The map and goals
A project in killBottleneck is one map: a tree of goals with the apex at the top — the thing the whole map is for. You add goals and subgoals on the canvas, connect them, and the map shows at a glance where the plan stands and which step is holding up the rest.
This page is the overview. The individual parts of the map have pages of their own: Goal settings, Arranging, Readability, The canvas and Collaboration and conflicts.
What a goal carries
Every goal (node) in the map can have:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Status | To do → In progress → Done. Click to cycle it — in the map or in the task table. |
| Deadline | Optional. A plan is not a deadline: a goal can be planned without committing to a date. |
| Responsible person | Who answers for the step. Assigning someone who has no access to the map offers to share it with them. |
| Who performs it | A person, or an automation — see Automations and agents. The responsible person stays human either way. |
| Color and icon | Preset colors or a custom one; the icon shows in the map and in the table. |
| Description, comments, attachments | Longer text, discussion and files or links pinned to a goal. |
The goal detail opens with a double-click on the node — every field from the table, the goal's tasks and how it all fits together is covered in detail on Goal settings.
The apex cannot be deleted — you can rename it, and the only way to remove it is to delete the whole project from the home page. Deleting an ordinary node keeps its children; they stay in the map and become detached.
Waiting and blocking
The switch Wait for children turns a goal into a checkpoint: until every goal underneath it is done, the node waits (⏳) — for example for a material price to come in. The map marks the step everyone is waiting on with a "! blocks" badge, and My day has a whole section for work that blocks others.
When the last subgoal is finished, the waiting goal is unblocked and its responsible person gets a "Goal is ready" notification. If the goal is performed by an automation, it starts by itself instead.
Working with the map
The canvas tools — portrait or landscape layout, search, the minimap, sticky notes, multi-select and more — are covered on The canvas. The Arrange button tidies the nodes into one of three styles, and press-and-hold locks a style for every map — see Arranging. Three levels of Readability switch the text size in nodes — see Readability. And what happens when two people edit the same map at once is handled on Collaboration and conflicts.
Statuses stay readable everywhere
The status colors — red for overdue, amber for in progress, green for done — are deliberately the same in every skin, so a map reads the same on any screen it is opened on.
Next
- Goal settings — the goal detail and the task rule
- Arranging — three styles on one button, the style lock
- Readability — three text sizes in nodes
- The canvas — layout, search, notes and the small things
- Collaboration and conflicts — two people editing at once
- Tasks and My day — breaking goals into concrete work
- Team and roles — sharing a map with colleagues
- Export and import — PNG, PDF, JSON, Asana and Trello