I wonder if they are using OmniFocus to reach their goals? ;)

[QUOTE=curt.clifton;73940]Perhaps that's part of a longer term goal of seeing more lonely Russian women find happiness and fulfillment.[/QUOTE]

Very thoughtful to provide photos of the lonely Russian women one might be helping, too, gives it that personal touch :-)

Preface: Had I started this from scratch, I probably would have put it in an 'extras' forum, but since this thread already exists, here goes.

I've decided to pull my Horizons of Focus (above 10k', that is) out of OF, and put them in OO. In OF, I have each horizon established individually, e.g.:

50k'
..Purpose 1
....Optional details

40k'
..Value 1

It might be useful to set up the outline so that all level 1 items are 50k', level 2 are 40k', etc.:

Be happy (50k')
..Find a lifelong Russian soulmate wife (note: I'm just following the thread; I have respect for all peoples of the world) (40k')
....Learn Russian (30k')

... however since I often have arbitrary levels of outline detail for each horizon, I can't imagine how/if this would work. The thing that attracts me to doing it the way I have described, is that the relationships between horizons are more directly visible. I'm new to OO; perhaps I could use text style to imply horizons. How have others successfully used the outline format to containerize their horizons?

Bob

Bob,

I keep everything above 10k' in OO.

I tend to like to retain a history of my goals. For example, my five year goals evolve over time, but I want to keep a record of what my five year goals were a year ago, and two years ago, and so on. Similarly, I want to keep track of my annual and monthly goals. I find that occasionally looking back over the evolution of my goals is a useful exercise.

Because I want to keep these snapshots, I haven't used a nesting strategy like you suggest. Instead, I keep separate OO documents for different levels. In my one year goals document, I have top-level items for each year (e.g. goals for June 2010 as set in July 2009). Under that I have my various life roles. Under that I have specific goals. Similarly, in my monthly goals document, I have top-level items for each month (e.g., goals for March 2010), with roles then goals under that.

There's a fair amount of duplication with this approach, but that's easy to accomplish. (Omni ported the ⌘-D hot key for Duplicate from OF to OO.) The benefits for me are two fold. First, as mentioned, I can review the evolution of my goals. Second, I can open the appropriate document to lift my eyes as high as I need to for my current review without obsessing about higher levels. During a weekly review, I can scan over my monthly goals. I don't have to spend much energy on annual goals then, because I'm confident that my monthly goals contribute to the longer term ones.

I think your approach has merit. It provides more context and motivation than the approach I'm using. If you do decide to pursue the hierarchical approach, please report back on how it's working.

Curt,

Thanks for that, very useful.

As much as I've scoured the web, and even with some direct interactions I've had with davidco folks, I've never seen anyone use the 'one big hierarchy' approach. I'll toy with it and report back, but there may be reasons why keeping them separate is better / has less friction.

One thing is that I may have several higher level horizon items, lets say, 'Relationship with wife', 'Health', 'Be financially frugal'. At a lower level, I may have as a focus, 'Improve my cooking skills'. By cooking healthy meals, I am supporting my health, my relationship (the latter by simply cooking ;), and my financial goal (by not eating out as much). More later,

Bob

[QUOTE=curt.clifton;74190]Bob,

I keep everything above 10k' in OO.

I tend to like to retain a history of my goals. For example, my five year goals evolve over time, but I want to keep a record of what my five year goals were a year ago, and two years ago, and so on. Similarly, I want to keep track of my annual and monthly goals. I find that occasionally looking back over the evolution of my goals is a useful exercise.

Because I want to keep these snapshots, I haven't used a nesting strategy like you suggest. Instead, I keep separate OO documents for different levels. In my one year goals document, I have top-level items for each year (e.g. goals for June 2010 as set in July 2009). Under that I have my various life roles. Under that I have specific goals. Similarly, in my monthly goals document, I have top-level items for each month (e.g., goals for March 2010), with roles then goals under that.

There's a fair amount of duplication with this approach, but that's easy to accomplish. (Omni ported the ⌘-D hot key for Duplicate from OF to OO.) The benefits for me are two fold. First, as mentioned, I can review the evolution of my goals. Second, I can open the appropriate document to lift my eyes as high as I need to for my current review without obsessing about higher levels. During a weekly review, I can scan over my monthly goals. I don't have to spend much energy on annual goals then, because I'm confident that my monthly goals contribute to the longer term ones.

