How should I process Horizon of focus?

onedayonly

Registered
1. Should I take a bottom-up approach? or Top-down?

2. Why did David allen set the standard for the project within one year?
If the project is going to last more than a year, like getting a certification, does it have to go into the goals?

3. Does 'Horizon of focus' needs brainstorming process like project planning?
 

Cpu_Modern

Registered
Generally the higher level items appear during the course of day to day operations.

Example: You go to college and now you have to choose your master. That begs the question: what do you actually want to do after college? In the course of finding that answer, you will invariably find and set some goals at Levels 3-4 like "finish master" and "find such and such a job."

Sometimes however we must be a little more proactive about these things. Being a little bit "top-down" so to speak. This is not very often the case but at some point you have make those hard decisions. "Are you going to marry that women?" will not just "appear" at the horizon.

Nice thing about a good GTD system is, it clears the decks for you. It becomes apparent, where the "holes" are. Is your Level 4 picture too foggy? Have you ever taken the time to decide what actually your stance on that question whose answer is 42 is? Do you know where you are going with this job (level 3)? Your system shows that to you.

What your system can't tell you is how you ought to live. That's your call!
 

samuel.d.kang

Registered
1. Should I take a bottom-up approach? or Top-down?

2. Why did David allen set the standard for the project within one year?
If the project is going to last more than a year, like getting a certification, does it have to go into the goals?

3. Does 'Horizon of focus' needs brainstorming process like project planning?
1. Should I take a bottom-up approach? or Top-down?
When you're first starting off with GTD, the general recommendation is to approach your system bottom-up. It's very difficult to reflect on your Purpose & Principle, Vision & Goals, and even the next few days when your email inbox is blowing up, you have multiple sticky notes of todos placed here and there, texts messages are filled with unprocessed commitments, forgetting to pickup your daughter for wait... what was that again? Parent-teacher conference? Oh shoot I fogot the milk. etc...

Once you've gotten "Control" of your Runway, naturally you start to rise up the Horizons of Focus. Okay, I have all my next actions lined up but given my Limiting Factors, what's the biggest pay off for me? You start reflecting on your Hard-landscape and Projects aka commitments and outcomes to help decide which next actions are most appropriate. As you progress you start realizing some of these Projects or desired outcomes help you maintain your Areas of Accountability and Responsibility. You start seeing less urgent matters and blowups. You also start realizing some of these Projects aren't really aligned with your Areas of Accountability and Responsibility. You start questioning well... if I don't have to accomplish this... why do I bother? Well it may help you accomplish a Goal or Objective in the next couple years. Or... it aligns with a Vision in several years.... Or... you're doing this because it's who you are and what you believe in Purpose and Principle.

As you progress this on this GTD journey, you'll notice you start reflecting on higher horizons more often as you start to create more headspace. That's not to say you don't reflect back down on the Horizons of Focus. It's a matter of changing gear or horizons in the appropriate context, time, and frequency. Aka engaging appropriate, not more nor less. In more practical terms, if you're trying to figure out the "what" or "how" you need to do drop down the Horizons. If you're trying to figure out the "why" rise up the Horizons.

Long story short, both bottom-up and top-down! Naturally, in the beginning most people benefit from bottom-up just to create headspace and breathing room. As that develops naturally people go higher. As they go higher they learn to up and down according to what they're trying to clarify the "what, how, and why."

2. Why did David allen set the standard for the project within one year?
If the project is going to last more than a year, like getting a certification, does it have to go into the goals?

In my opinion, it's an arbitrary rule that just tends to work well with most people's lives. If you want to dive into the deep nuances and philosophy, I personally believe it's more related to the complexity of the desired outcome and the frequency of how much the desired outcome can/will change. It's just like the "Weekly" Review. There's nothing really magical about 7 days. It's just that most people's work lives revolve around a circulation of weekdays & weekends. Once a week is a good time to reflect on the past cycle of weekdays & weekends. This goes into each individuals "yuck" or "scuz" tolerance which I believe is deeply rooted into how fast your world is changing and updating. If your work/life is pretty consistent and requires predictable frequency of changes, you can probably get away with 7-14 days Weekly Review and less context lists etc... But if let's say you're in a high volume situation where things are constantly changing because of the work environment or an urgent period of your life, a "Weekly" aka a thorough review is beneficial every other day or couple days!

