How to build goals that cascade from your yearly vision down to today's tasks — and how to use the AI Coach to make every level sharper.
ToolClarity Planner
Sections8
IncludesCheat sheet
Version1.0
Contents
01The goal stack system§1
02Writing goals that hold§2
03Linking your stack§3
04Using the AI Coach§4
05Building a review rhythm§5
06Tips that get better results§6
07Common mistakes and fixes§7
08Quick reference cheat sheet§8
01
The goal stack system
Clarity is built around one idea: your daily actions should be traceable all the way back to your biggest ambition. Most planners treat goals in isolation. Clarity links them.
The stack has six levels. Each goal at one level can be linked to a parent goal at the level above. Your yearly goal is the anchor. Every 6-month goal serves it. Every 3-month goal serves a 6-month goal. All the way down to today's tasks.
Yearly
The one goal that defines the year. Your north star. Set it once. Everything else in your stack traces back to this.
6 Months
The half-year milestone. Concrete enough to plan, broad enough to adapt. Typically 1–3 goals that together deliver the yearly outcome.
3 Months
One quarter. Where strategy becomes schedule. The level where you commit to specific deliverables, not just directions.
30 Days
Monthly commitments. Tight enough to track, long enough to build momentum. The engine room of your stack.
Weekly
This week's focus. Appears in the Weekly Planner by date. Check-ins at this level are what keep the 30-day goals alive.
Daily
Today's task. The smallest unit. Check it off and watch the whole stack move. Appears in Daily Focus and the Weekly grid.
You don't need to fill every level before you start. Begin with what you know — usually a Yearly goal — and build down over the first week as you get clearer.
02
Writing goals that hold
A goal that's vague enough to never fail is useless. Every goal in Clarity has four optional fields — use all of them and the AI Coach becomes dramatically more useful.
Title — what you're achieving Why — why it matters to you personally Success metric — how you'll know you're done Due date — when you're committing to finish
Title RequiredWhy Optional but powerfulMetric Optional but powerfulDue date Optional
Here's what a weak goal and a strong goal look like side by side:
// Weak — too vague, no tractionTitle:Get better at fitnessWhy:—Metric:—// Strong — specific, personal, measurableTitle:Run a sub-25 minute 5KWhy:I want to feel physically capable at 40 — not just look itMetric:Complete a timed 5K race in under 25 minutes by OctoberDue date:2026-10-31
The Why and Metric fields are what make the AI Coach genuinely useful. When the AI knows why this goal matters and what success looks like, it can give you specific, grounded advice instead of generic motivation.
Field
What to write
What the AI does with it
Title
A specific outcome, not a direction. "Launch freelance client #1" not "start freelancing".
Uses it as the goal anchor in all coaching responses.
Why
The personal reason — not the logical one. Write what you'd tell a close friend.
Uses it to make motivational and habit responses emotionally resonant.
Success metric
A clear, binary test: "yes I achieved it" or "no I didn't."
Uses it to build timelines, milestones, and progress tracking advice.
Due date
A realistic commitment date, not an aspiration.
Appears in the goal card and the weekly planner grid.
Priority
High / Medium / Low. High adds a visual flag to the card.
Not sent to AI — purely for your own visual prioritisation.
03
Linking your stack
The Parent Goal field is what turns a list of goals into a stack. Link each goal to the one above it and you'll see at a glance whether your daily tasks are actually moving your yearly ambition.
When you create a goal, the Parent Goal dropdown shows every goal from the level above. Select one. The parent goal's detail view then shows all its children — so you can see the full cascade in both directions.
// A linked stack — career pivot exampleYEARLYLand a senior UX role at a product company6 MONTHSBuild a portfolio of 3 case studies↑ parent: yearly3 MONTHSComplete case study #1 — SaaS onboarding redesign↑ parent: 6 months30 DAYSFinish research and synthesis phase↑ parent: 3 monthsWEEKLYConduct 5 user interviews↑ parent: 30 daysDAILYWrite interview guide draft↑ parent: weekly
✓
You don't need a perfect stack before starting
Add the Yearly goal first. Add 6-month and 3-month goals as you think them through. Weekly and daily goals can be added the morning you plan to do them. The hierarchy works however much of it you fill in.
ℹ
Action steps vs. sub-goals
Each goal also has an Action Steps list — a simple checklist inside the goal itself. Use action steps for small tasks that don't need their own goal card. Use sub-goals (linked goals at the level below) for bigger work that deserves its own Why, Metric, and AI coaching session.
04
Using the AI Coach
The AI Coach opens on any goal card. It knows your goal title, period, why, and success metric. Six quick prompts fire with one click — or write your own.
The AI Coach is accessed two ways: the ✦ Coach button on any goal card in the Goals view, or the Ask AI Coach button inside a goal's detail view. Either way, the AI receives your full goal context automatically.
Here are the six built-in quick prompts and when to use each one:
🗺 Break into action steps
Use this first, especially on 30-day and 3-month goals. The AI returns a concrete, ordered list of next actions. These become the starting point for your Action Steps checklist.
⚠️ Potential obstacles
Use this before you begin. The AI identifies the specific failure modes for your goal — not generic ones — and tells you how to prepare. Running this once at the start saves a lot of mid-journey panic.
📊 Track my progress
Use this to define how you'll measure forward movement. Especially useful for goals where progress is invisible day-to-day (creative work, relationship goals, learning goals).
