Essay

I enhanced Miskowin.com to auto generate goals and tasks to help grease the wheels.

December 20, 2025 5 min read

I took the next step and built an AI 'almost' agent to help define your progress plan/career plan to help users visualize their goals.

How I Let AI Help Me Build My First Real Progress Plan

It started with a blank page.

I’d been trying to build a career plan for the past month — a structured, actionable one — but every time I opened it, I’d just stare at the blank text field. “What do I even do first?” I’d ask myself. “How do I know if this goal is real or just… an idea?”

That’s when I realized: I wasn’t missing the goals — I was missing the bridge between them and reality.

So I asked myself: What if AI didn’t just suggest goals — what if it helped me build a baseline, like a mental scaffold, so I could see the actual path from where I am to where I want to be?

    That’s exactly what I built — a simple, gentle AI system that helps users go from a high-level progress plan to a tangible list of goals and tasks — not as magic, but as a thoughtful, structured starting point.
  

My First Step: From Vision to First Goal

My plan? “Become a Data-Driven Professional in a Tech-Focused Role.”

At first, I just wrote that down. Then I asked myself: What does that really mean?

So I said: “Help me turn this into 3–5 real, actionable goals — short, medium, and long-term — that make sense in a real-world context.”

“I didn’t want AI to just give me fancy phrases. I wanted it to help me see the journey — like a map, not a dream.”

And that’s where the magic began.

AI Generated My First Goals

Short-term: “Complete a data literacy course (e.g., Coursera’s Data Analysis with Python)”
Medium-term: “Build a personal dashboard tracking KPIs in Excel and Power BI”
Long-term: “Secure a role in a data analytics team within 18 months”

Instead of staring at a blank document, I now had a real starting point — not just a vision, but a path.

Then Came the Tasks

Once I had goals, I asked: What do I actually do to get there?

So I clicked on one of the goals — “Build a personal dashboard” — and said: “Help me generate 3 actionable tasks with due dates, spread over 3–12 months.”

AI Generated My First Tasks

Month 1: “Sign up for Power BI and complete the beginner module (due: April 5)”
Month 3: “Design a dashboard for my personal productivity data (due: June 30)”
Month 6: “Present the dashboard to a peer for feedback (due: September 15)”

It felt like a game of dominoes. One step led to the next — and suddenly, I wasn’t just thinking about the future. I was building it step by step.

Why This Works (Beyond the Tech)

Because here’s the truth: most of us don’t fail because we don’t have goals — we fail because we don’t know how to get from here to there.

This AI system doesn’t replace your thinking. It just helps you visualize the journey — like a GPS for your personal growth. It gives you a baseline, a starting point, so you don’t have to start from zero.

💡 AI as a co-pilot, not a judge

How It Works (The Quiet Behind the Magic)

Behind the scenes, the system uses a simple, human-first approach:

When you say “Request AI Goals,” the system analyzes your progress plan name and description
Generates 3–5 goals — short, medium, long-term — based on real-world context
When you click “Request AI Tasks,” it creates 3–5 actionable, time-bound tasks with due dates
Every AI-generated item is clearly marked with “AI Recommendation:” so you always know which ideas came from the machine, and which came from you, you can change the name after if you accept it.

It runs in the background — no waiting, no delays. You just see the button go from “Request AI Goals” to “Request Submitted” — and then, after an hours, you see the new goals appear, like a quiet whisper of clarity.

What I Learned

Progress isn’t about having a perfect plan. It’s about having a starting point — one that feels real, actionable, and just a little bit less intimidating.

And that’s exactly what this AI feature does — it removes the friction between vision and action. It doesn’t tell you what to do. It helps you see the path — and that’s more powerful than any single goal ever could be.

What’s Next?

Here’s where I’m headed:

🔄 Add a “Regenerate” button so I can tweak or refine any AI-generated item
🔔 Add real-time notifications when tasks are due or completed
⚙️ Let users choose how many tasks or goals to generate

Because the best systems don’t just work — they empower. And this one helps me — and anyone who reads this — feel less lost, and more grounded in their journey.

“Progress isn’t about how many goals you have. It’s about how many steps you take — and how clearly you see the path between them.”

So if you're struggling to get started — just ask for help. Not from a guru, not from a dream, but from a simple, intelligent system that knows your plan, and helps you build the bridge between where you are and where you want to go.

And that, I think, is the most human kind of technology.