Ask HN: What do you use to align your daily todos with your long term goals?

Sound like you are scared of the future. I am the same, don't have long term goals...

In terms of higher-level concepts, I've recently been thinking​ a lot about identity-based motivation. This is basically the theory that we should expect, even welcome, difficulties encountered when engaging in activities that are relevant to our ideal future self. The initial step is to elucidate who we want to be, and then bring that identity to mind when we encounter failure. This reframing might be more effective than, say, believing I am dopamine deficient, that I'm lazy or that I'm not talented enough to complete the task at hand, etc. If I know the path to who I want to be (a well-traveled explorer, to use OP's example) will be difficult and I suddenly encounter a difficulty, instead of feeling dejected, the difficulty will motivate me instead, as it is a signpost that I am becoming who I want to be.

Some of this may seem obvious, especially to people who are already super achievers, but I've been finding it a worthwhile way to think about my behavior.

Here are some links if this sparks any interest:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_based_motivation

https://youtu.be/0bwvP-Zk_wM

The research conclusion so far is a bit convoluted. I don't know if any popular writers have run with the idea yet.

To sum up:

1. Pick who you want to be in the future (ex: a good friend),

2. Expect to encounter difficulty on the path (ex: my friend needs help moving, it's gonna suck and I'm not gonna be able to work on my project today, but I know sustaining close friendships will be hard),

3. Take actions that will be congruent with your future identity (ex: I went out of my to help my friend move to his new apartment, I did it because every day I try to take advantage of my opportunities to be a better friend)

They generally just look a bit more professional than regular notebooks. I see a lot of people with them (in banking), typically consultants or management.

They're really nice notebooks and look awesome. People have them for the same reason they like nice watches; good quality, a status symbol and signalling.

> What type is "moleskine" a colloquial name for, exactly?

All notebooks with black covers, at least in some circles. (As in, anything that looks somewhat like the products by the brand moleskine. Which are nice, but as you say pricey and not necessarily better than other brands, even if you care about details in your notebooks)

A critical factor of success in achieving long term goals is to schedule corresponding daily todos on a calendar. Because if something isn't either obviously urgent or scheduled on a calendar, it never gets done.

For this reason, I sorely miss the Timeful app (bought and shut down by Google) which nailed the process perfectly, integrating one-off todos, habits (e.g. 3 runs/week) and calendar management in a single system. AI-based suggestions for scheduling todos was the icing on the cake.

To this day, sadly I still haven't found a decent replacement.

Google Calendar took the automatic habits scheduling engine from it but is otherwise inadequate for todos, and well-established todo managers like Things / Wunderlist stubbornly refuse to allow something as simple as drag+dropping todos onto a calendar at a specific time of the day (which is the critical bit), and they don't support habits ("tick this box n times a week")

Plan (getplan.co) seemed promising but is too alpha for daily use and development seems to have stalled. SkedPal nails it in theory but is over-engineered and bloated, its UI asks too many questions and cognitive load is high, it needs "Apple-ification".

Any other recommendations very welcome ! Even happy to beta test or collaborate on something new (I know the world already has too many productivity apps, but it lost the "right" one with Timeful IMHO)