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In his book Ready for Anything, David Allen writes about getting a grip on “the total reality of your job right now“. This sounds like a corporate catch-phrase, at first, but the more I thought about it the more I realized how important this idea is. Coming to grips with the total reality of anything is difficult, let alone one’s job. So many people define themselves by the work that they do, yet do not stop to consider the total reality of this work.

Think on that for a moment. What is the total reality of the work that you do? Does your work define you? As an employee, or employer, is there not some overlap from your work into some of the other roles that your life requires - such as student, spouse, or parent?

Allen address this big question, “What is the total reality of my work?” with six smaller questions:

1. What are my current tasks?
2. What are my current projects?
3. What are my curent roles or responsibilities?
4. How will my job and personal affairs look one year from now?
5. What changes to my career and personal life are coming over the next 3-5 years?
6. What exactly is my purpose here on Earth?

The problem of answering the big question looks like it has just become even harder. But wait, this six-level model of thinking about the things that you need to do is a powerful tool. A tool that is often under-utilized, or never even taken from the toolbox. Many people get so caught up in the tactics of the list-making, notebook-hacking, and project tracking of the first three levels that they do not even think about the second set of levels. Yet, without doing some serious strategic thinking about the answers to these top-level questions we are not going anywhere. We may be getting things done at a furious pace, but at what cost? If our “five-year goals” remain five-years in the future year after year, what are we really accomplishing?

Have you done the strategic thinking and made it part of your GTD system? Have you mapped out the steps to be followed, sketched out a plan to achieve your long-term goals? Have you scheduled an appointment with yourself to map the steps and draw up the plan? How about just Tickling a reminder to start thinking about scheduling an appointment?

As proud as we are of our collection buckets, our archive folders, Palm Pilots and hPDAs - how many of us can whip out a card (or a sheet of paper or a computer file) that says,”This is where I want to be, and this is how I’m going to get there.”

I would bet that the answer is not too many!

So let’s hear it folks, what are your long-term goals and how do you intend to get there?

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5j2bx5. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen