What is the top level of your productivity system? The highest point under which everything else sits? Actually there are a few ways to look at this and some different approaches that you can take.
I’d argue that for most of us, it will be our areas of focus.
In most cases, you might have some kind of overarching vision or purpose that is a bit more general. One that tells how to go about managing your areas of focus.
In rare cases, you will find people who’s overarching vision/purpose/goal is very specific and they focus on this to the exclusion of all else.
Areas of Focus
We love to compartmentalise things don’t we? Actually this is really unhelpful in a lot of ways but it has become the norm.
Blame the 9-5 work week.
This idea established boundaries between work and not work. It created the idea of leisure time. Most of us will still compartmentalise things into areas of life that are important. Commonly these are called ‘areas of focus’. Reagan Rose uses the phrase ‘Domains of Stewardship’.
Most of us want to maintain some kind of balance in our lives and so want to keep on top of these areas or domains. But, here is where the compartmentalisation doesn’t help – you are one person, with one life and so everything is connected.
These would be areas or domains like Health, Family & Relationships, Calling/Vocation/Career, Faith and the like. I will write a separate post on how I brought a few different ideas together to produce the list of areas I use.
For most of us, these need to be the top level. All of our projects, goals, time and tasks need to be governed by focusing on these areas. Obviously, exactly what makes up this list might vary a bit but there will be lot of commonality from person to person.
Why goals and projects sit under your areas
You might come across systems and ideas that place goals or projects as the top level. But, if you think about it, why start a project? Why set a goal? The reason is because you want to establish, maintain or repair ‘something’ in one of these areas of focus. This is true for every project and goal that I have ever had. It may not be universal for all time true, but I have yet to come across an exception.
Let’s take a few examples from my own life and experience:
- In 2018 I ran a half marathon. I did this for two reasons. To raise money for Stand up 2 Cancer and to improve my overall health and fitness. Both of these reasons for the goal of training for and running a half marathon were tied to my areas of focus.
- In 2023 I started a blog, a podcast and YouTube channel. This was because of something that sits within my calling/vocation and career and also my financial areas
- When a family member has a birthday coming up, I create a project to source presents and make it a good day. This isn’t because I just love shopping and parties. It’s because my family matters.
Every one of my projects and goals is there to serve some kind of a larger purpose, and that purpose is found in my areas of focus.
Balance & Priority
We want to maintain a degree of balance here as everything is connected.
- If your health suffers, that will in turn impact family, career and finances.
- If your family is struggling, it makes it so much harder to give time and energy to work and other unhealthy temptations come to call.
So, balance is important.
But, within this we will all have slightly different priorities between our areas based on circumstance and personality/character. Some people are just much more concerned about health and fitness than others, others about their work etc.
Generally speaking we all seek to maintain this balancing act, whilst allowing our own priorities to settle in. I mentioned earlier that we might have a general overarching vision that sits above this.
Often if you think about, what this means is that one area of focus sits above all the rest in your thinking. As I am a Christian, for me following Jesus sits above all the other and has a governing effect on how I see and pursue all of the others.
The ‘outlier’
The ‘outlier’ is the person who is so single minded in their focus on one thing, that they do not really care that much about the other areas at all. This could be a focus on one area, with little consideration to the others.
More often it will be on a specific goal, like putting man on the moon or colonising Mars, breaking the land speed record etc. These people tend to be quite rare.
So, what is the top level of your productivity system? Your areas of focus are. These determine your goals, projects and tasks and ultimately how you use your time.
