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Concept

Horizons of Focus

Horizons of focus are David Allen's six levels of commitment in Getting Things Done, running from today's next actions up through projects, areas of responsibility, goals, vision and life purpose, and they are used to check that daily work serves what matters most.

Allen noticed that tidy lists don't answer the harder question: which of these forty reasonable actions deserves your next hour? The horizons answer it by stacking your commitments by altitude. - **Ground level:** your next actions. - **Horizon 1:** current projects. - **Horizon 2:** the areas you maintain, such as health, finances or a team. - **Horizon 3:** goals for the next one to two years. - **Horizon 4:** a three-to-five-year vision. - **Horizon 5:** purpose and principles. Each level steers the one below it. When you filter your lists by context, time and energy, priority decides among whatever remains, and priority comes from these higher levels. Without them, the urgent and easy quietly crowd out the important. You don't need to review all six daily. Look at actions and projects weekly and at the upper horizons a few times a year.

A real-life example

Maya, a product manager, has eighteen minutes before a meeting, her laptop and decent energy. Three actions fit: tidying her inbox labels, replying to a vendor, and outlining the hiring plan for her new team. Context, time and energy can't separate them. Her Horizon 2 says "build the team," and her Horizon 3 goal is two senior hires by spring. She outlines the hiring plan. The inbox labels can wait for a tired Friday afternoon.

How to use it

  1. 1Write one or two lines for each horizon above projects: the areas you maintain, your one-to-two-year goals, a rough vision and what you stand for. A rough draft beats waiting for perfect.
  2. 2In your weekly review, check each active project against your areas and goals. Drop or pause any project that serves none of them.
  3. 3When your context, time and energy filters still leave several options, pick the one that moves a Horizon 2 or 3 commitment forward and do it first.