The way we manage our work and lives can be understood through two approaches: Top Down and Bottom Up. These approaches help us balance proactive planning with reactive responsiveness, ensuring we stay aligned with our missions while also handling life’s unpredictable demands. Ideally, we should strive to operate primarily in the Top Down approach while also having a reliable system for managing Bottom Up work.
1. The Top Down Approach – Living Proactively
The Top Down Approach should be our default way of working. This aligns with Key 1 of productivity, which is about living life through our Mission. It involves asking questions like: What do I need to achieve (my Goal) as a Father (one of my Roles) that reflects how I need to live (in line with my Mission statement)? This approach moves downstream from Mission to Roles, Goals, and then to the Actions (Habits, Projects, and Tasks) required to fulfil those goals.
By working Top Down, we intentionally populate our Weekly Planner and Action Lists based on what needs to be done. This ensures we are living purposefully and not just reacting to external pressures. This approach is proactive, enabling us to focus on what truly matters before distractions arise.
Three guiding principles further enhance the effectiveness of the Top Down Approach:
(1) The Pebble Jar Theory – Prioritizing the big rocks (important tasks) first ensures they don’t get crowded out by lesser tasks.
(2) Parkinson’s Law – Recognizing that work expands to fill the time allotted, we impose deadlines to maintain efficiency.
(3) The Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule) – Understanding that 20% of efforts yield 80% of results allows us to focus on high-impact tasks.
If we lived in a world of pure self-determination, this would be enough. However, life introduces unpredictable elements, requiring a secondary method for handling the unexpected.
2. The Bottom Up Approach – Living Reactively
The Bottom Up Approach aligns with Key 2 of productivity and is essential because life constantly generates unexpected work—urgent emails, phone calls, sudden crises, or requests for help. We need a system to capture and manage these without losing control over our priorities.
The GTD (Getting Things Done) Five Stages of Work provide an effective framework for handling Bottom Up tasks:
(1) Capture (Download) – Get everything off your mind and into your system without acting on it immediately.
(2) Process/Clarify (Decide) – Determine what each item is and what needs to be done with it.
(3) Organise – Place it in the appropriate list (Project, Task, or Habit) and schedule it as needed.
(4) Review – Regularly go through lists (e.g., weekly) to ensure everything stays updated and prioritized.
(5) Do/Engage – Act on commitments using the 4D Method: Do, Delegate, Defer, or Delete.
Several tools help manage Bottom Up work effectively:
(1) The 2-Minute Rule – If something takes less than two minutes, do it immediately.
(2) The Four Ds Framework – Decide whether to Do, Delegate, Defer, or Delete a task.
(3) Energy Management – Choose tasks based on available energy levels.
(4) Context Approach – Work on tasks suitable for your current location or available resources.
While Top Down work is preferred, Bottom Up ensures we capture and act on incoming tasks without letting them derail our overall mission.
3. Merging the Two Approaches
To maximise productivity, we need one system that seamlessly integrates Top Down and Bottom Up work. The ideal balance would be 60-70% Top Down and 30-40% Bottom Up.
Here is how the two approaches work together:
(1) Weekly Planning (Top Down) – When creating a weekly planner, we start with the Top Down Approach: defining our Mission, identifying Roles, setting Goals, and then determining Actions (Habits, Projects, and Tasks) to accomplish them. This ensures a proactive approach to life and work.
(2) Daily Execution (Bottom Up) – As the week unfolds, unexpected tasks arise. We handle these using the Bottom Up Approach, ensuring they are captured, processed, and added into our system effectively without overwhelming our predefined priorities.
This integrated system allows us to engage in forward planning (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, Decade) while also accommodating the realities of life.
By mastering both approaches, we create a holistic productivity system—one that keeps us moving forward purposefully while allowing flexibility to handle whatever life throws our way.