Joe's Goals and Logbook: Take goals to the next level

The moment I saw Joe's Goals, I knew I liked it. It's a web-based goal-minder with a great interface for your daily goals. Joe's Goals is for tracking how many times you've worked out this week, how many times you ate out, or how many blog posts you've made. The interface is a simple grid with two kinds of goals: Good (worked out) and bad (skipped class). Clicking on a grid square will add a checkmark (good goals) or an X (bad ones) icon, and clicking on an icon makes it disappear. You can add as many as you want to any grid square, and at the bottom of the grid, your accomplishments are tallied for a "daily score." And to keep yourself honest, you can share your goals with your friends. One thing I really like about Joe's Goals is that at the very top of the front page, before you've registered or signed in, there's a demo grid that you can play with to get a feel for the service.

Then Joe's Logbook, a companion site that's integrated with Joe's Goals and lets you track your life's ups and (if you please) downs with a little more specificity. Its interface looks very much like the Joe's Goals grid, except that instead of just clicking to add checkmarks, you can enter specific information that you want to log, like what exercises you did today or what you ate. Other uses suggested by the site are dream log, writing journal, or travelogue. Of course, like Joe's Goals, Joe's Logbook's utility lies not in its robustness but its simplicity, which is perfect if you want a web app that will let you take quick notes while staying out of your way, but perhaps less so if you're looking to write your memoirs. By the way, if you already have a Joe's Goals account, you don't need a new account for Joe's Logbook. Just log into Joe's Goals as usual and click on "Add Logbook" at the top of the grid.