Areas of Focus Help

[alphaQ]

Hi Everyone,
Hope everyone is doing well during this time.

I read gtd about 2-3 years ago and recently completed reading "Making it all work". One thing, which continues to confuse me, is the concept of "Areas of Focus". Can you guys give me examples of how you arrange your areas of focus?

I'm currently transitioning from OmniFocus to Nirvana as I'm going to get myself a windows laptop in the coming days. And "Areas of Focus" in Nirvana help create a nice separation between all tasks and projects.

 

[mcogilvie]

Areas of focus are sometimes described as the different roles we play, or the different hats we wear. At work, you may be responsible for a particular type of activity, manage a team, or maybe you have two separate jobs. As a university professor, I have three areas: research, teaching, and service. Service includes department responsibilities like Director of Graduate Studies as well as committees at the department , college, and university level, plus activities outside the university like conference organization. If you have a job description, it may be helpful here. On the personal side, you may be a parent, a spouse, a caregiver for elderly friends and relatives, have hobbies or activities you enjoy. Most people need to take care of themselves (health), maintain the place.where they live and perhaps vehicles, and manage their money (finances). Some people might combine health and lifestyle. While for many people, these can be stable over years, changes in your life may naturally change your areas. Don’t be afraid to experiment a little. Omnifocus and Nirvana both allow easy changes. As long as you have all your projects and next actions collected and you review them, you should be ok. So the precise description and boundaries of your areas allows for quite a bit of personal choice.

 

[Ariadne Marques]

I like to have a mind map of all my areas of focus, which I basically separate between "Work" and "Personal". It's a high level view of all responsibilities and areas that I want to keep a focus on. So inside "Work" I have all my major "roles" at work (things like: Career development, Leading a tender, Keeping the trades database update, Estimating budgets, etc..) and my "Personal" has: Home, Relationships, Health & Fitness, Education, Finances, Fun & Hobbies, etc...). On this mind map I get into detail, creating sub-branches for each of these examples I gave. So, the "Health & Fitness" item branch into: Nutrition, Exercise routine, Medical Check-ups, Meditation, etc).

It doesn't need to be a mind map, it can be a simple list. For me it's more like a list that I review every 2 months just to make sure I'm taking care of what matters to me.

I'm also using Nirvana HQ and on the app I have these 2 major areas of focus: Work and Personal. I don't feel the need to go too granular and have different filters for my sub-areas-of-focus.

 

[mcogilvie]

I like to have a mind map of all my areas of focus, which I basically separate between "Work" and "Personal". It's a high level view of all responsibilities and areas that I want to keep a focus on. So inside "Work" I have all my major "roles" at work (things like: Career development, Leading a tender, Keeping the trades database update, Estimating budgets, etc..) and my "Personal" has: Home, Relationships, Health & Fitness, Education, Finances, Fun & Hobbies, etc...). On this mind map I get into detail, creating sub-branches for each of these examples I gave. So, the "Health & Fitness" item branch into: Nutrition, Exercise routine, Medical Check-ups, Meditation, etc).

It doesn't need to be a mind map, it can be a simple list. For me it's more like a list that I review every 2 months just to make sure I'm taking care of what matters to me.

I'm also using Nirvana HQ and on the app I have these 2 major areas of focus: Work and Personal. I don't feel the need to go too granular and have different filters for my sub-areas-of-focus.

This is a great example of how you can use Areas of Focus. Just because software supports a particular approach doesnt mean you have to use it. A mindmap is a great way to get above a project and next action focus for a higher-level view.