Now, this is the same with the Horizons of Focus. Projects are recommended to review about once a week or so. So any "Stuff" or Desired Outcome that requires about a weekly frequency of review to make sure it's on Cruise Control should be listed as a Project, IMO. If it doesn't, it can probably be bumped up to 1-3 year Objectives, because you'll be reviewing those more of a monthly and/or quarterly basis. Just follow your gut feeling in regards to where you want to place it. Ask yourself how fast/frequently does the desired outcome, relevant information, and next actions change? It's all about engaging/reflecting appropriately. Think about it as much as you need to to get it off your mind and have it on cruise control.

Using your example about getting a certificate... If the program that you've joined has a set curriculum that you have to accomplish and is pretty self-evident that as long as you finish the requirements then you'll receive the certificate.... do you really need to review "Get my certificate" on a weekly basis? I would say it's probably better to bump that to Goals & Objectives so you can reflect monthly/quarterly and ask higher horizons focus such as "How's the program going? It's going well but can I make this experience better? How can I maximize it? Well, there's a professor that I really resonate with. Maybe I can connect with him/more and possibly network and it may lead to a new job opportunity afterwards." You see how reflecting on the program naturally opened up new ideas and now I have a new desired outcome or project to further develop my relationship with my professor. It's not really related to completing my certificate but it branched off that. I may or may not use the Natural Planning Model. It helps facilitate the thinking process if you need it, but the NPM is a mere refelection of what happens naturally. You may even create a new Area of Focus to foster relationships for future networking opportunity that may develop into projects of reaching out to other colleagues etc. Now you're reflecting on these new projects weekly. But honestly, if this certificate is just a means to an end, you're already setup in a solid network and just need to complete it to keep moving forward in your career etc then you'll naturally don't need to review that often nor have creative thoughts. So you just reflect just enough to make sure nothing falls through the crack and it's on cruise control until its completed.

3. Does 'Horizon of focus' needs brainstorming process like project planning?
Only if you need to. If it's off your mind then you're done! If it's keep nagging the back of your head, then reflect on it more or use the NPM to help flush it out. You don't even need to have a full Horizons of Focus created. It all comes down to are you engaging appropriately and is it off your mind after. If not, think about it more and develop it more. If it's off your mind, don't force it. Some people don't need a reason or purpose or vision for every little thing in life.


Hope this helped. It's a bit long but you've brought up a good question that helped me to kinda think and reflect on myself as well. Thanks for that!

Best,
Sam
 

onedayonly

Registered
1. Should I take a bottom-up approach? or Top-down?
When you're first starting off with GTD, the general recommendation is to approach your system bottom-up. It's very difficult to reflect on your Purpose & Principle, Vision & Goals, and even the next few days when your email inbox is blowing up, you have multiple sticky notes of todos placed here and there, texts messages are filled with unprocessed commitments, forgetting to pickup your daughter for wait... what was that again? Parent-teacher conference? Oh shoot I fogot the milk. etc...

Once you've gotten "Control" of your Runway, naturally you start to rise up the Horizons of Focus. Okay, I have all my next actions lined up but given my Limiting Factors, what's the biggest pay off for me? You start reflecting on your Hard-landscape and Projects aka commitments and outcomes to help decide which next actions are most appropriate. As you progress you start realizing some of these Projects or desired outcomes help you maintain your Areas of Accountability and Responsibility. You start seeing less urgent matters and blowups. You also start realizing some of these Projects aren't really aligned with your Areas of Accountability and Responsibility. You start questioning well... if I don't have to accomplish this... why do I bother? Well it may help you accomplish a Goal or Objective in the next couple years. Or... it aligns with a Vision in several years.... Or... you're doing this because it's who you are and what you believe in Purpose and Principle.

