I mean to get very practical as we move forward today, but first I want to address one misconception about productivity and lay down one challenge. The following are illustrative examples. Areas of focus. It’s an effective system for clearing your mind of all inputs so you can focus on the things that are truly important, which in turn allows you to do your best work and get things done. Some examples were my blog/podcast, my book club, my companies and several of those management areas/projects within my companies, the GTD Meetups I organize and facilitate (in Washington DC and New York City), the weekly #ProdChat Twitter-chat I host, and … Nathan Cunningham added Areas of Focus to Outcomes Early GTD examples show contexts of “Office” or “Phone”. Mentally carry out a detailed description of your work to become conscious of them. learn more ›. Consider auditing your use of time for a couple of weeks. Glad you liked it! Which is your degree of satisfaction with each and one of them? Thank you for posting it. What is GTD? Mr. Allen did use the terms "responsibility" and "focus" interchangeably. Now that we’ve come up with those broad categories, we want to think a little bit about each one and begin to define different roles within them. FacileThings: the most true, hard-core implementation of GTD I’ve seen and a great tool to introduce newcomers to the system with a guided experience. But not yet. Why? A journal can also do this perfectly well. I have structured my life into five areas of responsibility: There is no responsibility I have in life that falls outside of these five areas. Accountability vs Responsibility Accountability is the duty to govern or manage. In this example, Robin has a range of responsibilities at ACME Consulting. You may want to do this in all of life—to determine exactly how you use each of the 168 hours allotted to you each week, or you may want to do it only for whatever area of responsibility consumes the greatest part of your week. Record the way you use your time and then try to understand how much of it you currently dedicate to each of your areas of responsibility and/or to your roles within them. Feel free to use the comment section below to ask any questions you may have about areas of responsibility and roles, and I will attempt to answer them. And that will do it for today. There are better ways to measure productivity, and we will … Of course, your interpretation is perfectly valid. Displaying self-control in one area of life somehow shores up self-control in others. Think for example about your administrative tasks, team work, the hardware and software you use, your planning skills or your personal productivity. So, they would be written as areas of responsibility instead of roles. These same items may have related projects or outcomes. You may also wish to have a category for your hobby if you are heavily involved in it, or a charity or ministry if you dedicate a lot of time and attention to it. Francisco is the founder and CEO of FacileThings. There is really no great gain in being a productivity monster and constantly wiping out massive lists of things to do if the rest of your life is out of control. The only tool that has built in consideration of your purpose, vision, goals, areas of responsibility and even formalized a … For example, imagine a car manufacturing company that purchases advanced machine equipment to increase its production. This means that you will be doing some work, going for a walk, or in the cinema, and suddenly, you see something, someone tells you something, you remember something or an idea comes to your mind. For example, an equation could measure the ratio of output to labor, materials, and capital. Areas of responsibility; 1-2 year goals; 3-5 year vision; Big picture view; Projects: clearly defined outcomes and the next actions to move them towards closure Horizontal Focus: reminders placed in a trusted system that is reviewed regularly Vertical Focus: informal back of the envelope planning. Our responsibility is to plan, organize and execute to the best of our ability, but to realize that circumstances and providence may interrupt and delay even our best-laid plans. Here are a few of the roles that fall under each of my areas of responsibility: You can find your roles by asking this question: What specific tasks, roles, projects or responsibilities have been assigned to me in each area of responsibility? In order to avoid this it’s recommended that you design a check list in which you will need to to reflect from time to time in a proactive way. Or commit to the daily disciplines of reading the Bible and praying. I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three children. We all have complex lives in which we are constantly attempting to strike a balance between competing demands. Create a plan for lapses. In lieu of a comments section, I accept and encourage letters to the editor. This has a relationship to power, position and ability whereby you are responsible for the things that you can control. “Birthday party for wife” may be a project under the “be a good spouse” responsibility. This is where you define the areas of your life where you are responsible for the outcomes, and can include things like Family, Finance, Home, Client Projects, Company Strategy, but there's no one-size-fits-all here so defining these areas is an important step of setting up the GTD system. For example, allow yourself to put an X in a different color if you’re sick or on vacation, or allow yourself 3 floating “skips” each month. As with those areas of responsibility, it is better to have fewer roles that encompass several items than to have hundreds of roles. Receive every article in your inbox by subscribing below. There are better ways to measure productivity, and we will discuss those later. I've been focusing solely on the project and next action level for about three months. He is also a Software Engineer who is passionate about personal productivity and the GTD philosophy as a means to a better life. The *huge* deficiency is that it does not cater for GTD's concept of an Area of Responsibility. Because God is sovereign and we are not. A … To come up with these I made a mind map of all the things I'm invovled in, the things which I am accountable for, and the stuff that's important to me. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. A GTD app should have some way to help you decide when or where you can do the tasks, which may or … 20,000 (Areas of Responsibility) I lay out my areas of responsibilites as folders in OmniFocus. FacileThings is not affiliated with or endorsed by the David Allen Company, How to Get and Remain Organized During Chaotic Times, Top 10 Ways to Train Your Brain to Stay Focused, 7 Steps to Writing Your Own Simple Self-Improvement Plan. Why? Another excellent article. Almost 10 years ago, I read Getting Things Done for the first time. For now, though, I simply want you to realize that God has a way of interrupting our plans and that even the best plans may fail. Start by listing the most general areas of responsibility, then delve into the specific responsibilities within these areas. Have some of them Focus '' interchangeably, defining specific times and levels of attention in specific.! Work to become conscious of them are engaged in one area of life, not to! 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