I think your approach has merit. It provides more context and motivation than the approach I'm using. If you do decide to pursue the hierarchical approach, please report back on how it's working.[/QUOTE]

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I'm in the middle of setting up OO for goals and Curt's explanation gave me some ideas, but also confusing me.

Could you explain more how you keep the snapshots of your goals? If I'm reading your post I get the feeling you have each month for each year in your 1 year goal document, ie:

1 Year Goals 2012
- April 2012 (as set in april 2011)
-- Goal X
-- Goal Y
- May 2012 (as set in may 2012)
-- Goal XX
-- Goal YY

Doesn't this mean you'll have to set new 1 year goals each month? How do you prioritize goals early in the year opposite to goals later that year?

Hopefully I misunderstand your post because I would really like to understand the snapshot concept you're using.

I'm finding that OmniFocus is great for the lower Horizons..... The runway, projects, and areas of responsibilities....

I just struggled to get up to the higher levels. I guess I wasn't quite ready even though I was wanting and willing..... I had previously done it in OmniOutliner but I found myself not really looking at it as much as I should.

I remembered seeing a mindmap in the David Allen's first GTD book and decided to see if I could do one for myself.

I started doing a mindmap in in MindNode (free at the Mac App Store) because I'm a newbie at Mindmapping. I was impressed by the simplicity of MindNode and decided to purchase Mindnode Pro for $20.00 at the Mac App Store. In there, I created a jpeg image that I used as my desktop background. Whenever in doubt, I would use Expose to hide all the windows to reveal my mindmap which was my desktop background.

Later, I upgraded up to Mindjet MindManager and that's when my upper horizons started clicking for me. I haven't quite gotten up to "Purpose" but I'm sure I will someday.

Right now, I'm trying out the beta for NovaMind 5 and it is looking like the program I'll be switching to. It seems a bit more Mac Friendly. NovaMind 5 is in beta right now with an official release in the next couple of months.

I like being able to looking at my mindmap as a graphical map as well as in outline mode at the same time. it has helped provide greater clarity for me.

I never really felt like a mindmap fella until I started tinkering with it fairly recently.

I think mindmap programs are better suited for the higher Horizons of Focus whereas OmniFocus is the better tool for Runway, Projects, and Areas of Focus/Responsibilities.

I've just stumbled across Goalscape. Has anyone used it? There are hardly any reviews of it, but it looks interesting. Unfortunately I've got to do too much at the moment to start the trial period.

[url]http://www.goalscape.com[/url]

Uh, I just saw it's really expensive...

[QUOTE=buntbinär;95659]I've just stumbled across Goalscape. Has anyone used it? There are hardly any reviews of it, but it looks interesting. Unfortunately I've got to do too much at the moment to start the trial period.

[url]http://www.goalscape.com[/url]

Uh, I just saw it's really expensive...[/QUOTE]

Well, expensive is relative concept. If that US $130 gains you $1,300 worth of productivity then it is worth it.

It gets fairly hard to find "productivity" software that is dirt cheap. Look at Omnigroup's software prices and you'll get an idea. They're not cheap but they more than make up for their price with the productivity boost if used wisely.

NovaMind and Mindjet Mind Manager are at $249.00. So I guess $130 is relatively cheap if you're trying to go up the GTD Horizons.

Goalscape might be the right tool for you. At the moment, I'm using Mindjet and enjoy every penny spent. Sometimes you just gotta buy the right tools. To waterblast my roof, I have to buy a water blaster. I can't use a toothbrush to do the work....

Just watching their screen shot demos .. it looks a lot like the theory behind " life balance " from [url]www.llamagraphics.com[/url]

top goals with sub goals and all rated in relevance to the structure above it . Neither is a replacement for OF . but Life balance is 49 on the mac app store and there's a iphone version for 19 [cheaper than goal scape ]

Life Balance is billed as a " total life manager " but it and I"m guessing goal scape are good tools for managing the " higher levels " on the GTD runway .