A to-do list tells you what to do today. Goal Tracker tells you how far you are through something that takes weeks. Each goal carries a title, an optional deadline, a priority level, and up to 20 milestones (the individual steps the goal requires). Progress is calculated automatically from completed milestones and shown as a percentage bar, so you can see at a glance whether a goal is moving or stalled.
Everything saves to your browser’s localStorage under the key goal-tracker-v1 the moment you make a change. Close the tab, reopen it tomorrow, and your goals are exactly where you left them — no account, no sync, no server.
Getting Your First Goal Set Up
- Type a goal title in the New Goal form — for example, Launch the redesigned homepage — and optionally set a deadline and priority, then click Add Goal. The goal appears at the top of the list with a 0% bar.
- Click the chevron on a goal card to expand its milestones panel. Type each milestone into the Add a milestone… field and press Enter or click +. A three-milestone goal might read: Write copy, QA on staging, Push to prod.
- Click the circle icon beside a milestone to mark it done. The progress bar updates immediately: one of three milestones complete shows 33%. All three done shows 100% and the bar turns green.
- Click the circle beside the goal title itself to mark the whole goal complete regardless of milestone state. This is useful when you finish something ahead of schedule or without tracking every step.
What Each Field Controls
- Priority (High / Medium / Low) colours the badge on each card: red, amber, or green. It is a label only — the list order stays chronological (newest at top) and does not re-sort when priority changes. Reordering is deliberate: you decide what is at the top, not an algorithm.
- Deadline drives the countdown label beside the badge. More than 7 days away shows a neutral grey day count. Within 7 days the label turns amber. On the due date it reads “Due today” in amber. Past the deadline it reads “3d overdue” in red, counting up from the day after.
- Stats bar at the top of the page shows Active (goals not yet marked complete), Done, and Overdue counts. It is hidden when the list is empty to keep the first-run view clean.
Edge Cases Worth Knowing
- 12-goal limit. The Add Goal button is disabled and shows “Limit reached (12)” once you hit the cap. Delete a goal to make room.
- 20 milestones per goal. The milestone input field disappears once a goal reaches 20 milestones. Remove one to unlock the field again.
- Marking a goal complete does not tick its milestones. The milestone checkboxes stay as-is so the partial record is preserved if you reopen the goal later. The progress bar jumps to 100% because completion overrides the milestone count, but the individual items are untouched.
- Milestone delete is hover-only on desktop. The trash icon on each milestone row appears on hover. On touch devices it is always visible.