I have great goal tracking software. It’s expensive stuff and has done wonders for helping me manage my goals. But you know what? For motivational purposes, it doesn’t even hold a candle to a simple, $10 wall calendar.

Want to know why?

When you use a wall calendar to track your daily goals, it stares at you every day, announcing your progress loud and clear. When a goal isn’t being achieved, when a giant X or circle denoting success isn’t placed on the calendar, you have to see that every day. When you leave for work/school, and when you come home again. It’s there.

I can close software with the click of a button. I can even just shut down my laptop if I want to avoid my terrible lack of progress. But a giant calendar on the wall isn’t so easy to avoid. It requires a symbolic admission of failure if you were to take it down or hide it from sight. As long as it remains up, the calendar continues to show you, objectively, how well you’re doing. When you’re succeeding, seeing those results every day is immensely gratifying. When you’re procrastinating, the calendar shows you a stark lack of progress that gnaws at that part of you that holds yourself to your highest standards.

So next time you track goals, think about how can you can keep those goals in plain sight so that you see them multiple times a day, every day.

Jerry Seinfeld followed this very same rule to reach success.
So did this inspirational athlete.

It works. And for $10, what are you waiting for?