GTD Vertical Map And Horizons Of Focus

April 2nd 2007

The vertical map, otherwise known as the horizons of focus, is a key element of GTD yet it is very often neglected, probably because the GTD book does not go into any great detail about it. As such, much of it is open to interpretation and you will find people using it in different ways. Below I’ve tried to condense some of these interpretations with my own personal thoughts on the matter to hopefully give you all a more clear idea of how it can be used. It is quite possible that a lot of you may have alternative approaches to it, so it would be great if you could leave a comment sharing your thoughts.

50,000ft
This level is where you are ironically getting quite deep about what you want in your life. Imagine it as your ultimate mission statement. Have bullet points to state how you want to live your life, what you want to achieve from it, how you want to achieve it all and what your core values are. It doesn’t have to be specfic or actionable, it can be fairly abstract ie be happy and content. The lower levels are where you take what you put here and start to define specific actions relating to it.

Though GTD adopts a bottom-up approach, the influence of having a 50,000ft level worked out filters its way down through the other layers, meaning you are inclined to pick out more coherent and relevent projects and next actions that push you forward towards these greater goals.

40,000ft
This level is often described as your vision or your 3-to-5 year goals. I personally like to view it as the vision for the next stage in your life. Rather than listing out a precise list of goals ask yourself where you want to be and what you want to be doing 3 to 5 years from now. The 50,000ft level is an abstract ideal for your life and as such it is not practical to work directly towards it. It can essentially be treated in a similar fashion to a massive project and as such you need to break it down. 40,000ft is where you start to work out more managable projects from it with a realistic timescale tied to them.

30,000ft
At this level you tend to be looking at a 12-to-18 month timescale. Items here essentially are the actionable goals that move you towards your next life vision/step defined at 40,000ft. For instance at the vision level you may have put down that you want to own a house and start a family. One of the goals to achieving this - which you would put down at this level - would be to get a new job that pays more money.

20,000ft
This level tends to be the one that most people struggle with because it seems partly separated from the surrounding levels. Simply, you define your current roles and responsibilites and I will be covering this area a lot more in the future. It’s the one level whose influence goes up and down and makes the key difference on what you do now and what you can do in the future. Working down, why would you want to be doing a project or action that you are not responsible for? Working upwards, why be responsible for something that doesn’t push you towards your vision in life? If your roles do not match your plans then you have to consider changing them. For instance, your current job might not match the career you want to be in 3-to-5 years from now.

10,000ft and runway
Now we are getting into day-to-day territory. This is where you define projects and their next actions, the vast majority of which will no doubt be dictated by your roles and responsibilities as determined at 20,000ft. However you also need to look beyond that towards the 30,000ft level as that will provide you with projects aimed ultimately towards your life purpose.

Templates
Below are links to printable templates I use for writing down my own horizons of focus as part of my GTD system. It comes in both A5 and A4 size and is in PDF format (you will need Adobe Acrobat of Foxit to view them). Note, for whatever reason the lines in the PDF file might seem a bit messed up, but when printed out they look absolutely fine.

Vertical Map A5 size
Vertical Map A4 size

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