Skeleton: Planning at the right height (tree guide)
Skeleton: Planning at the right height
A short concept guide built from Rufus's tree metaphor (raw note). It stays a draft here until reviewed; the draft text follows this skeleton. Part of Weekly Portfolio Review (2620).
Concept order
Rufus's order: the leaves overwhelm, the trunk is too vague, so look in between; name the levels; zoom to projects for the week; then zoom into the leaves. Our tools come last, so the metaphor works for any reader.
Map
PLANNING AT THE RIGHT HEIGHT
1 [🍃] all the leaves
too many to choose from
│
2 [🌳] just the trunk
true, but no help this week
│
3 [🌿] the tree in between
trunk → branches →
smaller branches → leaves
│
▼
4 [🔍] zoom to the branches ◀ key idea
pick this week's projects
│
▼
5 [🍃] zoom into those leaves
the tasks for the chosen few
│
6 [🗂] the tree in our tools
records, the table, Beads
Steps (one line each)
- All the leaves. Planning from every task at once overwhelms: hundreds of leaves, no way to compare them.
- Just the trunk. The mission is true but doesn't tell you what to do this week.
- The tree. Trunk (what we do overall), big branches (initiatives), smaller branches (projects), leaves (tasks). Picture: a simple tree with each level labelled.
- Zoom to the branches (key idea). Each week, look at the projects: few enough to see on one page. Ask which matter this week.
- Zoom into the leaves. Only for the chosen projects, look at their tasks and hand them out.
- Our tools. Trunk = Life Itself; big branches = initiative records; smaller branches = project records, gathered by the sweep into one table; leaves = Beads or Asana tasks. Extra: branches can split again (sub-projects, sub-initiatives); ignore that at first.
Open questions
- Where does the guide live once reviewed:
guides/in planning, or folded into How we plan and track work §3? - Is a running example useful (one week's plan picking three projects), or is the tree enough?
