Effexis & Goals To Action Blog

Achieve Planner (AP) uses hierarchical (multi-level) lists or outlines to help you organize, prioritize and manage everything that you need to do.

Within the main outline, AP supports these types of items:

Result Area ( ) – A result area represents a life dimension or role in your life like Health, Relationships, Finances and Work. Result areas help you distinguish work-related and personal projects/tasks, while also encouraging to think about your life in a more balanced way.

Here are the default result areas in the outline when you first launch Achieve Planner…

Each result area is assigned to a Category, which by default is either Work or Personal. The category helps you distinguish work-related result areas and personal result areas so you can focus on work-related projects while working without having to look at the personal stuff. You can change the category of a result area using the information form (double-click on row to open).

Project (  ) – A project represents any high-level outcome that you want to track, whether it includes a single or multiple steps. Projects give you an overview of everything that you are working on at any given time.

Projects can be complex multi-step sequence of tasks, like developing a product, organizing an event or preparing a presentation, but they can also be something as simple as paying a bill, responding to an e-mail or taking the dog to the vet. Since the project list is hierarchical, each project can include sub-projects using as many nested levels as you need.

Here is a screenshot of projects with nested sub-projects…

Task (  ) – Tasks are the action steps associated with a project. Tasks are usually things like “Call Fred,” “Read the file,” or “Write outline for memo.” Tasks can have a hierarchical structure with tasks, sub-tasks and sub-sub-tasks. Although you can have Tasks directly under result areas, Achieve Planner works better when tasks are part of projects.

Here is a screenshot of tasks with nested sub-tasks…

Separating Projects & Tasks

In Achieve Planner, projects and tasks replace the traditional “to-do” list used in other time management systems.

In general, any to-do item that is not part of something larger should be stored as a project. Doing this will help you think and plan your time in terms of outcomes rather than just actions, which is an important step in becoming more results oriented.

You can keep track of your projects in the Outline & Projects tabs, where you can create hierarchical (multi-level) lists of your projects using as many levels as you need.

Achieve Planner separates the concepts of projects and tasks allowing you to view and track your high-level outcomes (projects) independently from your low-level actions (tasks.)

By doing this, your projects list will be shorter, easier to manage, and it will give you an overview of all the outcomes you are working on. You can store all the details as tasks and have easy access to them when you need them.

You can keep track of the tasks for each project in the Tasks tab, where you can create hierarchical (multi-level) task lists using as many levels as you need.

If you need to, you can easily convert tasks into projects (promote) or convert projects into tasks (demote) using the commands in the Actions menu.

You can learn more about the difference between projects and tasks and how this distinction can help you be more productive in the Get More Done In Less Time ebook (more info coming soon).

Dreams And Goals

The Productivity Suite edition of Achieve Planner also supports two additional types of items in the main outline: dreams and goals.

Dreams and goals are special types of projects and behave exactly like projects in the hierarchy. They are useful for grouping and organizing your projects based on the higher-level outcomes they are supporting.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I have projects or tasks at the top of the hierarchy?

A: Only Result Areas can be at the top of the hierarchy, so all projects and tasks need to be under a result area.