As you progress this on this GTD journey, you'll notice you start reflecting on higher horizons more often as you start to create more headspace. That's not to say you don't reflect back down on the Horizons of Focus. It's a matter of changing gear or horizons in the appropriate context, time, and frequency. Aka engaging appropriate, not more nor less. In more practical terms, if you're trying to figure out the "what" or "how" you need to do drop down the Horizons. If you're trying to figure out the "why" rise up the Horizons.

Long story short, both bottom-up and top-down! Naturally, in the beginning most people benefit from bottom-up just to create headspace and breathing room. As that develops naturally people go higher. As they go higher they learn to up and down according to what they're trying to clarify the "what, how, and why."

2. Why did David allen set the standard for the project within one year?
If the project is going to last more than a year, like getting a certification, does it have to go into the goals?

In my opinion, it's an arbitrary rule that just tends to work well with most people's lives. If you want to dive into the deep nuances and philosophy, I personally believe it's more related to the complexity of the desired outcome and the frequency of how much the desired outcome can/will change. It's just like the "Weekly" Review. There's nothing really magical about 7 days. It's just that most people's work lives revolve around a circulation of weekdays & weekends. Once a week is a good time to reflect on the past cycle of weekdays & weekends. This goes into each individuals "yuck" or "scuz" tolerance which I believe is deeply rooted into how fast your world is changing and updating. If your work/life is pretty consistent and requires predictable frequency of changes, you can probably get away with 7-14 days Weekly Review and less context lists etc... But if let's say you're in a high volume situation where things are constantly changing because of the work environment or an urgent period of your life, a "Weekly" aka a thorough review is beneficial every other day or couple days!

Now, this is the same with the Horizons of Focus. Projects are recommended to review about once a week or so. So any "Stuff" or Desired Outcome that requires about a weekly frequency of review to make sure it's on Cruise Control should be listed as a Project, IMO. If it doesn't, it can probably be bumped up to 1-3 year Objectives, because you'll be reviewing those more of a monthly and/or quarterly basis. Just follow your gut feeling in regards to where you want to place it. Ask yourself how fast/frequently does the desired outcome, relevant information, and next actions change? It's all about engaging/reflecting appropriately. Think about it as much as you need to to get it off your mind and have it on cruise control.

Using your example about getting a certificate... If the program that you've joined has a set curriculum that you have to accomplish and is pretty self-evident that as long as you finish the requirements then you'll receive the certificate.... do you really need to review "Get my certificate" on a weekly basis? I would say it's probably better to bump that to Goals & Objectives so you can reflect monthly/quarterly and ask higher horizons focus such as "How's the program going? It's going well but can I make this experience better? How can I maximize it? Well, there's a professor that I really resonate with. Maybe I can connect with him/more and possibly network and it may lead to a new job opportunity afterwards." You see how reflecting on the program naturally opened up new ideas and now I have a new desired outcome or project to further develop my relationship with my professor. It's not really related to completing my certificate but it branched off that. I may or may not use the Natural Planning Model. It helps facilitate the thinking process if you need it, but the NPM is a mere refelection of what happens naturally. You may even create a new Area of Focus to foster relationships for future networking opportunity that may develop into projects of reaching out to other colleagues etc. Now you're reflecting on these new projects weekly. But honestly, if this certificate is just a means to an end, you're already setup in a solid network and just need to complete it to keep moving forward in your career etc then you'll naturally don't need to review that often nor have creative thoughts. So you just reflect just enough to make sure nothing falls through the crack and it's on cruise control until its completed.

3. Does 'Horizon of focus' needs brainstorming process like project planning?
Only if you need to. If it's off your mind then you're done! If it's keep nagging the back of your head, then reflect on it more or use the NPM to help flush it out. You don't even need to have a full Horizons of Focus created. It all comes down to are you engaging appropriately and is it off your mind after. If not, think about it more and develop it more. If it's off your mind, don't force it. Some people don't need a reason or purpose or vision for every little thing in life.


Hope this helped. It's a bit long but you've brought up a good question that helped me to kinda think and reflect on myself as well. Thanks for that!

Best,
Sam
Oh my god... Thank you!!
 
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