I’ve heard both goals and processes recommended as the best way to get things done. For the longest time I didn’t know which one to use, so I mixed them together, and it kind of worked.

Goals vs. processes

On one hand, there are more traditional goal-setting tactics such as OKRs, BHAGs, and (gulp) New Year’s resolutions.

I love the idea of OKRs and BHAGs. My old company used OKRs to great effect, and I still use them in my personal life.

On the other hand, people like James Clear recommend avoiding goals, and focusing on forming the right systems and processes that will naturally lead you to the outcome you want. This also made a lot of sense to me.

When I was working, I had a fixed schedule and life was more straightforward. My productivity stack worked well enough that I didn’t have to think about it.

These days, as a grad student with competing priorities and longer timelines for my work, I realized my system wasn’t good enough. I had turned some streams of work into processes and I was making steady progress, but it wasn’t fast enough.

This got me thinking, when should you set up a process versus a goal with a deadline?

Progress vs. maintenance areas

The answer is it depends whether the work falls within a prioritized area of your life. In other words, is it an area of progress or an area of maintenance?

An example is my workout routine. I want to stay in shape, but I’m not trying to be world-class. Maintenance is enough for me. For maintenance areas, it’s better to set up low-touch, low-friction, and automated processes.

I want to work out consistently, but I don’t want to dedicate extra willpower to thinking about it. If I have a poor workout or even skip a workout once or twice, it’s not the end of the world. I just want to be good enough, and the process is there as a safety net so I don’t fall off the rails and skip workouts for a month.

In contrast, as a grad student, making progress with research is one of my main priorities. I’m trying to become an expert in this space. Unsurprisingly, it’s a progress area.

For progress areas, you should set outcome-oriented goals with deadlines - e.g. I will complete the next chunk of research by Friday, or I will not sleep on Friday night (thank you Malte for the inspiration).

This is important because it forces you to work intensely and efficiently. If you have a process of “spend 2 hours on research every day,” you can bet the quality of work and output will be much lower than if you have a goal of “get XYZ results by Friday”.

Processes provide more wiggle room. It’s easier to dawdle, meander, and spend time on things that aren’t essential. Specific goals demand accountability and output. In a way, I’m just restating my earlier post about self-accountability and working intensely.

Another way to put it is that processes are useful as a lower bound and a way to minimize downside. Outcome-oriented goals are useful for hitting the upper bound and capturing upside.