Areas of Focus - Clarification Needed

[TesTeq]

What is a "recurring project" ?

Here are examples of my "recurring projects":

1. Winter tires --> summer tires change in my car (every spring) ("car" area of focus).
2. Summer tires --> winter tires change in my car (every autumn) ("car" area of focus).
3. Visit the dentist (before Christmas) ("health" area of focus).
4. Visit the dentist (before summer vacation) ("health" area of focus).

I use my Nokia E71 calendar as the "next occurence" reminders database (electronic GTD tickler file).

[Oogiem]

What is a "recurring project" ?

the vast majority of my projects are recurring ones. Here are some examples:

From the AOF Manage our Farm Sustainably - Orchard
Get irrigation set up for summer
Get irrigation closed down for winter

From the AOF Manage our Farm Sustainably - Sheep
Vaccinate ewes
Clean winter sheep corrals

From the AOF Manage our Farm Sustainably - Wool
Skirt fleeces

From the AOF Manage our Farm Sustainably - Ditch Company
Process quarterly payroll taxes

From the AOF Manage our Farm Sustainably - Poultry
Get our chicken meat for the year

From the AOF Personal Development
Annual physical & Mammogram

From the AOF Computer & Technology
System backups

From the AOF Keep a Comfortable House
Monthly bill pay & filing
Weekly Review

Very few of my projects are truly one off things.

[Tom.9]

some examples from me

AoF house maintenance
- fix lamp 1
- fix lamp 2
- fix sink
As soon as lamp 1 is replaced, lamp 3 will blast -> fix lamp 3

But as long as the AoF house maintenance exists, there will always be projects like described above, right ?

[vbampton]

Tom, consider areas of focus as different hats you wear. There might be your home owner hat, your dad hat, your car driver hat, multiple different hats at work for areas of responsibility there, etc. The projects are the things you actually have to get done and will be crossed off as finished (for now!), even if they then start again shortly thereafter.

Oogie, I love your recurring projects! Truly worlds apart!

Under house maintenance area of focus, I might have 'RPT Get boiler serviced' (RPT for automatically repeating) because it happens yearly around a specific date and requires multiple steps.

Many of my 'fix the sink' type projects are stored as templates, ready to quickly turn into a project next time it breaks. Their purpose is to automatically populate the actions when I put that same type of project back on my list again, so I don't have to think it through again. Keeping a basic checklist for each of those projects would do the same job.

[TesTeq]

some examples from me

AoF house maintenance
- fix lamp 1
- fix lamp 2
- fix sink
As soon as lamp 1 is replaced, lamp 3 will blast -> fix lamp 3

I don't think these "fixing" projects are good examples of recurring projects. A recurring project is the project which I expect to repeat after some predictable delay (one day, one week, 6 months etc.). Lamp failures are totally unpredictable so they are not recurring but they belong to "house maintenance" AoF of course.

[mcgeek]

I Do agree with many of our members on this one, that Areas of Focus are the bigger "bucket" for the list of tasks and projects you mentioned in your original post. Some examples of my Areas of focus are:

-Program Administrator for the David Allen Company
-Wilderness Quest Leader
-Membership Services for GTD Connect

Within those domains, I can then break out my projects and actions from there.

If you have not tried out our free trial on GTD Connect, I would recommend doing so and checking out some of the content we have on this topic: https://secure.davidco.com/connect/tag/areas+of+focus

Keep up the great work and exploration!