From a life area to today's action, in five steps.
Here's the whole flow, walked through with one example: Owen, who's building a life area called Running toward a real race, in a real year.
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1
Create a life area and choose its color
A life area is whatever you say it is — there's no fixed list to pick from. Owen creates three: Running, Woodshop (the furniture business he's building on weekends), and Family. Each gets a color he assigns himself, so at a glance he knows which thread he's looking at.
Running Woodshop Family -
2
Set a long-term vision, anchored to a real year
Not "get fit someday" — a specific vision tied to a specific year, so it has somewhere to land. Owen sets his Running vision for 2029: finish a 50-mile trail ultra without walking the climbs.
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3
Watch it cascade into a yearly goal
Trywydd asks what has to be true this year for the vision to stay on track. For 2026, that's: finish a 50-kilometer trail race and hold weekly mileage above 30 miles by December. The yearly goal is the vision, cut down to a year's worth of work.
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4
Then monthly, then weekly, then daily actions
The yearly goal keeps cascading — July's monthly goal is to run four back-to-back long days to build climbing endurance. This week's goal is one 12-mile trail run with 2,000 feet of climb. Today's action is smaller still: a 40-minute easy run before work. Each level only has to make sense in terms of the one above it.
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5
Check off progress in the circle tracker
Today's action lives inside a circle tracker. Owen taps it done, the ring closes, and that one mark feeds back up the thread — toward this week's goal, this month's, this year's, and eventually the vision itself.
Five of this week's seven planned runs are done. The ring fills as the week does.
Trace the line between any two points
Pick today's run and follow the thread backward to see exactly which vision it serves. Or start at the 2029 vision and follow it forward to see what it actually demands this week. The Thread view is the connective tissue — it's how Owen sees that a 40-minute Tuesday run is doing real work toward a race three years out.
40-minute easy run
12-mile trail run, 2,000 ft climb
Four back-to-back long days
Finish a 50K, hit 30+ mi/week
Finish a 50-mile ultra, no walking the climbs
Step back and see every thread at once
Zoom all the way out and Owen sees Running, Woodshop, and Family side by side — each with its own color, each with its own thread, none of them competing for the same square inch of a to-do list. Bird's Eye is for the question a daily view can't answer: taken together, is my life actually moving?