The Six-Level Work Audit
Map your total commitments across six altitudes to know where you truly stand
The Six-Level Work Audit answers the deceptively difficult question 'What is your job?' by revealing that your total 'work' exists across six distinct altitudes, from ground-level actions to your ultimate life purpose. Most people can articulate one or two of these levels clearly but have significant blind spots at the others, leading to a perpetual sense of misalignment and stress.
The framework operates on the principle that a map is not functional until you know where you are on it. Without an honest, current inventory of commitments across all six levels, you cannot meaningfully set priorities because you lack the reference points needed to evaluate importance. Allen finds that most people have never completed this full inventory and that spending ten to fifteen hours just identifying work at the two most operational levels (actions and projects) is common.
The critical insight is that you should work from the bottom up, not the top down. Unlike most goal-setting approaches that start with vision and purpose, Allen argues it is nearly impossible to focus on the bigger picture when the vast majority of your subliminal energy is consumed by unmanaged operational open loops. Clear the ground level first, and the natural inspiration for higher-level thinking emerges organically.
- Getting to where you are going requires knowing where you are right now
- You cannot set trustworthy priorities without a complete inventory of commitments at all levels
- Acceptance of what is true about your current reality will change it in quantum positive ways
- Clear the operational decks before attempting visionary thinking, because subliminal open loops consume the energy needed for higher-level focus
- Inventory Current Actions (Runway)List every physical action you need to take right now: phone calls, emails to send, conversations to have, errands to run, things to research. Most people have between 100 and 200 of these at any given time. Be ruthlessly complete -- include personal and professional actions.Pro tipOrganize these by context (calls to make, things to do at computer, errands, items to discuss with specific people) to make them actionable when opportunities arise.
- Inventory Current Projects (10,000 Feet)List every outcome you have committed to achieve that requires more than one action step. This includes everything from 'get new tires' to 'buy a company.' Most people have between 30 and 100 active projects. Make no distinctions about priorities, time frame, or size.Pro tipThe only meaningful distinction is between active projects and someday/maybe. If it is on your projects list, it needs a defined next action. If you are not committed to moving on it now, put it on the someday/maybe list.WarningPeople resist creating a complete projects list more than almost any other productivity practice. This resistance is itself a signal that the exercise will be transformative.
- Inventory Areas of Responsibility (20,000 Feet)Identify your 10-15 key areas of ongoing responsibility. Professionally, these might include staff development, asset management, planning, customer service. Personally: finances, health, family, household, career, recreation. These are not things to finish but standards to maintain.Pro tipReview these monthly to ensure you have the right projects defined to keep each area at the standard you require.
- Clarify Near-Term Changes (30,000 Feet)Identify how your job and personal affairs will be changing in the next 12-18 months. These are objectives, goals, intentions for change, and large projects that represent shifts from the current state.Pro tipReview quarterly. Changes at this altitude should trigger new projects at the 10,000-foot level.
- Envision Longer-Term Direction (40,000 Feet)Articulate how your organization, career, and personal life should look in three to five years. These bigger pictures inform the goals and objectives at the 30,000-foot level and help you evaluate whether current projects are aligned with where you want to be.Pro tipReview annually. Allow yourself to envision freely without immediate concern for feasibility.
- Connect to Purpose (50,000+ Feet)Clarify your ultimate purpose -- why you are on the planet. This is your 'job' as a human being. If you really arrive at this answer, once should be enough, though regular check-ins help keep everything below aligned.Pro tipPurpose should not be confused with a specific goal. It is the criterion against which all other levels are evaluated.WarningDo not skip to this level before completing the lower levels. The clarity needed for genuine purpose work requires that operational noise has been quieted first.
When asked 'How do I set priorities?', Allen always responded with 'What is your job?' He would then guide executives through all six levels, often spending ten to fifteen hours just on actions and projects. Without this complete inventory, priority-setting was arbitrary because there was no reference point for what was more important than what.
Allen observed that many people had a vague sense that they wanted to do or be something different in the future. But without a reality-based reference point of where they actually were across all levels of life, they drifted endlessly. Like the Flying Dutchman, they were doomed to wander because they had no fixed position from which to navigate.
Allen developed this hierarchy through years of one-on-one coaching, consistently finding that when people asked about setting priorities, they could not answer the prerequisite question of what their job actually was. He discovered that complete identification required examining six distinct levels, and that people who had not addressed the basic questions about what they were doing right now were resistant to thinking about what needed to change. The bottom-up approach emerged from observing that clearing the operational decks reliably sparked natural creativity and vision at higher altitudes.