My favourite time management system

In my last post, I asked commenters to guess which of my own time management systems I prefer myself.  The majority guessed correctly that my favourite is the original Autofocus (AF1) which I introduced in January 2008. I’m not claiming that it is perfect, but for me there is nothing to beat it.

In order for AF1 to work well, there are three important things in the rules which need to be taken seriously. I think a lot of the trouble that people have had with AF1 has been due to neglect of these.

• Tasks which need to be done now, should be done now regardless of where they are in the system (or whether they are in it at all). This applies to both urgent tasks and tasks that need to be done at a specific time of day. However it’s important to realise that the system will cope with most fairly urgent tasks without needing to invoke this rule, just so long as one trusts the system.
• One must not be afraid to dismiss tasks. The rules are quite clear about when tasks should be dismissed and what the consequences of dismissal are. Dismissal and the threat of dismissal are at the heart of the “autofocus” aspect of the system. If you resist dismissing tasks, then the whole system will be thrown out of kilter.
• As a general rule, one should be aiming to cycle through your entire list at least once a day. To do this, you should pay attention to the “little and often” principle.  There are two aspects of this. The first is the number of tasks you work on when you visit a page, and the second is the length of time you work on a task before moving on to another. By adjusting these two, you can avoid the twin evils of getting bogged down in the early pages of the list or chasing the end of the list.

I intend to write more about AF1 and the advantages of using it over the next few weeks. Your own experiences as always are welcome in the Comments or on the Discussion Forum.

Which of my own systems do I like the best?

As those who follow my blog and forum know, I’ve been trying over the last few months without much success to develop a new time management system which will be better than any of my existing ones.

A major problem for me is that I have to use my own life for the initial testing of new ideas. If these ideas don’t work (which in this case they haven’t) then my life is reduced to chaos. Once I’ve abandoned whatever idea it was I was working on, I then have to use one of my existing systems to get my life under control again. In the course of doing this, I’ve revisited just about all my systems (and few other people’s as well).

I’ve found consistently that one system works better than any of the others, that I always feel “at home” when I come back to it, and that I can keep going with it indefinitely. It has its faults, but these can be overcome with a bit of common sense.

Anyone like to guess which it might be? All will be revealed soon.

Now back on-line

After five days without internet, I am now back on-line. I hope there will be no further interruptions to the service.

I have now processed all outstanding requests for accounts for the Discussion Forum. If anyone has applied for an account and it is not yet working, please contact me again with the registration details.

I’ve also approved all non-spam comments on the blog. If anyone has made a non-spam comment which has not yet appeared, please re-post it.

Internet problems

Just to say that I’m likely to be unable to connect with the internet for a week or so due to continuing problems with my ISP. This will affect the signing on of new members for the Forum and the approval of comments on the Blog. It will not effect the discussions by existing members of the Forum.

I may be able to access the internet from time to time by using other people’s connections but your patience is asked for.

Using resistance as a guide

One of the points I made strongly in my first book Get Everything Done And Still Have Time to Play was that I could use my resistance to doing certain tasks as a guide. The reason for this is that the things I tend to resist are those that take me out of my comfort zone. And the things which take me out of my comfort zone tend to be those actions which are going to take my life forward. If I just do those things which I feel comfortable doing, I will end up stuck in a rut.

It would probably be oversimplifying things to say that I could boil this down to two recipes:

1) To be a success: first do the things which you are most resisting.

2) To be a failure: first do the things which you are least resisting.

Hmm… maybe it’s not oversimplifying things much at all!

Anti-spam measures

Because spam has become a major problem on this site, I have been forced to make the following changes:

1) Comments on blog articles will now require approval from me before appearing.

2) You will need to be registered before you can post to the Discussion Group. Click here for instructions on how to register.

Procrastination

Good article by Mark McGuinness on overcoming procrastination - and not just because he quotes me!

Time management when retired - update

I think it’s time to write an update on how my new system for retirees (and non-retirees) is getting on. I’ve had quite a ride with it because my original idea didn’t work out, but further experimentation has resulted in something which I think is going to work very well.

