Aspire

See the big picture before you start getting things done.

Aspire is a visual tool for defining your goals, identifying obstacles,
and brainstorming the solutions you need to achieve your dreams.

Be sure to check out Goal Based Productivity by serial entrepreneur Lang Riley. He provides many insights into the paradigmatic differences between task and goal management, and has some nice things to say about Aspire as well:
“I think Aspire has boiled down goal identification and the 'goal landscape', if you will, to its essence.”

Think Visually

Most people keep their long term plans in their head. Smart people know getting ideas out of their head makes it easier to keep track of them. Aspire provides a visual workspace to help brainstorm, review and improve your life's goals and priorities.

Your Life isn't a GANTT Chart

Your life is about your dreams, your goals, your emotions, your fears. Things that don't fit nicely in a "to do" list, outline, schedule, or heaven forbid, a GANTT chart. Instead, Aspire helps you see how these fit into your overall plans.

Find Your Path to Success

Aspire helps you take an honest look at your plans, and truly understand what it takes to accomplish them. See the real story with three easy concepts:

Goals are the big things in your life you want to achieve. Start a business? Go green? Get healthy? Write a book? It's up to you.
Obstacles are what prevent you from achieving your goals: missing skills, knowledge, resources, even fear of failure.
Solutions help you overcome obstacles. These might become "projects" in your task management system when its time to start working on them.

See the Big Picture

Aspire isn't a daily task manager, though it's a great complement to any system you might already use. Before diving into tasks, schedules and details, Aspire gives you the big picture so you spend time on what's important. Review and update progress on your goals periodically to make sure you stay on track.

No Kool-Aid Required

Aspire is methodology free. It won't guide you through the rules of any particular methodology or process. Whatever time management system you use for day-to-day tasks (if any), Aspire gives you a unique high-level view of your goals, highlighting relationships and priorities in a new and powerful way.

Don't Sweat the Details

Aspire avoids distracting fine-grained measures for key planning concepts like importance and timeframe; "now", "soon", and "later" keep you from nitpicking about whether something will take 1.3 or 1.4 days. Aspire keeps your focus away from detail games like "make the bars line up". Details come later.

Note It, Forget it

You can attach notes to any item in Aspire, so over time you can collect thoughts and ideas to help with future tasks. Notes let you get things out of your head, but ensure all your ideas, inspirations, references and resources are right there when it eventually comes time to start working on an item.


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