How do you manage your Horizons of Focus?

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blacktiger990

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Hi GTDers,

How do you manage your Horizons of Focus? I have read DAs Making it all Work and he has a few ideas, but not all of them fit neatly into the list management philosophy that permeates the rest of GTD.

So I would love to see how everyone here has dealt with this and just create a space where we might even be able to check and compare notes on how this has been done.

:)
 
mcogilvie

mcogilvie

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Could you explain what you mean by "manage?" And by Horizons of Focus do you mean everything above projects in the nominal hierarchy that begins with next actions?
 
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blacktiger990

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Lets say you have an item in your inbox. After processing you decide that this does not belong in your next actions list or in your projects list. This thing is higher than that. What do you do? Where do you park this? How do you organise this? Is this reference? Is this managed in a separate system? What do you do?
 
K

kelstarrising

Kelly | GTD expert
I have lists that track my higher Horizons of Focus (horizons 3-5), if that's what you're asking. They live in Wunderlist for me, and are captured as flat lists.
 
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blacktiger990

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Hi Kelly! Great to hear from you.

I heard in one of your webinars that you would coach someone and they would come across something in their inbox like "Motorcycle" and then working with them, you would identify that it is something that they would like to maintain at a certain standard. To me this sounds like H2: Areas of Focus are a list of projects that cannot be "Done".

Applying this knowledge, lets say I want to maintain my home to a certain standard. It is made up of many rooms. Does this mean that all my recurring projects should go into my Areas of Focus list as they are things I want to maintain at a certain standard? Do I add things like "Keep bedroom neat and tidy..." "Kitchen is a place that is a joy to cook in", "Lounge room is a place i am glad to bring guests to" all go into this list?

How do you manage these?
 
mcogilvie

mcogilvie

Registered
blacktiger990 said:
Applying this knowledge, lets say I want to maintain my home to a certain standard. It is made up of many rooms. Does this mean that all my recurring projects should go into my Areas of Focus list as they are things I want to maintain at a certain standard? Do I add things like "Keep bedroom neat and tidy..." "Kitchen is a place that is a joy to cook in", "Lounge room is a place i am glad to bring guests to" all go into this list?

How do you manage these?
Click to expand...

There's no one right answer to this. It's whatever works for you. For example, you might decide that "Comfortable and joyful home" is an area of focus, something that drives project and next actions. You describe it in terms of what you want the kitchen, the lounge, et cetera to be like. This gives rise to projects like "Paint kitchen" and next actions like "organize cookbooks." However, it also might drive a 1-2 year goal of saving for new furniture: The hierarchy acts both upwards and downwards.

I have found personally that most of the value of clarifying any desired outcome lies in how it affects my current behavior, and the quicker I get something into my system the better. I don't agonize much about which list I put something on. If it turns out it works better on a different list, I just move it there. If seeing "Kitchen is a place that is a joy to cook in" somewhere helps towards realizing your vision, great. If it doesn't, then don't bother with maintaining it somewhere if it's not helpful for you.
 
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blacktiger990

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Are there any real world examples of Areas of Focus lists that I could have a look at to get an idea of how I might structure mine? I am using OneNote and have just set it up as per the setup guide and am not sure where to go from here.
 
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blacktiger990

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Hey, I just had a hare brained idea.

With the Natural Planning Model, we identify the purpose and the vision of wild success, along with the guiding principles if it is quick and easy to identify. (Sometimes, i find its so implicit that it is hard to articulate)

So what if, to manage H2 Areas of Focus, I had a list in OneNote where the title was the Purpose/Mission and the certain standard that I was to hold this up to was the vision of wild success? According to NPM, this would be enough to trigger my brain to think of everything between where I am now and what I need to do to get there (Brain Storming) from which I would process and organise into Projects and Next Actions.

Of course, in the flurry of ideas, there may be some things that I would love to do, just not right now which would go into my Someday Maybe list as well.

I have no idea if this would work, what do you think? Does this sound like a good idea?

I just have no idea where I would like this to live. I feel it sits between reference and my Projects/Actions lists.
 
mcogilvie

mcogilvie

Registered
blacktiger990 said:
Are there any real world examples of Areas of Focus lists that I could have a look at to get an idea of how I might structure mine? I am using OneNote and have just set it up as per the setup guide and am not sure where to go from here.
Click to expand...

Here's mine: Research, Travel, Teaching, Work (anything work-related not in he first three), FFF (Friends Family Fun), Personal, House, Money. It's just a list. If I look at the list and I think of something, it goes on another list somewhere.
 
mcogilvie

mcogilvie

Registered
blacktiger990 said:
Hey, I just had a hare brained idea.

