The Vision Filter
A Simple Method to Magnify Intention
This article requires an understanding of commitments and uses the word commitment in place of tasks, to-dos, action items, etc.
Forget nagging or lists; my wife discovered the ultimate loophole for getting me to do things—she sends me an email. She is careful when, why, and how often she leverages this power, but a few of times a year I get a short request in my inbox. I'm not mad, we talk about a thousand things that we could do. Her emails are a signal through the noise.
If it was only my wife, I could live with it. It becomes problematic when other people discover this trick. If you email me, it gets my attention. If you get my attention, I often commit to a resolution. It's the same reason I dread meetings. Not because of the usual—that they are unproductive, aimless, or irrelevant. It's because meetings are full of issues and, frankly, I can't help my self.
The tricky thing about commitments is that they are easy to create. Agreeing to write a book and agreeing to write an email require about the same amount of effort.
Satisfying them is a different story.
Every commitment, large or small, claims some future time, energy, and focus. If you're not careful they will overwhelm your capacity. This situation leads to a host of issues. Pick your affliction: burnout, stress, anxiety, exhaustion, pressure, fatigue, irritation, or regret. You're either doing too much, doing too much for others, or what you're doing is misaligned with who you are and what you desire.1
The modern world clubs us over the head with opportunity: bottomless problems at work, endless extracurriculars for the kids, and a relentless push for perfection online. This influx of potential commitments does more than overwhelm—it cripples.
And what happens when we inevitably take on too much? The easy solution is to eliminate commitments. Yet here's the problem: they are far more difficult to break than they are to create.
The first to go are the commitments to your self.
You skip the workout.
You grab fast food.
You go to bed late.
It's because breaking commitments to others goes against our nature. It's an admission of limitation, an acceptance of defeat, or a promise broken. We're just not wired that way.
What's Missing?
Much of traditional productivity advice is geared towards doing more, maximizing time, prioritizing, or organizing. This avoids the root problem. We need to examine the moment of the commitment. We should strive to maximize the right commitments, not satisfy more of them.
There are many methods for setting priorities, delegating, or guiding focus. They are either too complicated, require holistic assessment, or treat the symptoms. We need a solution that is simple so it can be done in the moment and atomic so we can run it on individual items in a vacuum.
We need a vision filter.
A vision filter is a method to categorize commitments—potential or otherwise—into three types: obligations, intentions, and distractions.
We define those as follows:
Obligation - a commitment towards another's vision.
Intention - a commitment towards your vision.
Distraction - a commitment towards no vision.
Like everything, the world has made the concept of a vision far more complicated than it ought to be. We're told about 1, 3, 5, and 10yr plans. We're instructed to create vision boards, narratives, and newspaper headlines. These can be useful tools but are overkill for most purposes. A vision can—and should—be simple.
Our definition of a vision: a set of outcomes that someone has committed to pursue.
Outcomes come in all shapes and sizes. They can be big: write a book. They can be small: read a book. They can be lofty: travel to every continent. They can be modest: travel to another state. The specifics don't matter—only the outcomes.
Example
Let's test the vision filter with a simple commitment: get a passport.
You need two things:
Who did you commit to.2
For what outcome?
Let's say you work for someone else and you're traveling to a conference to generate new business. You committed to your employer—to increase revenue. Obligation.
Let's say you've been planning a trip to Costa Rica so you can sit on the beach. You've committed to your self—to relax. Intention.
Let's say you saw a friend was traveling abroad and you thought it'd be a good idea. You've committed to your self—for no reason. Distraction.
It's not always clear. While you're at that conference you may get certified and satisfy a personal goal. The commitment is still an obligation, you wouldn't be traveling if it wasn't prompted by your employer. Yet you're leveraging the trip for an intention.3
It's unrealistic to remove all of your obligations—life is full of them. One might be tempted to align your work towards a personal vision. There is merit in that approach, but it comes with limits and pitfalls. The truth is, many obligations and distractions can be avoided. It's worth the effort—saying no is the ultimate productivity method.
Creating a Vision
You can't have a vision filter without a vision. If you don't know where you're going then everything you do for your self is a distraction.4 Establishing a vision should be easy. One of my goals last year was to improve my sleep. I could've chosen multiple goals around wellness. Yet just three words gave immense focus. They filtered all possible commitments into a narrow band that resulted in real progress.
Don't have a vision? What are you waiting for?
You can do it in 15 minutes. Take five and write down everything in your life you want to be different. Take the next five and cross out all but three of those items.5 Take the last five to write them as SMART6 as you can.
The next step is to commit.
Don't get caught up in the outcome. Commit to the pursuit—to consistent action towards the goal. Say them out loud and say them often.
"I commit to pursuing..."
Then you must use it.
Run your existing commitments through the vision filter. Consider the obligations, cut the distractions, and keep the intentions. If you can, break obligations. If you can't, ruthlessly satisfy them. That means approaching them with efficiency—allocating the minimum time, energy, and focus. Meet the quality standards that the outcome demands and nothing more. Batch, delegate, and timebox. Be wary: obligations are primed for procrastination. You must strive to remove obligations and distractions and shift your focus towards intentions.
It will be difficult to train your self to use the vision filter on new or potential commitments. If you're prone to taking things on for others or chasing distractions, it will take a concerted effort to integrate this method into your daily operations.
With practice, your vision filter will become second nature, steering you away from distractions and obligations and funneling you towards the future you've committed to pursue.
Overloading one's capacity is not the sole cause of these afflictions. Please consider seeking professional assistance if these experiences are—or become—chronic.
We refer to this as the impetus of the commitment.
Be careful with this line of thinking. You can distort any commitment if you try hard enough.
Distractions aren't all bad. I have a few projects I would classify as a distraction. When I work on them I accept that I need a diversion. Guilting your self isn't worth it, but the moniker of a distraction helps limit my effort.
Don't have three things? Celebrate! Less is more—having one goal is doing things right.
SMART: Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound. If you're getting started with goal setting, don't worry too much about this. Anything is better than nothing. Do your best, move on, and learn.
Nice. Never thought about it like that. I have been getting better at saying no to obligations though. Baby steps.