Geronimo!*

Americans: great at setting goals, not so much on achieving them.

We spend our money as if we have a European style safety net waiting for us at old age. We don’t, we have an anemic Social Security program that has more IOUs than cash.

We eat as if there’s some magic pill that will make us fit. There isn’t.

Get fit, save money, be more charitable, be a better person, be better at your relationship, we all have a goal.

Experts will tell you, there’s no magic pill and the lottery is a long, long shot at best. Incremental change, the kind of thing that iFit is trying to encourage, is the way to go for long term goals.

Saving more is the easiest goal to examine, since it is inherently quantifiable and there are known ways to invest with just a couple hundred dollars per month AND Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) is a tried and true strategy for long term investing.

So, the barrier to investing is low, the strategy is proven, why do Americans not invest? My guess is: we are missing a mental coach that will keep us disciplined.

Imagine an app that is tied to desktop software in which we determine our, goals that we have a tendency to ignore in your every day decisions. Imagine if we wanted that software to coach us on our intended goals.

Get fit, save money, be more charitable, be a better person, be better at your relationship – anything that can be quantified, even if vaguely quantified, lends itself to an app that  tells you if you are on pace or off pace for your monthly goal.

I won’t bother with the preferences interface since it will be a series of forms. For example, for savings goals, the form would ask for your income, your expenses and then set a goal for how much you want to put away each month. I imagine a next step would be a step where you tie your savings account to a DCA investment plan.

The ‘last glance’ problem, though, is in the way: how do you remind people to modify their behavior while they are out in the world using digital tech?

As it happens, makers of smart watches are casting about, trying to find an app to justify a smart watch purchase and a Coach app may be just the thing.

Smartphone with three coaching tracks.

This is a sketch of a possible simple coach app. The user has three tracks to monitor their monthly/weekly performance versus their goal. As the time period goes forward, the ‘goal’ icon moves from left to right setting the pace for whatever the user is monitoring.

(No, I have no idea how to quantify how well we are doing in our relationships. Just ask my SO. I just needed a third lane to make it look better. Your mileage may vary.)

As the user performs actions (runs a half mile, spends $20 or gives his/her SO some flowers) the performance icon moves from left to right – or in the case of the investing lane, since the goal is to NOT spend money, the icon will move the opposite direction on spending.

The smart watch is the solution to that ‘last glance’ problem – it is in the view of the user as they reach for a doughnut or reach for their wallet.

A quick glance and the user knows if they have any wiggle room and still achieve their goal. If they are ahead of the pace, their performance icon is ahead of the goal icon and green, if they are close, the performance icon can be amber, and if they are behind, the performance icon is to the left and red.

Easy, and most importantly for a coach, always there. This could be the first killer app for smart watches.

*Trivia kids of the 1980s have a chance to figure out why this post is called Geronimo. And if you do, there’s probably some place where “everybody knows your name.”