What To Do When You Feel Discouraged
David Allen's Getting Things Done
I'm a big fan of the book Getting Things Done by David Allen. He lays out a methodology for organizing our work and personal lives.
His approach is used by tens of thousands of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits.
When read carefully, Allen also teaches a spiritual approach to dealing with life's inevitable challenges. He teaches this truth through what he calls the "horizons of focus."
All of our actions and choices–our goals and values, our feelings and hopes–fit within the six horizons he identifies.
The Six Horizons
The first horizon is the runway. These are concrete actions.
Putting gas in our car, for example, is a runway task. Opening up your email to read this article is a runway choice.
The next horizon is 10,000 feet. Allen calls these projects. They consist of at least two actions.
Completing a road trip would be a project. And getting gas would be a task within that project.
20,000 feet is the next horizon. Allen calls these our areas of focus.
Being a parent is an example of an area of focus. Maintaining our health is another. We all have several of these.
Each higher horizon encompasses the ones before it. The horizons go all the way up to 50,000 feet. That is where we describe our life purpose and guiding values.
An Amazing Tool
We are missing out if we are not conscious of these horizons. We are missing out on a range of tools for coping with the inevitable tragedies of life.
How so?
Well, let's look at the current conflict in Israel. Like many of us, I feel pain, anxiety, helplessness.
I can't change what happened on October 7th. I can't meaningfully shift what is happening now.
So what can I do with my feelings? Do I just sit with them, let them be? That is a Zen approach.
But that’s not all we can do. We can also lift ourselves up to a different horizon. We can broaden our perspective.
Every Problem is a Project
For example, we can start a project to send cards and supplies to victims and soldiers. (10,000-foot horizon)
We can pray. And as we pray, we can check in with ourselves and see if our spiritual life is in alignment. (20,000 feet)
If we are still struggling, we can move up another few horizons and examine our actions and feelings to see if they reflect our core values. (50,000 feet)
If, for example, gratitude is one of our core values, we can ask ourselves if we are feeling enough gratitude for the blessings of our lives, even amidst all the pain and suffering.
If we are not, how can we redirect our focus to experiencing these blessings? Do we need help from others?
The horizons let us broaden our vision and perspective.
They turn us into a pilot who encounters turbulence and then moves up to a higher altitude to navigate through it.
All Life is Spiritual
Whatever our faith, the horizons as a whole ultimately push us to look at life from a spiritual perspective. We keep going higher.
Using them also puts into practice a truth Victor Frankel, the great psychiatrist and author of Man's Search for Meaning, laid out in one of his essays.
Only theology, he wrote, is "inclusive and descriptive of the true nature of human beings....all the other dimensions of life dwell within it." In other words, every decision is ultimately shaped by our highest and most deeply held values.
A practical way to see this truth is to recognize that all our choices have a spiritual dimension.
Even deciding what to write in your next email, or what meal to eat, is a choice about what you value and how you use your time.
We don't often think about life this way, and that's okay.
But at times of difficulty, we can and do. As the Book of Ecclesiastes puts it, “Time and chance befall us all.” (Ecclesiastes 9:12)
Here's a link to the six horizons. Engage with them. Grapple with them. Clarify them. For me, very few pursuits have been more valuable.