Basically it is a system which combines the best bits of DIT, the AFs and DWM:

1. Like DIT it is based on one day’s work, but it incorporates several improvements to make it more flexible.
2. Like AF it dismisses stuff which you aren’t prepared to do, but does so much more directly.
3. Like AF4 it works on a “backlog” and a “current” list, but ensures that this is related to one day’s work.
4. Like DWM stuff which isn’t done within a certain number of days gets dismissed, but without the endless page turning.
5. And best of all it puts the screws on very quickly with the important stuff, while allowing the urgent less important stuff to flow quickly.

If you can imagine DIT with the problem solved of what to do when you don’t finish all today’s tasks, you’ll be pretty close.

Time management when retired

I had a vision of what it would be like when I retired - I would basically just potter around all day doing the things I enjoyed doing. I would take lots of long walks and visit lots of interesting places. I would at last have time to learn a musical instrument, would perfect my French, Spanish and German, and read loads of books.

Some of that’s happened, but the sense of unlimited time available for what I want to do has so far eluded me. In fact I am so busy most of the time I don’t know how I ever fitted full-time, or even part-time, work into my day. I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing - just not what I’d envisaged.

One of the problems is that I don’t seem to be able to switch my mind off inventing time management systems. I’m always getting brilliant ideas, and when I get a brilliant idea I want to try it out. And if I’m trying it out then I want to tell other people about it, and discuss it with them and get them to try it out too. So before I know it, I’m doing almost as much work for nothing as I was previously doing for money.

The above is just a preamble to saying that I have now come up with yet another new time management system. It is however very different in the way it works from the Autofocus and DWM systems which I have introduced over the last sixteen months or so. About all it has in common with them is that it uses one long list.

What it does do however is what the Autofocus systems aimed to do, but never quite achieved, which is to autofocus - to zoom in on the things which really matter while not neglecting the mundane but essential tasks which are part of everyone’s lives. So I’ve actually started to get moving with the walks, the music, the languages, the trips and the books. And I may even be able to find time without too much difficultly for that fund raising project which my church seems keen to get me involved in.

How does it work? It’s too early to go into detail, but it is basically a new way of combining some of the time management principles which I have worked on over the years, plus some new ideas.

More soon.

P.S. I almost forgot to say that I think it will work just as well for those who are not retired!

Qlockwork v. 2

A couple of years ago, I blogged about a useful program called Qlockwork, which keeps track automatically of your computer use.

I’ve been notified by the publishers of the program that there is now a Version 2 which can be downloaded on 30-day free trial from their site.

Update on Monday, April 19, 2010 at 16:50 by Mark Forster

I’ve since received the following:

Hello Mark,

I noticed your recent post about Qlockwork.

I wanted to say that I’ve worked on a similar application myself, and have just released it. It’s called iFocus and you can check it out at www.ifocusonwork.com

It has some advantages over Qlockwork in that it’s 1. Free and 2. Allows  you to set goals for using certain applications and optionally choose to have them enforced.

Perhaps you want to mention it to your readers or use it yourself. Congratulations on getting so many people to follow you. I will read carefully over the description of the Autofocus system and will link to it from my site.

Rareş, from Boston, MA

Italian version of "Do It Tomorrow" now on sale

The Italian version of “Do It Tomorrow” published by Sangiovanni’s is now on sale (price € 15.95). You can read more details (in Italian) and order by clicking here.

A couple of options for DWM

Here are a couple of options which I have been trying out for DWM, which have the aim of ensuring that you can keep the important stuff moving. You can use both of them at the same time if you wish:

1) The Current Initiative.

This is similar to the Current Initiative in DIT and is designed to be “The thing that you do first every day”. The idea is to select one project to which you want to give special treatment for a while.

The method is to write the selected project in BLOCK CAPS on your list. Every day when you start work on your list, your starting point is that project. You must do some work on it before moving on to any other task. Apart from these rules, you treat it like any other recurring task.

Once you have completed the project or got it sufficiently up and running, you can select a new Current Initiative.

2) Next Pass Mark-Up.

At present when you scan through the list you can either pass by a task or do some work on it. The “Next Pass Mark-Up” adds one further thing you can do, which is to mark the task up for action on the next pass through the list.

You then must take some action on that task on the next pass, unless it is physically impossible to do so.

