How to manage and track goals in Airtable - Airtable Goal Setting Toolkit

Aug 12

I wrote about goal setting and the reason behind this process in this essay. Based on current scientific evidence supporting goal setting and its key principles, I created the Airtable template described in this post. If you prefer different software, check out the Notion and Coda versions of the goal-setting toolkit.

At the foundation of The Goal Setting Toolkit for Airtable are the principles and protocols shared by Dr. Andrew Huberman in this extensive podcast episode on goal setting. This template is for individual use and allows you to achieve the following easily:

Define your goal(s) with precision, including blockages, weekly frequency, definition of success, duration of pursuit, and micro-actions
Track the action toward your goal daily (similar to a habit tracker), with automated action trackings that you can check/leave unchecked every day
Generate random rewards for taking action toward your goal, at the frequency you like. Click a button to flip a coin that will determine whether you will reward yourself or merely keep going

Airtable system overview

The Airtable Base

The Airtable base is the backbone of the system. This is where all the tables are stored and where you can manage all the data. Each tab at the top of the base represents a table. Many of these tables are related to each other. Here is a list of tables and their meanings in the Goal Setting Toolkit:

Goals: Store all your current, future, and past goals. Consider setting a maximum of 2 "current pursuits" at a time to maximize focus and increase the likelihood of achieving them. It might be tempting to pursue multiple goals due to fear of missing out, but narrowing your choices is essential in the goal-setting process. If you select multiple goals, your attention will be scattered, making it challenging to decide what to pursue each day. Let go of the idea of optionality to achieve the goal you deem most important right now.
Micro-actions: These are the specific actions and behaviors you'll implement to achieve your goal. Each goal can have one or multiple micro-actions. They help you define exactly what you need to do to become the kind of person who achieves the goal. Micro-actions are small and manageable but impactful when consistently executed over the goal pursuit lifespan.
Goal Actions Tracking: Since each goal has specific days of pursuit, you can track your habits and micro-actions daily. Action tracking is generated automatically every day based on the days of pursuit you select for each goal.
Random Rewards: Stores the coin flips generated by clicking a button in the dedicated interface. If the outcome is heads, you can select a reward from the Rewards List. If it is tails, you do nothing and keep going. This leverages the power of random intermittent rewards to maintain high motivation in pursuing the goal.
Rewards List: A list of rewards to include for when the random reward coin flip lands on "heads."
Usage Guide: references to this guide and the video, along with other information on using the Airtable Goal Setting Toolkit.

The Automations

You can manage automations in the Goal Setting Toolkit Airtable base via the dedicated tab at the top. There are three automations:

When goal is achieved, set the date completed to today
Random reward coin toss (generates a random coin toss in the dedicated table)
Every day, create goal action trackings. Based on the days of pursuit you select for each goal, this automation will generate action trackings so that you can simply track whether you have done the specific action.

The Interface

Lastly, when you open the “Interfaces” tab, you will see some pages you can use to visualize and update data in the system.

Full screen view of the first Interface page, showing data about the active goals

Current goal overview shows the goal(s) with a status of “current pursuit”, and you can quickly see all the information related to the goal on the page, edit it, and click the “Create random reward” button to generate a random reward coin toss. If there are multiple active goals, you can switch between them from the first dropdown menu in the page.
Goal charts shows metrics and a chart about the goals in the system. Here you can see the average tracking completed per goal, the median tracking progress, and a pie chart of goals by status. Click on the arrows to view the underlying data.
Tracking charts shows metrics and a chart about the action trackings in the system. Here you can see the percentage of trackings completed, the total trackings logged, and a line chart of trackings completed by week.