📈 Quick Guide to Progress Tasks

Want to track reading pages, savings progress, running distance, or ongoing weight changes? In GoalMap, progress tasks turn abstract goals into visible progress you can follow clearly.

✨ What are progress tasks?

Progress tasks are best for anything where progress can be recorded with numbers.

Examples:

• 📖 How many pages you have read
• 💰 How much money you have saved
• 🏃 How many kilometers you have run
• ⚖️ What your current weight is
• 🧠 How many words you have memorized

If you have used “quantified tasks” before, you can think of this as the same task type. We now use the name progress tasks because it is more intuitive.

🎯 When should you use a progress task?

If what you care about most is “how much got done,” a progress task is a good fit.

Common use cases:

• Finishing a book
• Saving a certain amount of money
• Tracking weekly exercise volume
• Tracking monthly training sessions
• Recording weight changes
• Accumulating study results

A simple way to decide:

• If you want to track “did I do it,” a regular task is usually better
• If you want to track “how much I did,” a progress task is usually better

🛠️ How do you create a progress task?

Before creating one, think through these 4 things:

1. Target value

The target value is the number you want to reach.

Examples:

• 300 pages
• $5,000
• 20 km
• 12 times

2. Unit

The unit defines what the number means.

Common units:

• pages
• dollars
• kilometers
• times
• items
• kilograms

3. Reset cycle

The reset cycle decides when progress starts counting from zero again.

Common types:

• No reset Best for long-term accumulation, such as finishing a book or saving up a sum of money

• Daily reset Best for tasks that should restart every day

• Weekly reset Best for weekly goals, such as running 20 km per week

• Monthly reset Best for monthly goals, such as completing 12 training sessions per month

4. Task days

Task days decide when the task appears.

For example:

• Every day
• Certain days each week
• Certain days each month

You can think of it like this:

• Reset cycle controls how progress is counted
• Task days control when the task appears

➕ How do you record progress?

The core of a progress task is simple: keep recording numbers, and the app calculates your current progress.

1. Add to progress

Each new record is added to what you already have.

For example:

• You read 20 pages today
• You read another 15 pages tomorrow
• Your total becomes 35 pages

This works well for most accumulation-based tasks, such as reading, saving money, running, or counting training sessions.

2. Update progress

Some tasks care more about “what is the current value” than “what is the total sum.”

For example, weight:

• Today: 58.2 kg
• Tomorrow: 57.8 kg

In that case, update progress is a better fit.

But there is one important rule:

• Only progress tasks with no reset cycle support update progress
• Tasks with daily / weekly / monthly reset cycles can only use add to progress

That means:

• Long-term tasks can use either “add” or “update,” depending on the scenario
• Cyclical tasks always record progress by accumulating within the current cycle

✅ How should you understand completion and cycle progress?

There are two common ideas in progress tasks:

1. Overall target completion

When cumulative progress reaches the target value, the task is completed.

For example:

• The target is 300 pages
• Your cumulative progress reaches 300 pages
• The task is complete

2. Cycle progress

If you set a daily / weekly / monthly reset cycle, the progress bar mainly shows how much you have done in the current cycle.

For example:

• Weekly target: 20 km
• Distance run this week: 12 km
• What you see now is 12 / 20

When the next cycle begins, this part starts over.

So there are really two layers:

• Long-term, the task is still moving forward
• In the current cycle, you see how much of this round is done

🔗 How does progress contribute to a goal or parent task?

This is one of the most important parts of progress tasks.

1. Task progress still contributes upward

If the task belongs to a goal, or if it is a subtask under another task, its progress still rolls up to the parent level.

2. For cyclical tasks, roll-up uses all historical progress

Even if a task uses a daily / weekly / monthly reset cycle, its contribution to a parent task or goal is still based on the total progress accumulated across all past cycles, not just the current one.

For example:

• Week 1: 18 km
• Week 2: 22 km
• Week 3: 15 km

The visible weekly progress bar resets each week, but the progress contributed upward still adds together all of those completed amounts.

3. Goal progress is also based on all historical progress

So:

• Cycle progress shows how much you have done in this round
• Rolled-up progress shows how much this task has advanced in total over time

These are not contradictory. They are just two different views.

📊 Where can you view progress and data?

After creating a progress task, you will usually see it in these places:

1. Task card

Good for a quick look at current progress, target value, and progress bar state.

2. Task details page

Good for more complete information, such as current progress, recent records, and execution status.

3. Data charts

Good for spotting trends, such as whether progress is steady, stalled, or fluctuating.

4. Widgets

Good for putting important progress tasks on your home screen so you can check them anytime.

💡 A few tips

1. Make the target specific

“Read a bit more” is vague. “Finish 300 pages” is much clearer.

2. Use a real unit

If you are tracking pages, use “pages.” If you are tracking distance, use “kilometers.”

3. Do not confuse reset cycle with task days

Remember this line:

• Reset cycle controls how progress is counted
• Task days control when the task appears

4. If you want to track a current state, prefer no reset

For things like weight, balance, or scores, no reset is usually the better choice.

5. If you want rhythm, use cyclical tasks

If you care about things like “did I finish this week” or “how much did I move forward this month,” cyclical tasks are usually the better fit.

🌱 Final note

The value of progress tasks is not just recording numbers. More importantly, they turn vague persistence into visible progress.

If you are just getting started, begin with one simple scenario:

• Finish a book
• Run every week
• Save up a certain amount of money

Start with one task, and make your own progress easier to see.