Focus Operating Framework

The Focus Operating Framework is an open individual operating framework for directing attention and preserving continuity across the work and personal contexts a person chooses. It helps one person carry intention and context through interruptions, decide what deserves attention, continue meaningful work, and learn without surrendering privacy, records, or judgment to a tool.

Focus is tool-agnostic. Paper-only, digital-only, unassisted, and AI-assisted practice are all valid. The individual remains authoritative in every path.

Start here

Read the framework in this order:

1. Charter — definition, mission, commitments, scope, independence, and authority.
2. Concerns and moves — the six concerns and seven flexible moves that organize Focus practice.
3. Practice guide — how to use Focus in a bounded situation without creating a required workflow.
4. Physical and digital practice — paper-first practice, selective capture, provenance, and round trips.
5. Journal practice — private Reflection, Transition Check-Ins, and deliberate promotion into a Journal.
6. AI-assisted practice — optional, source-backed assistance that remains proposal- and draft-only.
7. Personal Mission Control — an optional derived pattern for one individual's work and personal contexts.

The canonical language reference defines terms used across these documents. The examples illustrate valid variation without creating requirements or claiming general effectiveness.

The practice in one minute

When returning to something or deciding what deserves attention:

A derivative is a representation made from a source. A record of authority is the artifact or system the individual designates as controlling for a specific purpose. Promotion is the individual's approved placement of selected material into that named record while preserving provenance.

1. Orient: What context am I in, why does this matter, and what limits apply?
2. Capture: What, if anything, is worth preserving for this purpose?
3. Clarify: What is source fact, derivative, uncertainty, correction, or proposal?
4. Connect: What context is useful, and does anything need deliberate promotion into a named record of authority?
5. Choose: What deserves attention now? What should be deferred, released, left unchanged, or stopped?
6. Continue: What is the next chosen step, and what minimum context will make the next return easier?
7. Reflect: What helped, created burden, crossed a boundary, or should change?

These moves are not a sequence. Use one, several, repeat them, or stop. A Transition Check-In can be as small as:

I am leaving this here because ____. The next chosen step is ____. It is valid to stop or reconsider if ____.

Core boundaries

• Focus serves one individual, not a team, organization, or business workflow.
• The individual may choose work, personal, or combined life scope without authorizing whole-life capture.
• Paper is first-class; digitization is optional.
• Capture is selective, foreground, and purpose-specific.
• Sources, derivatives, proposals, accepted records, and projections remain distinct.
• Records of authority are explicitly designated by purpose; Focus is not a universal source of truth.
• AI is optional and first-class when chosen, but remains advisory and cannot execute an external mutation.
• Personal Mission Control is optional and derived; it is not an authoritative dashboard or everything app.
• Deferring, releasing, stopping, and taking no action are legitimate outcomes.
• Tools must remain replaceable through portable exit and manual continuity.

Commons adoption and independence

Focus adopts Open Framework Commons v1.0.0, whose annotated tag peels to a0f0d384e9010a65d1a21a324b4c912433d5e031.

Focus retains its own purpose, method, terminology, examples, governance, and release authority. A Commons change does not automatically change Focus, and a Focus change does not amend Commons. The initial Focus release does not claim ecosystem membership; any Commons recognition follows through a separate Commons change after Focus is published.

Repository map

Path	Purpose	Authority
framework/	Define and explain Focus	Canonical, subject to the charter
CONTEXT.md	Define canonical language	Canonical language reference
examples/	Show fictional applications	Illustrative only
docs/adr/	Record accepted decisions	Accepted rationale and constraints
project/specifications/	Record product requirements	Delivery specification
project/pilots/	Record bounded owner-pilot evidence	Practice evidence, not doctrine
project/reviews/	Define and retain release reviews	Review evidence, not doctrine
GOVERNANCE.md	Control change and release	Repository governance

Status and evidence limits

These files define the v1.0.0 documentation baseline. A copy or branch containing them is not evidence of publication. Release status is established only by an immutable annotated v1.0.0 tag and public release whose merged tree, attestation, review records, and authorship pass the gates in the v1.0.0 specification.

The examples are fictional. The owner-pilot protocol is optional evidence work, not a v1.0.0 release prerequisite. Any completed result is single-practitioner evidence. Documentation review can test clarity, internal coherence, misuse resistance, and publication hygiene; it cannot prove focus, output, wellbeing, safety, or general effectiveness.

Contributing, license, and citation

Read governance and contribution guidance before proposing a change. Do not include private records, credentials, confidential work, personal Journal material, or source-inspiration history in public contributions.

The framework is available under the MIT License. Citation metadata is provided in CITATION.cff, and material changes are recorded in the changelog.