7Breaths

I find every one of your posts very useful. I'm also trying to GTD by using OneNote & Outlook 2007, after giving up many "task programs".

This article of yours inspired me to define my higher altitudes as I find your levels much more appropriate and easier to integrate into every day work.

Ambitions: that's a very inspiring word that clicked for me ! However, I will take the time to put them on paper. And the fact that the maximum time frame is a year is also appropriate and in check with reality. One cannot plan for more than a year, not in the world we live in today.

Keep up the good work and I look forward for your inspiring and thought provoking posts.

Thanks,
Daniel

My biggest challenge is not to create a whole plan from next action to year goal, but to follow it daily. So many things keep jumping on me during the day I can hardly keep adding them to my plans... finding time to do it all is nearly impossible.

Here's a number of reasons why it doesn't work for me yet (I would like to re-visit the issue again in the future, your post has given me some ideas).

* I often have a hard time fitting my vision and long-term goals into the nice, neat packaging of lifetime/2-3 years/12-18 months brackets that the vertical map encourages.
* From my own experience I've found little need to have the correlation explicitly defined between a next-action, it's related project, how that ties into your roles/responsibilities and ultimately if it is aligned to my life vision.
Organize IT

Addition to the above :)

I agree that the vertical map could help in cutting out unnecessary projects. However my own personal approach is to break your life down into roles and responsibilities which may be worth checking out.

One of the most effective productivity tools is the Delete button on my keyboard. :-)

Killing projects do not benefit my long-term goals is one of the most important things I do during my weekly review.

Thanks everyone for commenting here:

@Daniel -
Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad to hear you are getting some value from my posts.

@Wake up early -
I agree, finding time to do all the things that crop up during the day is nearly impossible, in fact I'd go further and say it was totally impossible. That's why you need some method of working out what is important and what is not - you can't do it all...

@SpiKe -
Yes, trying to fit things into the lifetime/2-3 years/12-18 months brackets is overly complicating things, that's why I only have Yearly Goals to work towards - I find anything more distant is too nebulous to work with. I do find however having some targets is helpful. Taking the example of Health as in your roles/responsibilities post I would have a ambition to remain healthy as possible during my lifetime, this would lead to a yearly goal of ensuring I get an annual health check that year and attending the gym on a regular basis during the year i.e. I would have the same projects as you just defined from a different view point - I think whatever works for you is fine as long as the underlying principal of having projects planned proactively (however you come up with these plans) first and then fitting in reactive projects around these is applied. I do in fact use a slight modification in the roles/responsibilities model during my weekly planning sessions - I'll be covering this in my next post and would value your thoughts.

@Jeroen-
Totally agree - once you know your long term goals it's much easier to say no to the things which would take up valuable time in moving towards them.

I really like your visual chart for goals. Think I'll print it and jot my own in. Thanks so much for sharing.

I discovered your blog through Priscilla Palmer's Personal Development list.

Great find.

@Robyn: I'm glad you like the chart, hope it helps you define and visualise your goals.