Top Down Approach

The Top Down Approach to Time Management

Are you detail-oriented or big picture focused? While these are not mutually exclusive approaches, people usually have a preference for one or the other. For some people, life makes no sense until all of the little pieces are understood. For others, the end in mind must be established before the details become important.

The Role of Goals
Goals are destinations. The longer the time horizon, the bigger the goals. Goals make sure that you are climbing the right ladder. When you are creating your goals, feel free to dream and dream big. If there were no restrictions on what you could be, do, and have; what would you really want?

Goals create desires. When you focus your thoughts and imagination on something long enough, it creates a burning desire within you. This burning desire is an essential first step in future creation. During this stage, don't be concerned with how something will be manifest, only what you want. Even if there are "real" barriers to the accomplishment of a goal, include it on your list. It seems that everyday, technology is making barriers that were once insurmountable fade into nothingness.

If Henry Ford only considered what had been done in the past, who knows if we would have the ready availability of personal transportation that we have now.

Select Your Top Three Goals
After taking some time to dream and vision your future, select the top three goals that stand out the most to you. These are goals that will motivate you to action. For each of these goals, break them down into projects, or multi-step objectives, that will ultimately get you to accomplishment. Make sure that the achievement of your projects will get you to goal success. Keep removing, modifying, and adding to your project list until you have this confidence.

Create Physical Action Items
Once you have identified specific projects, it is necessary to put some structure around the projects to ensure they get done. Specifically, you should identify the actual physical actions that you need to take to complete the project. Think in terms of verbs. For example, if you have a goal to run a marathon, and one of the projects is to run four times a week; then, you may have an action item to buy running shoes from x store.

Loop Back
After completing the physical actions that you identified in your project plan, evaluate whether the project is complete. If it is, mark it complete, then evaluate your progress on the goal. Review the projects that you identified to make sure they still make sense, revise as necessary, then start on the next project.

This is the essence of the top down approach to time management. Start big, filter, identify projects, filter, identify next physical actions, monitor progress and revise your plans as necessary. This is obviously a simplified model of the process, but the key is to understand the method of starting big, then breaking it down until it is actionable. Then, using the learning that you've acquired from completing the tasks to revise your plan. This process will ensure your actions are moving you in the direction of your dreams.