I think for the examples you cite (writing a novel and learning Japanese) there are few cut and dried widgets that fall out of them because the outcome statement is so vague. For example, what does "novel is written" mean to you? First draft? Ready to mail to an agent? Same with learning a language: conversational level, reading level, tourist level?

So, for me, I'd break down those big statements to more manageable sizes. As others have commented, if you're committed to these long-term goals, then scheduling calendar time daily or weekly and committing yourself to writing for 1 hour or 1,000 words during that session, would eventually get you toward your goal. And with language--you'll need to set your own milestones. So many words learned per session, for example, or so many days per week studying vocabulary. A "testing" milestone for me would probably be, "Translate 1 article in local Spanish-language newspeper without resorting to dictionary."

I'm currently cringe-busting a dinky project ("I have created a checklist defining a smooth workflow for filing our health spending account receipts") and am thinking I just need to schedule 2 hours one evening and hammer it out. This kind of project has a well-defined (for me) widget that says once it's done, it's done, I'll have documented what I need to do next time, &tc.

For my Nanowrimo novel however, it's clearly 2,000 words/day, however long it takes me to do that, in order to meet the specific goal of 50,000 words by Nov. 30.

So it depends -- project statements need to be quantified in some way such that I can read the outcome statement and say "Yes I've done that" or "No it's not done yet"