About Turtle Goals

Everything there is to know about Turtle Goals

You have goals, dreams, aspirations. You have a burning desire to track your progress. You have heard about this thing called a Seinfeldian chain, and you want in on the action. Welcome. Get started with a demo, or keep reading for more details.

You will be in good company. We currently have 426 users tracking 17 goals.

Turtle Goals is an experiment in productivity and programming. You can create goals and track your progress, but there is more to Turtle Goals than a web page covered with check marks. We plan to integrate with instant messaging, email, calendars, and mobile devices, and we are doing this all in the open. Programmers can take a look at the code that runs this service and learn from the programming tutorials that come from our experience building Turtle Goals. You can even host your own copy of Turtle Goals.

Free Premium Self Hosted
Track Goals x x x
Cheer Friends not yet not yet not yet
See advertisements x
Let someone else lose sleep keeping the service running and available at all times. x x
Customize with abandon x

Why is it called Turtle Goals?

Are you familiar with the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare? These two beasts decide to race, and the hare thinks he's a sure thing to win. He slacks off along the way, because he's sure that a burst of speed at the end of the race will give him the gold. The tortoise plods along slowly, and he wins, due to the combination of his constant effort and the inattention of the hare. Slow and steady won the race.

But how does that relate to goals and personal productivity?

Pick a goal, any goal. Let's say you want to run a marathon. If you're 20 pounds overweight and 10 years out of high school, when you were last in decent running condition, then a marathon isn't just going to happen. You're going to need more than fancy shoes. You need to run darn near every day.

I know this because I'm 20 pounds overweight and 10 years out of high school, and I don't even want to run a marathon. I'm shooting for a 10K. Every time I would start to run again, I would think back to my times and distances from high school, and I'd focus on making short term gains to increase my speed and mileage, and then a few days later I'd be so sore that I would justify taking a week or two or eight off. I was doing it wrong. Now I leave my watch at home when I run. The metric I track is this: did I run today? As my strength and stamina grow, I'll want to track my progress with a little more detail, but for now I just need to run. Slow and steady, every day.

OK, but why Turtle Goals? Why not Tortoise Goals?

I am a programmer, and I work with lots of other programmers, occasionally teaching them how to use version control systems to keep their code safe. There is a series of programs that help Windows users use version control systems: TortoiseCVS, TortoiseSVN, and TortoiseHg. I've always been amazed at the difficulty people have spelling and pronouncing the word tortoise. That is all.

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