Horizon of focus - How to do 20,000 feet review.
- Thread starter sonturk
- Start date
sonturk;55749 said:
20,000 ft = current responsibilities
(standard disclaimer: the advice that follows is based on my own approach. hopefully, some of this is helpful; if not, feel free to ignore it and do something different. YMMV, etc, etc, etc)
Do a brain dump of everything you are responsible for that is not exactly a project. Examples:
- Maintain my financial health
- Maintain my physical health
- Be a good husband/wife/father/mother/sister/brother/friend/etc
- Keep my car running smoothly
- Keep my house clean & appliances in good working order
- Be the best boss/mentor/employee I can be
- etc...
If you need help figuring these out, look at your current list of projects as well as projects you have completed in the past several weeks/months. What higher purpose does each one serve? For example, tomorrow I will vote in my state's primary election. This is vastly important to me; why? because I have responsibility to take an active role in my government & community -- this is an area of responsibility; add it to the list.
Now that you have a pretty good list, you can go through them and make sure that you have identified an appropriate number of projects for each area of responsibility. Nothing for "be a good child"? maybe it's time to put "Call mom" on the calendar for Sunday. Hmm, here's one for "keep my car running smoothly"... oh yeah, I need to plan for an oil change some time this month; I'm not sure what my schedule will look like, so throw that one on someday/maybe. Whoa! Look at how many "social" things I have on my list! Maybe I need to scale that back so I can spend some time painting the bedroom.... you get the picture...
I do this sort of review on/around the first of each month. It is immensely helpful in terms of ensuring that I maintain a good work/life balance and that I am not neglecting some important area of my life.
sonturk;55749 said:
I've borrowed a little from Stephen Covey for the 20,000 ft. review and have added it to my Weekly Review ...
GTD "current responsibilities" and Covey's "roles" are essentially the same thing. As part of the weekly planning process under Covey, for each role you ask and answer "What is the one thing I can do this week that will have the greatest impact on this role?"
I do this as part of my Weekly Review. As I do so, I check to see to what extent the answer to that question for each role relates to my one- to two-year goals, the 30,000 ft. view.
I don't force the answers to fit my goals. Rather, I question whether my goals are still relevant and in keeping with my gut-level compass if the answers don't naturally support my goals.
This has been a great reality check for me. In a couple of instances, I found a new goal emerge that supplanted an existing one, one that I wasn't as committed to achieving.
This works for me, but of course YMMV.
- Jon
I'll check a detailed list of my 20,000 ft areas during my weekly review if I feel it's due. This is basically a maintenance-check. Is every area in shape? Or do I have to change (and launch projects that support that change)?
Yes, longterm goals do change before you reach them - sometimes. It is important to balance this. Your written, "official" goals should be the same as your true, "inside" goals. Don't change your longterm goals every week though, that would be the best way to ensure you reach none of them.
jrandall39;55779 said:
Yes, longterm goals do change before you reach them - sometimes. It is important to balance this. Your written, "official" goals should be the same as your true, "inside" goals. Don't change your longterm goals every week though, that would be the best way to ensure you reach none of them.