Areas of Focus: Do you allow them to overlap, or keep them separate?

[Gardener]

(Apologies for the caveman-Internet quoting.)

> I know that in Omnifocus there is a layer above projects called
> Folders. Are you saying that you have a folder for "Being a Girl"?

No; I don't feel that OmniFocus supports Areas of Focus at all. When I allowed a larger number of projects in OmniFocus, my sorting was fairly whimsical, but it was more by type of activity--Hobbies, and then below that Sewing and Gardening, that sort of thing. Or on the work side (not in OmniFocus but the discussion still applies), Programming, and below that a folder for each project, as my management would define a project.

Now I allow far fewer projects, so there's not much need for sorting.

> If that is the case, I think, if I were you, I would much rather
> either get an app that has visible overlapping tags

Yep; if I could wave a magic wand, I would force Omnifocus to offer two-field tags, where each tag would support a Tag Type, and a Tag Value. But it's not a strong enough need to tempt me, yet, to switch to another app.

> But to make an AoR Folder for such goals has the major disadvantage
> that all your Programmer tasks will be split up between different
> folders,

Right--I wouldn't do that. If I introduce a structured AoF element to my system--and I don't really have one now--it will be outside my everyday lists and tasks and it certainly won't structure them. That (organizing my projects) is not what AoFs would be for, for me.

I might make a list of AoFs and put my projects under items in the list, to help me see if I'm addressing each AoF. I might spend a few minutes journaling about each one. I might have a "thoughts" list for each one that I review at some interval, probably a longer interval than the weekly review. I'm not sure. But I wouldn't use AoFs to organize my work, and therefore I don't need AoFs to be of a nature that would be useful for organizing my work.

 

[Oogiem]

I think we are getting to the crux of the differences. My understanding is that you use AOFs to determine how you will review things and want to see them in some sort of order that reflects a single larger role that a specific project supports. Because of that restriction you require that there be no overlap in the roles a given project "belongs" to.

I basically don't care about what AOFs any given project is part of during my regular weekly review. I review things on the basis of whether they are pending, currently active or on hold. What I want to see at the routine review is how many projects am I currently working on and are they moving forward. How many are coming up to start in the next week or 2 and are there any that I have sitting in someday/maybe that I need to revisit and start due to changing circumstances.

I move projects in and out of someday/maybe a lot. So I might decide this week that a particular project is just not going to get worked on for the next couple of weeks and to clear it out of my system I put it on hold. Or due to say, changing weather patterns and our upcoming schedule of places to go, I see that we have to put a bunch of projects back on active this week. Sometimes projects that can only be worked on in a given season will not get finished and as we near the end of the possible time to work on them I may look forward and say, "Nope, not going to happen this year" and put the project on hold until next year at that season.

For me the issue with looking at all my AOFs and the projects that support them is a quarterly review. I just verify that I am continuing to move projects forward in all the areas, roles and interests that I have. It's part of a review of being a well rounded person. It's also why a project that supports more than one role has a higher "priority" for me because it's stacking my work to be more efficient. Projects that support more than one area are better uses of my time than projects with a narrow focus. This only really comes into play when I am trying to decide what new projects to activate or work on and if I have several that are similar I'll tend to pick the one(s) that support more areas than fewer as I know that will move me faster along the path to my goals than projects that only support a single area. Not that single area projects never get done but it is a factor I consider when choosing projects to do.

I usually have around 150-225 current active projects with a further 400-500 on hold. I know that there are many of the on hold ones that may never get done in this lifetime. Many will also move in and out of hold as the seasons and years pass and may eventually get finished. We just completed one that had actually been on my mother's list from 40+ years ago. Having that project sitting on my list and waiting meant that when there was an opportunity to do it we started it and got it finished in 2 days. It took a combination of weather, machinery and people to do it which is why it didn't happen sooner. It also wasn't a high priority project but was more of a fit it in if it makes sense thing that finally fit in the time and resources we had available.

 

[Folke]

Yes, I think that pretty much sums up the main difference. I briefly look at the whole AoR bag (headings only) every week but review most of the Someday stuff only a couple of times a year in more detail. What I do mainly in every weekly review, sometimes even in between, is verify that my current portfolio of active projects is good - nothing missing, nothing that has become superfluous, and, in the same vein, that each project has the right actions active in it.

A minor further difference would seem to be that I would probably in many cases use the term goal for many of the things that you have mentioned that a project can support, e.g. health, skills etc. But for those things I, too, have no set system beyond keeping a few lines of notes for my weekly review checklist (or my seldom review checklist) if I am particularly eager about improving some such personal traits.

 

[Oogiem]

A minor further difference would seem to be that I would probably in many cases use the term goal for many of the things that you have mentioned that a project can support, e.g. health, skills etc.

I can't imagine not checking the someday/maybe projects during my weekly review. Things move to fast in and out for me to only check them quarterly.

To me goals are much more specific concrete things that are usually embodied in a few single narrow focus projects. A goal has to be specific, measurable, something I can actually do, have a relevance to my life and a specific time period for completion. So a goal is something like "Complete my Masters Degree with straight As and graduate in December 2015". This one currently has 2 projects related to it. One is complete my current class and attain a grade of A and the other is apply for graduation and finish the administrative requirements to graduate. A third that is just getting planned is Figure out whether to attend my graduation ceremony. Since I am a distance learner going to the graduation will be a rather long and expensive trip. If the decision is yes to go then I'll spawn a project to actually plan the trip.

Goals in the GTD system are often above areas of focus but for me they are actually adjacent to them in that I tend to review them on a quarterly basis along with my AOFs.

 

[Folke]

I agree with most of that, too, and handle it similarly.

Of course I review my list of someday projects, but the "low attention" ones I just briefly glance at during the weekly review.

As for goals I agree that there are the kind of specific, concrete, goals that you mention (e.g. getting the Master's). I have those kinds of specific goals, too. I think of them as "super-projects". I manage those at the same level my "spheres of AoRs" (e.g. Business, Non-Profit, Private). I do not want to make my hierarchies deeper than necessary, and anyway I think these could both be said to be at 30k. (I distinguish the two kinds in my lists by using a different naming convention, just as I do for distinguishing normal projects from AoR miscellaneous actions containers.)

But then there can also be a second kind of goal, like Health, Language skills, Tolerance, Patience etc that you may need to pursue across all of your projects, e.g. take every opportunity to practice French, whether it be in a business project or in a vacation project. Those are the kind of goals I was referring in an earlier post. Those are the ones for which I have never implemented any other solution than checklisting some of them for heuristic progress assessment during my regular reviews (weekly or seldom), and it is also with this kind of goal that I mentioned the possibility of using colored tags for being able to spot them more easily in the lists (something I have never tried, though, because I have never had any such "spare" features left to play with).

It seems the main remaining difference between us is that I prefer to regard "30k-50k super-projects", "spheres of AoRs", AoRs and projects as being part of one and the same hierarchical structure. I leave out only the "all-pervasive" goals, such as character trait goals, health goals etc, which require a totally different kind of approach (checklist and/or tags or ... ?).