How to achieve Healthy High Performance using the Horizons Concept

In ‘Team: Getting Things Done with Others’, the latest book in the GTD canon, David Allen and Ed Lamont offer ‘Healthy HighPerformance’ as a guiding light for us all to aim for.

Obviously, I strongly recommend reading the book to hear the reasons this is needed and what they have seen when people achieve it – and when they don’t. 

Here, I want to consider how we can balance two possibly seeming opposing forces, having both high performance and health/wellbeing at the same time, both at the individual and organisational level.

Healthy isn’t solely focussed on physical health, like being the right weight and taking enough exercise; it also includes mental health and wellbeing and healthy relationships with the people you work with, live with and love.

High Performance is something we have always been focussed on with GTD, although before this new book, mostly at the individual level. Now we are considering more how a Team can reach new heights of achievement by working better together.

The best instruction to a new ice skater, wobbling around the rink whilst staring at their boots, is to lift their eyeline to see where they are going. When we feel out of balance in our lives, it helps to look at the bigger picture, which in GTD terms means Reflecting on our Higher Horizons, the model that enhances perspective.

The day to day struggles of balancing wellbeing and high performance

To balance High-Performance and wellbeing may feel impossible when our focus is at the Ground Level, with the busyness of the day right in our faces. Anyone worrying about near-term deadlines is likely to lose sight of their wellbeing commitments in the heat of these moments, both for themselves and for those around them: colleagues, clients, friends and family. “I’ve got to get this done today”, you might think, so no time to go for a walk, or see friends, or get home in time to tuck the kids into bed.

You will, however, spend most of your days at this Ground Level, so how can you improve balance here? Daily, we recommend people look at two key parts of their GTD systems: their Calendar and Next Action Lists. Maximise your chances for success by setting these two parts up to help you.  For example, leave space in your calendar to focus on Wellbeing; both your own and those you are responsible for.  Also, have Next Actions to complete that will improve the future wellbeing for your organisation, teams, friends and family. This can include everything from team meetings to discuss new Wellbeing initiatives to some simple actions on your lists to check in with friends and ensure you have enough fun in your own week.

Implement a Weekly Review

One small step up to Horizon 1, ‘Project’ level, makes things clearer. Here you have all your near-term goals for you and your team and your friends and family. ‘Up here’ you can remind yourself of what should have more of your attention in the coming weeks and hopefully with this better view of your world you can plan better to fit in the work to ensure high-performance and also the work to ensure continued wellbeing.

The all-important Weekly Review can then play an improved part by using your Projects list to ensure you have remained balanced with high standards of Performance and Wellbeing in the weeks just passed and that you’re set up for balance in the weeks ahead.

One sign of mastery in GTD is when people have customised their Weekly Review checklist. David Allen’s 11-step suggestion from his first book, Getting Things Done, The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, is a great way to start but he encourages adding other improvements you find useful. You could, for example have lists to review once a week called ‘new habits to build’ where you see some standards you want to keep and, once a week, review to see how well you have done in keeping them. These could include, ‘checking in with team members on their wellbeing’, ‘10,000 steps per day’, ‘monthly team social’, ‘theatre once per month’, etc. You may well have ‘High Performance’ routines in place already and so the additions will likely be more on the ‘Wellbeing’ side of things.

How to stay aligned with all your Responsibilities

Horizon 2, ‘Areas of focus and accountability’ is all about balancing your ongoing responsibilities. This is where we recommend people head if they are feeling out of balance with all they have on at work or at home, or indeed, if they are feeling out of balance between work and life. It’s just as useful for balancing High Performance andWellbeing. You have areas and sub-areas that you should be giving focus to, and you are accountable for.  Reviewing this horizon will reveal any you’ve been neglecting or have been over-focussed on, allowing you to even out your keel for the weeks ahead.

If you’ve never ‘mapped out’ this Horizon 2 before, simply grab a piece of paper and do a mind-map of all the ongoing roles you play in your work and life.  Once externalised in this way, it is easy to Reflect on and make more sense of.  As examples, many people have roles like: “health and fitness”, “relationships”, and “finances” in their personal world, while in the work sphere, they might have “team leadership”, “budgeting”, “client service”.

Be clear about your Goals

Horizon 3, ‘Goals and Objectives’ shows what you want for your life and your team and your organisation over the next couple of years. These are outcomes, like projects, and are ideally expressed and things to achieve.  Targets to stretch out the highest level of performance, challenging your team to achieve even more. Horizon 3 should also hold what you want for your life, your team and your organisation in the next couple of years in terms of Wellbeing. Setting these goals, together where beneficial, and reviewing them regularly will keep you on track, even when the heat is on.

Create an almost believable Vision

Horizon 4, ‘Vision’: What would Healthy High-Performance look like if it were ideal? Can you see it? What would you have achieved?  Be bold with how High that Performance can be and how Healthy you and all those around you can be in 2 to 5 years. David Allen says Visions only need to be 51% believable. You’ve got time to make your visions happen and they should point you and your team towards the future you want together. Set them, consider them, reflect on them, on your own and as a group. You’ll likely only want or need to look at these once a year or every six months, although that will be enough to make a change right back down at the Ground Level every single day.

“The importance of goals and visions is not the future they describe but the change in the moment they engender” – David Allen

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