Goals

A goal is the part of your plan you want to work on right now. While a goal is set, the guide bar only suggests steps inside it and treats everything else as already done.

Your plan does not change. Nothing is deleted, no progress is lost, and clearing the goal brings all of it straight back. A goal is a filter on the suggestions, not on the work.

Why you would set one

The guide always points at the first unfinished step in plan order. That is the right default -- it stops you skipping something that later work depends on -- but it is not always what you want:

• You have half an hour and want to finish one character.
• You want to get the project foundations settled before touching anything else.
• You are in a session about scene 3 and would rather not be pulled back to the script.
• Someone else is handling the arcs, and you want them out of your way.

Set a goal and the guide follows you instead of leading you somewhere else.

Setting a goal

Three ways, all interchangeable:

• The flag icon in the guide bar, next to the checklist icon. Its menu offers goals for whatever the page you are on is about -- so on a character's page, that character is one click away -- followed by the project foundations and the whole episode.
• The Goals page, from More goals... in that menu. It lists every character, location, prop, scene, and shot in the plan with its own progress, which makes it a useful "what is actually left" view even when you are not choosing a goal.
• Just ask the assistant: "let's only work on Venn today", "focus on scene 3", "clear the goal". It sets the same goal the buttons do, and the guide bar updates immediately.

Bigger pieces of work can be narrowed further. A character, for instance, offers their story definition and their visual readiness as separate goals, so "finish Venn's look" does not drag their backstory in with it.

While a goal is set

The flag fills in, and a line under the guidance names your goal and how far through it you are -- 3 of 7 done. Because a goal is a finite piece of work, that number actually means something.

If your goal sits later in the plan than where you had got to, the line also says how many earlier steps it skips. That is not a warning, just a fact worth knowing: skipping ahead is the whole point, but the work you jumped over may be what a later step was expecting.

Change opens the Goals page. Clear puts the whole plan back.

Finishing a goal

When the last step inside your goal is done, the guide bar says so and offers two ways on: Pick a new goal, or Continue the full plan. It deliberately does not say the pipeline is finished -- most of it is still there, waiting behind the filter.

Goals and steps you do not need

Goals are not the same as turning a topic off. If a whole subject does not apply to your production -- timeline arcs, say -- switch it off there and those steps leave the plan entirely, for good and for everyone on the project. A goal is personal and temporary: it is yours, it only affects what you are shown, and it lasts until you clear it.