⏰ Build a timeline
Use this for 3-month and 6-month goals. The AI maps your goal against your timeframe and returns milestones with target dates. Paste the output into your goal's Why field or save it as a note.
💡 Supportive habits
Use this after defining your goal. The AI suggests daily habits and routines that compound toward your outcome — not just effort habits but environmental and identity habits too.
🔥 Motivate me
Use this when you're stalling. The AI writes directly to your goal, your why, and what's at stake. Not a generic pep talk — a specific reminder of why you started.
You can also type your own questions. The AI has your full goal context — treat it like a coach who already knows your situation. Ask things like "What's the first thing I should do this week?" or "Why might I be procrastinating on this?" and you'll get answers calibrated to your specific goal.
05
Building a review rhythm
Clarity has three views for three different cadences. Using all three keeps your daily work connected to your bigger picture without spending hours in review.
Daily (5 minutes, every morning)
Open the Daily Focus view. Check what's on your plate today. Check off anything completed yesterday that you missed. Add any new daily tasks. Done — this is your operating view for the rest of the day.
Weekly (20 minutes, Sunday or Monday morning)
Open the Weekly Planner. Look at the full week. Check what's due. Move anything that slipped. Create the new week's daily tasks by asking: "What do I need to do this week to keep my 30-day goals on track?" Use the AI Coach on any weekly goal that feels stuck.
Monthly (45 minutes, last day of the month)
Review every 30-day goal. Mark completed ones. For anything not completed, decide: close it anyway, roll it forward, or drop it. Then set next month's 30-day goals by asking: "What do I need to do in the next 30 days to keep my 3-month goals on track?"
✓
Enable the weekly review reminder
In Settings & AI, turn on the Weekly Review toggle and choose your day. Clarity will send a browser notification at 6 PM on that day reminding you to sit down for your weekly review. You need to grant notification permission once — the toggle in Settings handles the prompt.
06
Tips that get better results
Start with one Yearly goal, not five. The stack only works when the top level is clear. If you have five yearly goals they're not yearly goals — they're 6-month goals. Pick the one that matters most and let the others become children of that.
Write the Why before you talk to the AI. The quality of AI coaching is directly proportional to how honest and specific your Why is. "Because I want to be free" gives weak responses. "Because I watched my parents work jobs they hated until 65 and I refuse to do the same" gives powerful ones.
Use action steps for the small stuff, sub-goals for the real work. A to-do like "email Sarah" is an action step. "Build referral partnership with Sarah's agency" is a goal that deserves its own Why, its own coaching session, and its own link in the stack.
Export your data regularly. Clarity stores everything in your browser. Browsers clear storage. Go to Settings, hit Export, and save the JSON file somewhere safe once a week. Loading it back takes ten seconds.
Use the AI Coach at the start of each level, not just when stuck. Running "Break into action steps" when you create a new 30-day goal takes 30 seconds and gives you the whole month's structure. Most people only open the Coach when something goes wrong — use it at the start and you'll have fewer crises.
Set your affirmation time. In Settings, enable Daily Affirmations and pick a time. The affirmation on your dashboard refreshes with AI each morning — but only if you have it scheduled. Without a time set, you'll need to click "New Affirmation" manually.
Keep your stack lean. Resist the urge to add every idea as a goal. A useful stack has 1 yearly goal, 2–3 per level below it. More than that and the weekly review becomes overwhelming and the connections lose meaning.
07
Common mistakes and how to fix them
⚠️
My goals don't appear in the Weekly Planner
The Weekly Planner pulls in Daily and Weekly goals that have a due date matching a day in the current week. If a goal has no due date set, it won't show in the calendar grid — but it does still show in the Daily Focus sidebar for weekly goals. Set a due date on any goal you want to appear in the weekly grid.
⚠️
The AI Coach says it has no context about my goal
Open the Coach via the ✦ Coach button on the goal card, not by navigating to it from the sidebar. The sidebar AI button (if present) opens a general chat. The goal card button passes your specific goal's title, period, why, and metric to the AI automatically.
⚠️
I set up my API key but the affirmation still shows a fallback quote
After saving your API key in Settings, click "Test Connection" to confirm it's working. Then click "✦ New Affirmation" on the Dashboard to trigger a fresh AI-generated one. The fallback quotes are the built-in library that runs when no API key is configured — they disappear once the AI successfully generates one.
⚠️
I completed a goal but the progress ring on the Dashboard didn't update
Open the goal card and click "✓ Mark as Complete" (or use the Complete button on hover). The Dashboard rings reflect completed vs total goals per level. Marking action steps done updates the card's progress bar, but the ring only moves when the goal itself is marked complete.
⚠️
My data disappeared after clearing my browser or switching devices
Clarity stores data in your browser's local storage — it doesn't sync to the cloud. Always Export your data from Settings before clearing your browser or switching machines. To restore: open Clarity on the new machine, go to Settings → Import, and load your JSON file. Everything comes back exactly as you left it.
⚠️
The AI Coach gives generic responses that don't feel relevant
This almost always means the Why or Metric fields are empty or vague. Open the goal, click Edit, and fill in a specific Why (personal, honest) and a clear Metric (what done looks like). Then reopen the Coach. The difference in response quality is significant.
08
Quick reference cheat sheet
Print this page and keep it next to you while building your stack.