CONCEPT
Horizons of Focus
Allen's hierarchy of six altitudes — runway, projects, areas of responsibility, goals, vision, life purpose — that provides the architectural skeleton of purposeful work, and the component of GTD the AI age has transformed from optional luxury into operational necessity.
The horizons of focus are Allen's layered framework for connecting daily actions to deepest purpose. At ground level — the runway — sit next actions, the concrete physical steps. At ten thousand feet, the projects that give next actions their aim. At twenty thousand feet, the areas of responsibility defining ongoing roles. At thirty thousand feet, one-to-two-year goals. At forty thousand feet, three-to-five-year vision. At fifty thousand feet, life purpose itself. Each horizon derives meaning from the one above it, and the entire structure hangs from purpose. In practice, most GTD practitioners live at the lower horizons and neglect the upper ones because the lower horizons produce visible results while the upper ones produce only clarity. AI has inverted the practical importance of the hierarchy: the lower horizons are now navigable by tools, and the upper horizons — the ones almost nobody implements — are the only ones that remain genuinely human.
