Top down or bottom up?

There are two ways to approach this 'goals' thing. You could either set small, acheivable goals that will build up to the big acheivment or you can focus on the big acheivment and be more flexible in how you get there. It seems like the bottom-up way is the way to really get things done and not get bogged down with the hugeness of the big, final product.

So, I was writing out my bottom-up goals and while they are all well and good, they seemed obvious and some of them were arbitrary and inflexible. They are all things that you either do or do not do every day and are as much desicions as they are goals.
I guess what I really want to do is to make better desicions and then see the outcomes in terms of work or personal benefits. I am not going to put these small descions up here yet. I'm not ready to be accountable for them and I don't want to feel like I either failed at my goals or am completely ignoring them if I am focusing on something else. I will put my tracking bars up (soon) that will reflect bigger specific tasks. The smaller victories that I make when I cross things off my Post-It Note lists will be (hopefully) reflected in the progress of the larger tasks.