Hi, my
name is Meg Edwards and I am a GTD coach. And today I wanted to talk
about the area of focus review and when's the last time you did an Area
Focus and Responsibility review? You know, one of the things that we talk
about is the weekly review, right? The critical success factor. And to do that, you know, weekly
or as often as you can to really kind of clean up
your project level and your ground level, you know, including your calendar,
the tool that you're using, projects, actions, agendas,
waiting fors, all of that, because that's where the most volume is,
is that project level and ground level. But what about above that? At the beginning of every month,
I do an area focus slash responsibility review. And when I'm working with clients,
a lot of clients don't even have that level fleshed out. So if you don't have that fleshed out,
then I really highly recommend that you carve out some time
to flesh out that level because I love the area
focus and responsibility level. You know, you don't
have to be living on those lower horizons. And the areas of focus and responsibility
level is the bridge level
to go up and down the horizons. An area of focus and responsibility is
what creates a goal, vision and purpose. And it's what creates
a project and action. And if you're areas of focus
and responsibility level isn't clear and isn't really fleshed out,
then you know, the lower and higher horizons can be a little murky
and a little, not clarified and not clear. So, what still kind of amazes me is how much can change in a month. Birthdays, holidays, wonderful new, opportunities showing up for work. I had a death in the family. I have a sister who's going to be coming
and living with me, at the beginning of April,
which I'm really excited about. But all of that created a lot of new projects and actions for me. So what I did is yesterday, I spent, you know, about 45 minutes, and I reviewed each area of focus
and responsibility, added some new ones, and that triggered some projects
and actions that I hadn't captured yet. You know, one of the things that David always talks
about is if you need clarity, bump up. Well, this is the opportunity every month
to kind of bump up, get some higher altitude, to ensure that you really have all of your projects and actions in place. So for example, some of my,
some of my areas of focus is my health and well-being. My home, my car. Fun, travel. My daughter, my pets, my sister,
you know, my brother in law's estate. So it changed from my brother in law to now,
you know, settling his estate. Friends and family, finances. If you have a spiritual practice, if you have aging parents, if you've got, you know, young kids or nieces and nephews
or friends that you haven't seen for a while, it's really kind of like
what has your attention on these levels? You know, these are areas of focus
and responsibilities that you don't check off as done. They don't change that often. Are there any problems or issues
that are showing up when you look at that area of focus? Any processes or procedures
that need to be put into place. Any competency building projects
or actions that you'd like to capture, or any creative projects or actions that you'd like to capture,
or maybe that area of focus or responsibility is on cruise control
and there's nothing you need to do. Or maybe you don't want to energize
that area of focus and responsibility, and that's okay. This isn’t a time to also over create, you know,
we talk about what has your attention. And then it's like, well,
what really, really has your attention. You're kind of also looking for,
do any open loop show up? It could be emotional, physical, mental, spiritual, open
loops that you want to capture. And so even though I've been doing
my weekly reviews in December, you know,
I still grabbed new projects and actions. I realized, you know, that
I don't have any backup glasses. So my sister, we lost a pair of her
glasses, and she doesn't have glasses. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't know why
I didn't think about having backup glasses for her, and I. So, you know, I have to do that. I realized that I really need
to get somebody else to deal with my car, because the car dealerships said,
you know, you really should go to somebody that specializes
in your kind of car that you have. So I have a look into a project like that. Now that I know that my sister
is going to be coming and living with me in the beginning of April,
that kickstarted a whole bunch of projects that were not identified
in the beginning of December. You know,
we knew it was coming, but now it's here. So what it does is, again, it puts me back in
the driver's seat of my life. As I have said in previous videos,
I think the, the, you know, human nature
is, you know, on course, off course. And I've just been getting,
you know, constantly taken off course, but I can get back and I can get back
in a very systematic way, a very efficient, effective way. I can think my way through all of this. And it's not to say that it hasn't
been some challenging times, but it also there's some wonderful opportunities showing up,
and I don't want to miss any of that. I don't want to get buried in some things
that are going on and miss those incredible creative
opportunities that are showing up. And so I relish
the time in the beginning of the month to be able to do an area of focus
and responsibility review. I’ve been doing them
pretty much for 25 years now. And it's a different kind of thinking. If you haven't created your areas of focus and responsibilities,
please block out some time to do that. So that you're just not always
focusing on projects and actions. If you do have your areas of focus
and responsibilities, but haven't done a review
for them in a while, please, give yourself the gift of spending
some time, doing a review. And then if you want to put a tickler
in your calendar at the beginning of every month to schedule a review in, I remember in the beginning
I kept forgetting that level. And so I, I put a, a tickler
in my calendar the first Wednesday of every month to schedule area
focus responsibility review. I have a tendency to split them out. I do a personal areas of focus responsibility review,
and then I do a professional one. You might want to combine them. I know that sometimes I combine them,
sometimes I separate them out. Surely, because the volume of
what can sometimes show up and I've just kind of always been doing it
that way. But definitely
you don't have to split that up. Whatever works for you. One of the things that David talks
about in chapter nine of the Getting Things
Done book is prioritization. And one way to prioritize
is through the horizons. So sometimes I'll look at the ground level
and I will be like, I'm not quite sure what really, you know,
I want to do. And then above
that is your projects level. And sometimes I
look at the project level and I'm like, But boy, when I go up to my areas of focus
and responsibilities list, it just comes so naturally to me to say,
I want to move that area of focus forward and then I can drop down
into projects and actions. And sometimes there wasn't even anything
there. And something kind of creative
showed up that I want to do. So, thank you for always tuning in to GTD Focus YouTube videos. We love doing them. We love to hear any feedback
that you have. And have a wonderful
rest of your day. Cheers.