Goals and visions lists - 3, 4 level horizons

[mycutethings]

It would be nice if there would be goals and visions lists to define the 3, 4 level horizons. Goals would link to projects, visions would link to goals.
A good explanation is given here

[dongdongbh]

There's a FAQ entry on exactly this: How do GTD Horizons map to Mindwtr?. Short version: Areas natively cover horizon 2, and the working pattern for 3–5 today is a "Goals" area or reference list whose items you link from project notes, revisited in the Weekly Review.

Being upfront about first-class Goal/Vision lists: two new synced record types plus goal→project linking is the heaviest kind of change the app can take on (sync format, both apps, import/export all move), so it isn't planned near-term. The direction I find more promising is surfacing your goals during the Weekly Review so each project gets checked against them — the review step is where horizons 3/4 actually do their work in GTD, and it wouldn't add new list machinery to everyday use.

How do you review horizons 3/4 today — as part of the weekly review, or on a separate monthly/quarterly pass? That cadence would shape what review surfacing should look like.

[mycutethings]

I still haven't defined my visions/goals, but I'm getting very close there, and regarding the review process I was thinking of doing a weekly review, which I'm already doing, but with horizon 1-2 only.

[linuxluser]

GTD enthusiast here. I hope it's OK to drop in on a random discussion.

If the subreddit r/gtd means anything, most GTDers just have a plain old doc for these things. They keep their goals (level 3) and visions (level 4) separate from their task management system. And, honestly, that's perfectly fine. IMO, you don't really gain anything by hard-linking these things in a database.

I have a repeated monthly task that says "Review L3 goals". Some months I delete it and don't do it. Other months I do it. Then I have a repeated task for every six months to "Review L4 visions". The context for both is my "@Focus" context, which, to me, means I need real, dedicated time to sit and ponder without distractions. Say, give myself an hour on some weekend. Sometime I delete the task and put it in my calendar instead, which helps.

The point is, in GTD, it's the review process itself that is important. You don't need an app to link these things all together. It's your life that links things together. What you need is to give yourself the time to do "deep work" and slowly read and consider each of your goals and especially visions. The take-aways from those reviews for each item should be "Meeting goal", "Could Do Better At goal", "Neglecting Goal" or "Need to delete/renegotiate Goal". Your "gut" is what tells you that, not an app.

[mycutethings]

GTD enthusiast here. I hope it's OK to drop in on a random discussion.

If the subreddit r/gtd means anything, most GTDers just have a plain old doc for these things. They keep their goals (level 3) and visions (level 4) separate from their task management system. And, honestly, that's perfectly fine. IMO, you don't really gain anything by hard-linking these things in a database.

I have a repeated monthly task that says "Review L3 goals". Some months I delete it and don't do it. Other months I do it. Then I have a repeated task for every six months to "Review L4 visions". The context for both is my "@Focus" context, which, to me, means I need real, dedicated time to sit and ponder without distractions. Say, give myself an hour on some weekend. Sometime I delete the task and put it in my calendar instead, which helps.

The point is, in GTD, it's the review process itself that is important. You don't need an app to link these things all together. It's your life that links things together. What you need is to give yourself the time to do "deep work" and slowly read and consider each of your goals and especially visions. The take-aways from those reviews for each item should be "Meeting goal", "Could Do Better At goal", "Neglecting Goal" or "Need to delete/renegotiate Goal". Your "gut" is what tells you that, not an app.

Hey, thank you for sharing your opinion!
I'm still in the midst of learning GTD and barely been a month at it, it's very valuable when somebody shares their exp like that, so I'm going to take this into consideration, and try to apply it to my system. I'm still not at horizons 3-4, but very close.

[linuxluser]

Hey, thank you for sharing your opinion! I'm still in the midst of learning GTD and barely been a month at it, it's very valuable when somebody shares their exp like that, so I'm going to take this into consideration, and try to apply it to my system. I'm still not at horizons 3-4, but very close.

Your welcome. It's my pleasure. If you want to go deeper into learning about the horizons, you should get the "Making It All Work" book by David Allen. There he goes over the horizons of focus in much more detail than he does in the OG "Getting Things Done" book. tl;dr of the higher horizons is that you don't have to start at the top and work your way down. Sometimes it's better to start at the bottom and work your way. And sometimes you start in the middle, at horizon 3 (goals) and that can inform both horizone 4 (visions) and horizon 2 (areas). David Allen says that you should go both up and down, as each will help inform the other. And the process needs continual refinement as life changes and as your directions change. The lower the horizon of focus, the more changes happen and the faster they happen. And, as David says, when you need more clarity on something, "go higher", meaning, check the next horizon level above it. That's the jist, but I strongly suggest you get "Making It All Work" as it's a helpful companion to the GTD book.