Every Task I Do Today Traces Back to Who I Want to Be in 2027

I hit $10K in monthly revenue. Led a team of eight. Shipped code that thousands used.

And when I asked “What am I working toward?” — silence.

That’s when I knew: success without direction is just busywork.

The goals I’d set? Buried in a document I stopped reviewing. The daily tasks? Just reacting to whatever showed up. Set goals, get excited, drift back, repeat.

Last January, I wrote down my goals. “Launch a side project. Read 24 books. Get lean.” By February 15th, I’d forgotten the document existed. By March, I was justifying it: “Life got busy. I’ll restart next quarter.” The cycle was the problem. Not my willpower.

I needed something different.

The Cascade

I defined my 3-year vision. That’s all I wrote. The AI took my long-term vision and derived everything else:

Yearly goals from the 3-year vision
Monthly goals from yearly goals
Weekly priorities from monthly goals
Daily tasks from weekly priorities

I focused on the destination. The AI traced the path.

Every task I do today traces back to who I want to be in 2027.

The cascade isn’t complex. It’s explicit. When you can see the thread from today’s work to tomorrow’s milestone to next month’s objective to next year’s target to your 3-year vision, something changes. The small tasks stop feeling trivial. They’re steps.

The Missing Piece

The cascade existed. The AI derived it from my 3-year vision. I reviewed it weekly.

It still didn’t work.

The problem: I could see the connection. I just didn’t care in the moment. When a new request arrived, when an urgent task appeared, when something shiny distracted me — the cascade faded. I’d say yes to things that didn’t matter. I’d defer the important work because it was hard.

A document is patient. It sits there, waiting. It won’t text you at 2 PM when you’re about to say yes to something that doesn’t matter.

I needed something that would interrupt me.

The AI Accountability Partner

I built a /daily command into my PKM system. Every morning, it creates my daily note and asks: “What’s the ONE thing that would make today a win?”

But it doesn’t stop there.

The command reads my goals — the 3-year vision, the yearly targets, the monthly objectives. It reads my weekly priorities. Then when I tell it what I’m working on today, it challenges me.

“Is this task aligned with your monthly goals?”

I had to work on something for a previous company — a task I’d been procrastinating for months. It became my priority for the day. When I told the AI, it asked: “You’ve moved this task forward several times. Is this aligned with your stated goals?”

I paused. My finger hovered over the keyboard.

“It isn’t,” I said aloud. To myself. To the AI.

The task wasn’t aligned with any of my goals. Any of them. It was a favor I’d agreed to out of guilt. A distraction dressed as an obligation.

I stared at the screen for thirty seconds. Thirty seconds of my own voice telling me to finish what I’d started.

Then I closed the tab.

The AI accepted my answer. But I hadn’t answered myself.

The Real Shift

The cascade gives you clarity. The AI gives you accountability.

Without clarity, accountability is nagging. You push back against the question because you never agreed to the premise.

Without accountability, clarity is decoration. You know what matters. You just don’t do it.

Together? They create something rare: a system that knows what you want and won’t let you forget.

What I’d Tell You

If you’re like me — if you’ve set goals and watched them fade, if you’ve started fresh every January only to revert by March, if you struggle to stay aligned with what you said mattered — here’s what I’d tell you:

Define your long-term vision first. Not goals. Vision. What does success look like in three years? What have you built? Who have you become?

Then have the AI cascade it. Long-term to yearly. Yearly to monthly. Monthly to weekly. Weekly to daily.

Then add accountability. Something that reads your goals and asks you questions. Something that pushes back when you drift. You can build it with AI, or find a person, or create rituals — but you need it.

Goals don’t hold you accountable. Systems don’t either. Only people — or something that speaks with your voice and remembers your commitments.

For 25 years, I tried to get organized. Apps. Systems. Notebooks. Whiteboards. They all failed me because I was using them to avoid the real question.

Last month, I looked at my daily note and knew exactly why each task mattered. Not because I’m disciplined. Because I finally built a system that won’t let me lie to myself.

Every task today is a vote for who I want to be in 2027.

What are you voting for?