[SpiralOcean]

This is an excellent idea. There is no software out there that shows those levels. Life Balance gives you the ability to outline, and have large areas of life, but you cannot filter the altitude so that you are only seeing 40,000 projects/goals.

If you could tag projects as 40,000 and filter tasks so that you are only looking at 40,000 projects, then that would be helpful.

I just listened to 43 folders interviews with David Allen, and one of the things they spoke of was the only thing that David thinks needs to be written about in the future is focusing on those large life meaning things... the higher level projects/goals. The first step in GTD is tacticle, get it out of your head and done. The problem is, there will always be more things you want to do than you have time for. the 40k feet projects help you determine if you should even be working on what you are doing.

It does need to be flexible, so people who don't want to focus on those higher levels, don't get bogged down with them. And those that do want to focus on those higher levels can.

[dwayneneckles]

I dont get how do folks implement higher level planning in omnifocus.. there is no way to do this..

[curt.clifton]

For me, OF works for day-to-day and week-to-week project and task management. The processes I use for higher level planning are sufficiently different that I use other software for them. I don't need, or want, everything in a single application.

At a lower level, I organize my projects and tasks in OF using top-level folders for my life roles/goals. Currently my top-level folders include:

• Advance and propagate knowledge of computing
• Support and nurture my relationship with Lisa
• Help manage our household
• Keep the saw sharp (Notice the Stephen Covey influence here.)
• Learn and grow as an individual

Under each of those I have a list of single actions, a few general projects, and subfolders for broader goals within the role. For example, I have a subfolder under "Advance and propagate knowledge of computing" titled "Help others understand software development". That subfolder gets all the projects related to the classes I'm teaching. I also keep "someday soon" projects in OmniFocus as on-hold projects.

I use OmniOutliner documents to keep track of higher level things. My current OmniOutliner planning documents include:

• Monthly Goals
• One and Five Year Goals
• Personal Mission Statement (More Covey.)
• Someday-Maybe Ideas (for more speculative ideas, like "Earn a Degree in Architecture")

I also keep review checklists in OmniOutliner for various regular reviews:

• Evening Review
• Morning Review
• Weekly Review
• Monthly Review
• Bi-annual Review

My evening and morning reviews are recurring appointments in iCal with an alarm action that opens the appropriate OmniOutliner document. I know if that document is open on my desktop, then I need to do that review.

My weekly review is triggered by a single recurring item in OmniFocus that appears every Saturday during the school year, or every Sunday during the summer.

My monthly and bi-annual reviews take longer. I have recurring items for them in OmniFocus that just say "Schedule time for monthly/bi-annual review". When that appears I make an appointment with myself and put it on my calendar.

[dwayneneckles]

Ok Thanks for sharing this.

Just a few questions,

Do you have a separate document for each of the reviews and for the goals below or are the goals in one document?

• Monthly Goals
• One and Five Year Goals
• Personal Mission Statement (More Covey.)
• Someday-Maybe Ideas (for more speculative ideas, like "Earn a Degree in Architecture")

Originally Posted by curt.clifton

For me, OF works for day-to-day and week-to-week project and task management. The processes I use for higher level planning are sufficiently different that I use other software for them. I don't need, or want, everything in a single application.

At a lower level, I organize my projects and tasks in OF using top-level folders for my life roles/goals. Currently my top-level folders include:

• Advance and propagate knowledge of computing
• Support and nurture my relationship with Lisa
• Help manage our household
• Keep the saw sharp (Notice the Stephen Covey influence here.)
• Learn and grow as an individual

Under each of those I have a list of single actions, a few general projects, and subfolders for broader goals within the role. For example, I have a subfolder under "Advance and propagate knowledge of computing" titled "Help others understand software development". That subfolder gets all the projects related to the classes I'm teaching. I also keep "someday soon" projects in OmniFocus as on-hold projects.

I use OmniOutliner documents to keep track of higher level things. My current OmniOutliner planning documents include:

• Monthly Goals
• One and Five Year Goals
• Personal Mission Statement (More Covey.)
• Someday-Maybe Ideas (for more speculative ideas, like "Earn a Degree in Architecture")

I also keep review checklists in OmniOutliner for various regular reviews:

• Evening Review
• Morning Review
• Weekly Review
• Monthly Review
• Bi-annual Review

My evening and morning reviews are recurring appointments in iCal with an alarm action that opens the appropriate OmniOutliner document. I know if that document is open on my desktop, then I need to do that review.

My weekly review is triggered by a single recurring item in OmniFocus that appears every Saturday during the school year, or every Sunday during the summer.

My monthly and bi-annual reviews take longer. I have recurring items for them in OmniFocus that just say "Schedule time for monthly/bi-annual review". When that appears I make an appointment with myself and put it on my calendar.

[curt.clifton]

Each of the bullet points in my post is a separate outline. That makes it easy to drag items from one outline to another.