Donald Deibler, a business owner based in Hegins, Pennsylvania, has adopted a personal policy that he says keeps his two food and beverage operations moving in the same direction: no goal counts unless it is written down first. Deibler manages All Stars Ice Cream and Cafe Bakery and separately supports his wife's ownership of Dead Horse Beer and Burritos. The policy, which he formalized this month, requires him to write down yearly goals every January 1 and smaller monthly goals at the start of each month, keeping both lists visible rather than buried in a notebook.
"I like to set yearly goals every January 1st and monthly goals at the beginning of every month," Deibler said. "I keep these in the back of my mind daily." The approach is simple on its face, but Deibler emphasizes that the discipline is in the follow-through. Running a bakery and cafe operation alongside supporting a second food and beverage business means his days rarely look the same twice, and a written goal provides a fixed reference point when the schedule gets noisy.
Deibler describes handling moments of doubt by taking everything one task at a time, an approach he applies to goals as well. A large yearly target is broken into monthly pieces so it never feels like one overwhelming task. He measures success in plain terms: "By accomplishing your goals and exceeding past that." There is no external scorecard involved; he checks his own list against his own results.
The monthly goal is not a smaller copy of the yearly one but a specific step toward it. On January 1, the year's goal gets written down in full. On the first of each month, a smaller, specific goal is added underneath it. Daily, both remain visible enough to shape decisions rather than just sit on a page. Deibler says the habit of setting new goals is also how he keeps growing once an old goal is met. "By setting new goals," he said, is his answer when asked what continued growth looks like. Nothing about the policy assumes an endpoint; one goal closes and another opens.
The standard applies across both businesses, meaning two sets of goals run at once and sometimes overlap. Deibler credits his family for shaping his approach. "My family, including my parents and siblings," is who he names as his biggest influence. Growing up with five siblings in Donaldson, Pennsylvania, taught him early how to divide attention across more than one priority without losing track of any of them. Outside the businesses, the same habit shows up in his commitments to the community. Deibler has stayed involved with local youth sports donations and volunteer coaching, work that also runs on a calendar rather than good intentions alone.
Deibler is direct about what makes the policy work rather than fail. "Hard work and a positive attitude," he said, are the qualities he considers most important. Neither shows up on a to-do list, but both determine whether the list gets finished. He also measures the whole approach by a standard that is not borrowed from anyone else. "By my own standards," is how Deibler describes gauging his own success, whether that is a monthly goal for the bakery or a longer-term plan for the burrito business.
The written-goal habit is not a marketing device, according to Deibler. It is the same operating rhythm he has used across both businesses for years, now made explicit for anyone who asks how he keeps two food and beverage operations moving in the same direction without losing sight of either one. For other small business owners juggling multiple priorities, Deibler's policy offers a straightforward, low-cost framework: write it down, keep it visible, and measure it against your own standards.
