so I asked Claude - and agree with its synthesis: Learn, Teach, then Automate.