GettingThings Done. The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

• 50,000+feet: Life

• 40,000 feet: Three-to five-year visions

• 30,000 feet: One-to two-year goals

• 20,000 feet: Areas of responsibility

• 10,000 feet: Current projects

• Runway: Current actions

It makes sense that each of these levels should enhance and align with the ones above it. In other words, your priorities will sit in a hierarchy from the top down. Ultimately, if the phone call you're supposed to make clashes with your life purpose or values, to be in sync with yourself you won't make it. If your job structure doesn't match up with where you need to be a year from now, you should rethink how you've framed your areas of focus and responsibilities, if you want to get where you're going most efficiently.

Let's look at that first example from the bottom up. The phone call you need to make (action) is about the deal you're working on (project), which would increase sales (responsibility). This particular deal would give you the opportunity to move up in the sales force (job goal) because of the new market your company wants to penetrate (organization vision). And that would get you closer to the way you want to be living, both financially and professionally (life).

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.

Or, from the other direction, you've decided that you want to be your own boss and unlock some of your unique assets and talents in a particular area that resonates with you (life). So you create a business for yourself (vision), with some short-term key operational objectives (job goal). That gives you some critical roles you need to fulfill to get it rolling (responsibility), with some immediate outcomes to achieve (projects). On each of those projects you'll have things you need to do, as soon as you can do them (next actions).

The healthiest approach for relaxed control and inspired productivity is to manage all the levels in a balanced fashion. At any of these levels, it's critical to identify all the open loops, all the incompletions, and all the commitments that you have right now, as best you can. Without an acceptance and an objective assessment of what's true in the present, it's always difficult to cast off for new shores. What's on your answering machine? What are your projects relative to your kids? What are you responsible for in the office? What's pushing on you to change or attracting you to create in the next months or years? These are all open loops in your psyche, though often it takes deeper and more introspective processes to identify the bigger goals and subtler inclinations.

There is magic in being in the present in your life. I'm always amazed at the power of clear observation simply about what's going on, what's true. Finding out the exact details of your personal finances, clarifying the historical data about the company you're buying, or getting the facts about who really said what to whom in an interpersonal conflict can be constructive, if not downright healing.

The best place to succeed is where yon are with what yon have.

—Charles

Getting things done, and feeling good about it, means being willing to recognize, acknowledge, and appropriately manage all the things that have your consciousness engaged. Mastering the art of stress-free productivity requires it.

Working from the Bottom Up

In order to create productive alignment in your life, you could quite reasonably start with a clarification from the top down. Decide why you're on the planet. Figure out what kind of life and work and life-style would best allow you to fulfill that contract. What kind of job and personal relationships would support that direction? What key things would you need to put in place and make happen right now, and what could you do physically as soon as possible, to kick-start each of those?

You're never lacking in opportunities to clarify your priorities at any level. Pay attention to which horizon is calling you.

In truth, you can approach your priorities from

any level, at any time. I always have something that could do constructively to enhance my awareness and focus on each level. I'm never lacking in more visions to elaborate, goals to reassess, projects to identify or create, or actions to decide on. The trick is to learn to pay attention to the ones you need to at the appropriate time, to keep you and your systems in balance.

Because everything will ultimately be driven by the priorities of the level above it, any formulation of your priorities would obviously most efficiently begin at the top. For example, if you spend time prioritizing your work and then later discover that it's not the work you think you ought to be doing, you may have 'wasted' time and energy that could have been better spent defining the next job you really want. The problem is that without a sense of control at the implementation levels (current projects and actions), and without inner trust in your own ability to manage those levels appropriately, trying to manage yourself from the top down often creates frustration.

From a practical perspective, I suggest going from the bottom up instead. I've coached people from both directions, and in terms of lasting value, I can honestly say that getting someone in control of the details of his or her current physical world, and then elevating the focus from there, has never missed.

Trying to manage from the top down, when the bottom is out of control, may be the least effective approach.

The primary reason to work from this bottom-up direction is that it clears the psychic decks to begin with, allowing your creative attention to focus on the more meaningful and elusive visions that you may need to challenge yourself to identify. Also, this particular method has a high degree of flexibility and freedom, and it includes a thinking and organizing practice that is universal and effective no matter what it's focused on. That makes it worth learning, no matter what the actual content you're dealing with at the moment may be. Change your mind, and this process will help you adjust with maximum speed. And knowing that you have that ability will give you permission to play a bigger game. It's truly empowering.

While the '50,000-foot level' is obviously the most important context within which to set priorities, experience has shown me that when we understand and implement all the levels of work in which we are engaged, especially the runway and 10,000-foot levels, we gain greater freedom and resources to do the bigger work that we're all about. Although a bottom-up approach is not a key conceptual priority, from a practical perspective it's a critical factor in achieving a balanced, productive, and comfortable life.

Runway The first thing to do is make sure your action lists are complete, which in itself can be quite a task. Those who focus on gathering and objectifying all of those items discover that there are many they've forgotten, misplaced, or just not recognized.

Aside from your calendar, if you don't have at least fifty next actions and waiting-fors, including all the agendas for people and meetings, I would be skeptical about whether you really had all of them. If you've followed through rigorously with the steps and suggestions in part 2, though, you may have them already. If not, and you do want to get this level up-to-date, set aside some time to work through chapters 4 through 6 in real implementation mode.

When you've finished getting this level of control current, you'll automatically have a more grounded sense of immediate priorities, which is almost impossible to achieve otherwise.

10,000 Feet Finalize your 'Projects' list. Does it truly capture all the commitments you have that will require more than one action to get done? That will define the boundaries of the kind of week- to-week operational world you're in and allow you to relax your thinking for longer intervals.

Taking the inventory of your current work at all levels will automatically produce greater focus, alignment, and sense of priorities.