Simple, not easy.
MePlans is a balanced scorecard, the kind companies run on, rebuilt for one person's whole life. Four steps, every week. Here is each one in full.
Name your four scorecards
A scorecard is one side of your life with its own goals and its own gauge. You start with four: Healthy Me, Me and People, Money and Me and A Better Me. Each asks a question. Am I taking care of myself? How am I showing up for the people in my life? Is the way I am living working? Am I growing?
Every slot is yours. Rename one, give it a question of your own and pick its color from eight: God and Me, Music and Me, My Craft. Under each scorecard sit two or three areas, so related goals stay together. The four stay four on purpose: a life out of balance shows up as one gauge well ahead of the others, and that is something to see.
- Healthy MeHow is my body doing?
- Me and PeopleHow are the people in my life?
- Music and MeAm I making the music I want to make?
- A Better MeAm I growing?
Set goals you can measure
A goal in MePlans is a sentence about what you want to do, a way to know how it is going, and a target. Walk every day; steps I walked; 8,000 a day. If it cannot be measured, it is not a goal yet, and the app says so.
Each goal carries up to two ways to know: what I do, the effort you control this week, and what I get, the result that follows it. Days I exercised is what you do; how much energy I have is what you get. Companies call them leading and lagging indicators. You pick a rhythm and a period to evaluate over, and as you write, the card grades the goal against the five letters of SMART in plain words. MeMind can draft the whole card from one sentence of yours, and nothing is saved until you say so.
Six ways to know
- How oftenCount the days or times you did it.
- How muchAdd up an amount, like steps or minutes.
- Stay underKeep a number at or below a limit.
- Move a numberTake a number from where it is to where you want it.
- How it feelsRate it with a face.
- Done or notA one-time thing that is either done or not.
- SSpecificWalk every day
- MMeasurableSteps I walked: 8,000 a day
- AAchievableFrom 5,200 a day today
- RRelevantYour why: energy for the kids
- TTime-boundEvaluate over 12 weeks
Check in with one tap
A check-in is the one small question a goal asks: how many days, how much, did it happen, how does it feel. Each goal asks on its own rhythm (every day, 2 times per week, once a week), and Home lists what is due today, one tap each, or all of them at once.
Check in from the phone version built for one hand, or from your desk. A calendar on the goal's page fills in square by square. Checking in earns points and keeps a streak; missing a day costs nothing but the truth of the week. Me Dos, the to-dos with a reason, and Me Actions, the steps toward a goal, sit beside the check-ins so the week's work is in one place.
See whether you are on course
Every check-in becomes a score against its target, every goal a face from Off course to Great, every scorecard a gauge, and the week one dial: How Am I Doing. Twelve weeks of bars under each show the trend, and Reports lays the whole plan out as a scorecard, the way a company's board would read it.
How it connects is the map: your mission on top, your goals as nodes on four layers, and arrows for the goals that help each other. When a goal slips, MeMind notices first and proposes something specific: a smaller step, a later date, a fairer target. Every proposal waits for your approval, and MeMind never changes your plan on its own. Once a week it offers a short review of the week that was.
When a goal's time is up
Every goal has a period to evaluate over. When it ends, the goal's page shows the result over the whole period against each target, in plain words, with the face of its average. Then it asks for one of three answers.
I got there
The goal is done and earns its points. It stays in your history and its weeks stay on the chart.
Give it more time
You move the date, and the goal keeps going with everything it has learned.
Set it aside
The goal goes to Later, out of the week but not out of the plan. Nothing is deleted.
Everyday words, with the classic term behind each
MePlans is the balanced scorecard underneath. Every term on screen is an everyday word, and a switch in Settings shows the classic term beside it, across the whole app. These are the words.
| Everyday word | Classic term | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| My Vision | Vision | The life you are working toward, in a sentence or two. | Giving myself a better future |
| My Mission | Mission | What you are here to do. Every goal should trace back to it. | To use my gifts to inspire others to achieve great things |
| A Me | Perspective | One side of your life, with its own goals and its own gauge. There are four. | Healthy Me |
| Area | Strategic theme | One part of a scorecard, so related goals sit together. | My Body, My Mind, Feed Me |
| Goal | Objective | What you want to do, with a way to measure it and an end date. | Get regular exercise |
| How I'll know | Measure or KPI | The number that tells you how you are doing. If it cannot be measured, it is not yet a goal. | Days I exercised |
| My target | Target | The number you are aiming for. | 4 days per week |
| What I do | Leading indicator | Effort you control this week. It moves first, and results follow. | Days I exercised |
| What I get | Lagging indicator | The result that follows your effort. It moves later. | Resting heart rate |
| Me Action | Initiative | A step you take toward a goal: a habit you repeat or a one-time task. | 30 minutes of cardio |
| My why | Strategic rationale | The reason this goal matters to you. It comes back when the goal slips. | Healthy mind and body. Live better and longer. |
| Evaluate over | Reporting period | How long you are giving this goal before you judge it. When that time is up, the goal's page shows what it came to and asks: done, more time, or set aside. | 3 months |
| Check-in | Update frequency | Logging what actually happened. One tap. | 2 times per week |
| Rank | Weight | How much a goal matters next to your other goals. Rank 1 counts the most in the score. | Rank 1 of 6 |
| Face | Status (red, yellow, green) | Your score shown as a face and a word, so you can read it at a glance. | Great, Good, So-so, Slipping, Off course |
| Ahead or behind | Variance to plan | Whether you are on track to reach the target by the end date. | 2 days behind pace |
| How Am I Doing | Scorecard | All four scorecards side by side, with your overall score and balance. | The four gauges on Home |
| How it connects | Strategy map | One picture of how your goals support each other, scorecard by scorecard, up to your mission. | Sleep eight hours helps Get regular exercise, which helps Finish the certificate |
| Is it SMART? | SMART criteria | Five marks of a goal you can keep: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. The goal builder checks them as you type. | Walk 10,000 steps a day, four days a week, until January |
| Helps | Cause and effect | One goal moves another. Effort in A Better Me or Healthy Me tends to show up later in Me and People and Money and Me. | Get regular exercise helps Sleep eight hours |
| Balance | Balanced scorecard | All four sides of life kept in view at once, so one does not quietly pay for another. Kaplan and Norton built it for companies in 1992; MePlans writes it for a person. | Healthy Me and A Better Me are 48 points apart |
| Supports a WePlans goal | Cascading | A goal of your own that moves one of your group's along, so your plan lines up with the plan you share. Kaplan and Norton call it cascading. The link stays in your plan; the group sees nothing of it. | Read before bed supports the book club's Finish the month's book |
| We Action | Initiative | A step a WePlans takes toward one of its goals, with the name of whoever is on it, or Anyone. Kaplan and Norton call these initiatives: the work that moves a measure. Everyone in the plan sees who does what. | Book the room for the meeting: Kim, by Oct 30 |
| Me Do | Task | A to-do with a reason: what it is for and what happens if you skip it. | Order crib for baby |
Where it runs
One account, one plan, every device.
In the browser, at your desk
The full app, with the rail, the dashboards, the map and Reports. Your plan is saved to your account as you work, and waits for you in any browser you sign in from.
On your phone
The same address is a version built for one hand: today's check-ins under your thumb, the four scorecards two by two, and a goal page with the answer first. Add it to your home screen and it opens like an app.
On your Mac or your PC
A copy you download from inside the app runs on your computer, even offline. Your journal goes with it only if you say so.