Keeping Long Term Goals in Focus

[ryan3926]

I probably missed this during my read and my first month of GTD, so apologize if it's been covered.

From a professional perspective, one of the things that required to stay in tune with are quarterly and annual MBOs. I have been having trouble focusing on these items. I initially decided that it was better to have projects associated with the key quarterly MBOs, but now I am a bit afraid that those MBOs may get lost with the other projects in the mix.

The Take Your Life Back system seems to account for this with its .Objectives technique and Franklink-Cover has a similar way of keeping the big picture stuff top of mind.

Can any of you elaborate on how you have had success? Very much appreciate your insight.

 

[Cpu_Modern]

I have lists of goals, personal and professional ones. I have long-term goals, yearly goals and monthly goals. So, professional quarterly goals would stay on at least three monthly-goals list. My list of monthly goals is part of the weekly review, and I make sure that I have at least one project per goal to move things forward reaching that goal.

A project or inbox-snipped (idea! hehe) which is not related to any goal has a hard time to survive the weekly review. The rest is just doing the damn thing.

 

[Brent]

Please define your acronym. What are MBOs? I assume you mean "Management by Objective."

The book goes into this when talking about the 20,000-foot view and higher.

One easy way--and I think it's recommended in the book--is to occasionally make this a part of your weekly review. I try to do a "goal review" during my first weekly review of the month.

 

[mcogilvie]

I probably missed this during my read and my first month of GTD, so apologize if it's been covered.

From a professional perspective, one of the things that required to stay in tune with are quarterly and annual MBOs.

You want to look at the six-level model for reviewing your work, in chapter 2 of GTD (p. 51 of US addition). Above projects (10,000 ft) and next actions (0 ft- runway), there are

20K roles or focus areas
30K 1-2 year goals
40K 3-5 year goals
50K Life goals

which need to be reviewed periodically. I keep them all in two lists, called "Focus Areas" and "Review 30K-50K". Focus areas get reviewed monthly or more often (e.g. for staff supervision), the others less often. All drive projects as needed- it's not an outline so much as a hierarchy of levels of focus. The times for 30K and 40K are not set in stone, but they are intermediate- and longer-term goals above projects in any case.

 

[neil007]

Goals

I set annual goals for my department. I then make a plan broken down into projects to acheive each goal.

Each month I update the plan and transfer current projects to my projects list.

So my project list at work and that of my employees is basically a list of outcomes to acheive for the current month.

We have a big mthly review and then smaller weekly reviews to track progress.