AoF sublists
I would welcome the ability to create AoR sublists in Nirvana. Perhaps we could have a set up as follows:
AoF (Personal)
--AoR (Home Maintenance) --AoR (Home Improvements) --AoR (Father)
--AoR (Husband) --etc.
AoF (Professional)
--AoR (Strategic Planning) --AoR (Resourcing) --AoR (Procurement)
--etc.
Where AoF = Area of Focus, and AoR = Area of Responsibility (items in brackets are examples)
Chapter 9 of the book discusses this in more detail, but in
summary the above would allow the user to check that all their
responsibilities have projects and actions defined, and can feed
up/down to 30k, 40k, 50k items during the weekly review.
Thanks,
Derek
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2 Posted by roddyt on 21 Jun, 2010 05:27 PM
Derek,
I have no opinion on this because I don't have a need for this myself, but I just wanted to say that I referenced your suggestion as a potential solution in this thread about an "Anywhere" focus area.
http://help.nirvanahq.com/discussions/suggestions/420-anywhere-focu...
I wanted to provide a link in case you all want to get together to hash out ideas.
3 Posted by Proximo on 24 Jun, 2010 11:16 PM
I am with Derek here. No opinion on my end either because I don't have a need for this.
Something to chew on for sure. :-)
4 Posted by Terminado on 25 Jun, 2010 04:45 PM
I see AofF in some sense as "ongoing projects" so the alternative would be to have sub-projects (which I once again request).
I just started a new project and there are so many tasks and sub-tasks to this project, I was tempted to assign it to its own AofF. I may have to do that, but sub-projects would be simpler and more logical.
I find the "notes" section to be "just okay" for organizing projects and tasks, but ultimately, confining. I'd like a bigger canvas upon which to map out my projects.
I have three work-related AofF (currently--this tends to change) so I guess I'm a candidate for sub-Areas, but I'm with the others, I could go either way and if I had to choose one or the other, I'd vote for sub-projects over sub-Areas.
5 Posted by Proximo on 25 Jun, 2010 06:03 PM
I don't consider AoF related to Projects in any way. AoF are simply location based context as described in GTD.
Sub-projects is a very useful feature that I hope to see implemented on it's own.
6 Posted by Terminado on 25 Jun, 2010 06:35 PM
Life is a project. Work (job, business) is, too. Marriage, raising kids, every area of our lives are projects, but never-ending, with countless overlapping projects and sub-projects, tasks and sub-tasks, and thus, because of their size and scope, we call them "areas of focus/responsibility," but they are still projects.
A project is a series of tasks with a desired outcome, yes? So, if the desired outcome of one's life is "happiness," then life is a project.
:-)
7 Posted by deekod on 26 Jun, 2010 07:12 PM
I agree that at a very general level all altitude items above runway could be termed "projects" as you describe. However, I think it comes down to how strictly in accordance with the book Nirvana aims to be. DA states that projects need to be defined using the natural planning model, AoF / AoR and upper altitudes are not mentioned as requiring this level of planning. So in this respect, projects are very different from AoR/AoF Goals Visions and Life Principles - so I propose that Nirvana should treat them differently. The abiltity to focus on an AoF then a sublist AoR of projects and tasks that you have decided are all potential "must do - now!" items for me is a critical element of GTD next action selection.
8 Posted by Mark S on 06 Jul, 2010 07:31 PM
I think this follows on from the discussion in the 'New UX Feedback' thread where we discussed AoF's or Projects for client-centric organization.
As was mentioned in the other thread I use AoF for clients rather than Projects so I can easily turn on and off the other AoF's so I can focus on a particular clients tasks.
Projects to me (as I see it in GTD terms) are simply an outcome I want to achieve that takes more than 1 physical action.
But AoF's are the 20,000ft view in GTD so maybe there does need to be some middle ground here?
I think it was DC Clarke or Terminado who said in the UX thread that clients should be seen as a 15,000ft view (in GTD AoF's are a 20,000ft and Projects/Tasks at 10,000ft).
IE: They're not really an AoF and are more than simple multi-step outcome.
So how about the idea of Groups or Categories (or whatever naming convention the developers want) that is a middle ground between Projects and AoF's to represent the 15,000ft view?
A Category (for want of a better name right now) can only be assigned to a single AoF but it can contain multiple projects and tasks.
And like AoF's they can be filtered on and off in the current view, with the similar choices for viewing as AoF's: all categories in the current AoF, selected categories (but with multiple categories able to be selected) or unassigned (Projects/Tasks not assigned to a category).
So if you had a 'clients' AoF, you could have a Category inside that AoF for Customer A and another for Customer B, etc.
And each category would have the Projects and Tasks (and sub-tasks but that's a different topic) relevant for that customer.
There would have to be some rules though:
Again, I'm trying to put this into GTD terms as Nirvana has set their sights on being as close to GTD as possible.
I don't see (and certainly do not hope) that Nirvana will go the way of MS-Project or similar software to deal with complex projects, I hope that it stays as close as possible to GTD-based task management.
I guess that's why I seem to perceive 'projects' in the Nirvana sense different to how most others here see them.
The hard part in a lot of these discussions is not to focus on the terminology being used to describe a particular piece of functionality but rather on how that functionality would be used within a GTD-based task management application (and of course our own trusted systems).
I think this should help those that want another level of organization to Nirvana but without compromising simplicity and GTD.
Thoughts anyone?
9 Posted by Terminado on 07 Jul, 2010 08:12 PM
@mark, I think your idea can be summarized as "Sub-Areas of Focus" and I like that, but I would prefer sub-projects. If we could have the option for both, even better!
10 Posted by Lasares on 14 Jul, 2010 02:55 AM
I have this feeling that a simple alternative to sub AoF could be (somewhat) easy to implement. Couldn't we have "views" of AoF? I mean, we already have single views on each AoF individually and we also have the overall view showing all AoF.
Wouldn't it be nice if I could have a "Client" view where I would choose the following AoF: Client1, Client2, Client3, etc. And a "Marketing" view, where I would pick the following AoF: Advertising, Web site, Seminars, etc...
I am no developer but it seems easier to implement a personalised view of existing AoF than to embark on sub-AoF. So, maybe we can have it sooner...
David McLaughlin closed this discussion on 04 Feb, 2011 02:39 AM.