With the Natural Planning Model, we identify the purpose and the vision of wild success, along with the guiding principles if it is quick and easy to identify. (Sometimes, i find its so implicit that it is hard to articulate)

So what if, to manage H2 Areas of Focus, I had a list in OneNote where the title was the Purpose/Mission and the certain standard that I was to hold this up to was the vision of wild success? According to NPM, this would be enough to trigger my brain to think of everything between where I am now and what I need to do to get there (Brain Storming) from which I would process and organise into Projects and Next Actions.

Of course, in the flurry of ideas, there may be some things that I would love to do, just not right now which would go into my Someday Maybe list as well.

I have no idea if this would work, what do you think? Does this sound like a good idea?

I just have no idea where I would like this to live. I feel it sits between reference and my Projects/Actions lists.
Click to expand...

I think you are enthusiastic about the process, which is good. I would avoid setting up any elaborate structures until you know better what works for you. GTD is not about (only) top-down planning. While areas of focus are great, they are not the only tool GTD has for generating ideas, and you will learn a lot by trying all the different ways to approach defining your work.
 
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blacktiger990

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Wow. Is it really as simple as a list of keywords that represent all the different areas of your life that you need to maintain? I have been thinking of of AoF as a list of projects that you can never really finish, not a literal list of the areas. Perhaps I need to shift my thinking here a bit. So if it really is this simple, how do I manage recurring projects? What about areas like Health that has sub categories? Am I overthinking/over engineering things again?
 
Cpu_Modern

Cpu_Modern

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Here is the Areas of Focus list of the Queen of Auckland. Ooops, no, it's from DavidCo's Meg Edwards. Even better!

areasoffocus.jpg


Regarding recurring projects. Observe this discussion between TesTeq and OOgiem.
Second part.
 
mcogilvie

mcogilvie

Registered
blacktiger990 said:
Wow. Is it really as simple as a list of keywords that represent all the different areas of your life that you need to maintain? I have been thinking of of AoF as a list of projects that you can never really finish, not a literal list of the areas. Perhaps I need to shift my thinking here a bit. So if it really is this simple, how do I manage recurring projects? What about areas like Health that has sub categories? Am I overthinking/over engineering things again?
Click to expand...

It can be really simple, but some people find value in a more detailed description of each area. You could put that in a note attached to each entry in a list. You mention that Health would have subcategories for you. You could list those in a note, available for review, as triggers. Over time, you will find that some of the things you initially thought useful are unnecessary. Over time, we learn what our AoF mean for us, and what we need our system to do changes. As our lives change, we may need to re-think our AoF, but a lot of the time my AoF are on cruise control. The last major change was when the AoF "Dad" was replaced by "Dad's estate" after he passed away a few years ago.

You mention recurring projects. As you probably know, this sort of question is highly dependent on your implementation of the GTD system. Many task manager apps today have functionality for this, just as some allow projects to be aggregated into areas of focus. As TesTeq reminds us, checklists and ticklers can (and should) be used in just about any system to help move things along.
 
bcmyers2112

bcmyers2112

Registered
I think the reason David Allen's suggestions for maintaining lists at the 20K-plus levels don't fit as "neatly into the list management philosophy that permeates the rest of GTD" is because they don't need to. You won't be reviewing these lists daily or even weekly, so they don't need to be maintained with the same level of rigor.

While it can be useful to get suggestions for others, don't get hung up looking for one universal best practice because such an animal doesn't exist. Also be wary of thinking that just because something works for one person, it's the way you should do it.

It's been awhile since I used OneNote, but if I recall correctly it's structured into notebooks > tabs > pages within tabs. Assuming I have this correct, you could set up a notebook for the higher levels, with one tab for each. Within each tab you could have a page or pages for with your lists. For example, under the AOFs tab you might have a page titled "WORK" with a list of all the things that are important to you about your job.

Or you could do something else entirely. It's up to you.

I know full well the anxiety that drives one to avoid trying something for fear of getting it "wrong." The reality is you will very likely get this at least a little bit "wrong" at first, because that's how learning works. So you may as well get going on making the mistakes you'll need to make. And the best part is that you'll still get value out of your initial attempts even if you realize they need to be refined later. Any attempt to clarify things at the higher levels is better than not doing it at all and leaving things rattling around in your head.
 
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kelstarrising

Kelly | GTD expert
blacktiger990 said:
Hi Kelly! Great to hear from you.

I heard in one of your webinars that you would coach someone and they would come across something in their inbox like "Motorcycle" and then working with them, you would identify that it is something that they would like to maintain at a certain standard. To me this sounds like H2: Areas of Focus are a list of projects that cannot be "Done".

Applying this knowledge, lets say I want to maintain my home to a certain standard. It is made up of many rooms. Does this mean that all my recurring projects should go into my Areas of Focus list as they are things I want to maintain at a certain standard? Do I add things like "Keep bedroom neat and tidy..." "Kitchen is a place that is a joy to cook in", "Lounge room is a place i am glad to bring guests to" all go into this list?

How do you manage these?
Click to expand...

If you move this thread or question to the Connect members-only forums, I'm happy to elaborate more there.
 
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