SMART goals work. Nobody’s arguing that. But they work best when the path is predictable and the outcome is measurable. “Save R50,000 by December.” “Ship the feature by Q3.” Clear finish line, clear timeline. SMART was built for that. 1 SMART was coined by George T. Doran in the November 1981 issue of Management Review. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timely. It’s become the default goal-setting framework for good reason. It just isn’t the only one worth knowing.
The problem is when people reach for SMART goals in situations where they don’t fit. Long-term, open-ended goals. Goals where the process matters more than hitting a number. Goals where the timeline is “until it works.” Learning to code. Building a writing practice. Getting fit. These don’t have a clean finish line. SMART forces you to invent one, and then you either hit an arbitrary target and stop, or miss it and feel like you failed.
Anne-Laure Le Cunff proposed PACT as an alternative. 2 Le Cunff, Anne-Laure. SMART goals are not so smart: make a PACT instead. Ness Labs. The same Anne-Laure Le Cunff who wrote Tiny Experiments, which reframed how I think about Generativity over legacy. Purposeful, Actionable, Continuous, Trackable.
- Purposeful: Aligned with long-term meaning, not just current relevance. Tasks can lack purpose. Goals shouldn’t.
- Actionable: Based on outputs you control. Not “get 5,000 subscribers” but “publish weekly for 25 weeks.” The distinction matters. One depends on other people. The other depends on you showing up.
- Continuous: Simple, repeatable actions. No choice paralysis, no elaborate planning. Start, learn, adjust. This is where PACT connects directly to habits. The continuous element is what turns a goal into a practice.
- Trackable: Not measurable. Binary. Did you do the thing today? Yes or no. Le Cunff compares it to the GitHub contribution graph. Green square or empty square. 3 This is where PACT overlaps with Streaks and where the tension lives. Binary tracking is a streak by another name. The difference is that PACT doesn’t punish you for missing a day. The emphasis is on continuous progress, not an unbroken chain.
Where SMART wins:
Predictable processes. Defined timelines. Team deliverables. Financial targets. Anything where you can reasonably forecast the path from here to there.
Where PACT wins:
Open-ended personal goals. Skill development. Creative work. Habits that need to survive longer than motivation does. Anything where showing up consistently matters more than hitting a number.
How I use it:
My jogging habit is a PACT goal that accidentally looks like a SMART one. Three runs per week, indefinitely. Purposeful (health, mental clarity). Actionable (I control whether I run). Continuous (same simple action, repeating). Trackable (did I run three times this week? yes or no). There’s no finish line. The goal is the practice itself. See 200 Weeks.
The danger is treating this as either/or. It’s not. It’s about matching the framework to the situation. SMART for projects with endpoints. PACT for practices without them.