Unlike the Current Initiative, under which a project remains Current Initiative until another one is chosen, the Next Pass Mark-Up does not remain with the task if it is re-entered.

This is not intended to be a method of prioritising tasks, and therefore tasks can only be given this designation as they are considered for action during a normal pass through the list.

The mark-up should be used very sparingly, otherwise the list may be slowed down and resistance increased.

The recommended method of marking a task for this purpose is to draw a small circle in front of it:

○ Call Bill Smith

This can then be filled in when you start work on the task, so that your current place on the list is marked (like the normal dot):

● Call Bill Smith

And finally the task is crossed out in the normal way when you finish working on it:

● Call Bill Smith

Is DWM closer to DIT or AF?

Please note: This post assumes a knowledge of both the “Do It Tomorrow” (DIT) and the Day-Week-Month (DWM) time management systems. If you don’t have this knowledge please don’t bother to read it!

One thing that’s becoming increasingly clear to me as I work the new DWM system is that it is not just close to DIT, but actually is DIT.

To see this, let’s examine the statistics which I published in my previous post on February 5th:

Feb 6. 0 (36)

Feb 7. 0 (46)

Feb 8. 0 (50)

Feb 9. 0 (40)

Feb 10. 1 (43)

Feb 11. 16 (62)

Feb 12. 25 (42)

Remember that in DIT you enter all tasks by default under tomorrow’s date with the idea that you take action on them tomorrow. There are however two important exceptions to this. One is that you can enter urgent tasks “below the line” so that they are done today instead of tomorrow. The other is that you can allow yourself to get behind by 4 or 5 days. If you get further behind than that you are supposed to audit your commitments.

If you look more closely at the statistics qyoted above you can see that DWM has kept completely to these principles, except that it has moved the entry point one week into the future. February 12 was where tasks for “tomorrow” were added, and February 11th was today’s list. February 10 consisted of one task which had got behind one day. The 17 tasks shown as already completed on February 12 were the equivalent of DIT’s urgent tasks entered “below the line” today.

Feb 6. 0 (36)

Feb 7. 0 (46)

Feb 8. 0 (50)

Feb 9. 0 (40)

Feb 10. 1 (43) = DIT’s “Behind by 1 day”

Feb 11. 16 (62) = DIT’s “Today”

Feb 12. 25 (42) = DIT’s “Tomorrow”

The only real changes to DIT, apart from the method of entry, are:

1) There is now no need to make a distinction between “same day” tasks and “everything else”.

2) The rather nebulous audit procedure in DIT has been changed into an automatic dismissal process.

I’m sure you will be asking “What about DWM’s 1-month entry point?”

Well, all the 1-month entry point is really doing is adding a pre-screening process to DIT. Instead of relying on the audit to weed out unnecessary tasks, there is now a process by which anything can be added to the list but is weeded out automatically if it no action is taken on it within one month. It also means that anything that gets on the 1-week list has had at least some preliminary action taken on it. There will of course come a time when unactioned 1-month entries co-exist on the same page as new 1-week entry tasks, but there is unlikely to be much confusion between them.

Day 7

I’ve now been working DWM for a complete week and it’s still working extremely well for me. I don’t intend to publish another summary for at least a week unless something happens worth reporting.

Here are the stats for the pages I’ve used so far:

Feb 6. 0 (36)

Feb 7. 0 (46)

Feb 8. 0 (50)

Feb 9. 0 (40)

Feb 10. 1 (43)

Feb 11. 16 (62)

Feb 12. 25 (42)

————

Feb 28. 18 (99)

Mar 1. 5 (27)

Mar 2. 5 (33)

Mar 3. 5 (11)

Mar 4. 29 (47)

Mar 5. 6 (18)

Totals: 105 (554)

Day 6

All still going well with DWM. I don’t remember enjoying working any of my previous systems as much as this one.

I’ve now completed all the actions for the first three pages: Feb 6, 7 and 8 and there is only one left on Feb 9, so I don’t think I will have any tasks being dismissed until Wednesday next week at the earliest.

Repetitive nature of work

The new DWM system is throwing up some interesting new perspectives. One that has struck me quite forcibly is the repetitive nature of most of my work. Previous time management systems have tended to disguise the number of times that one re-enters the same task on the list.

But DWM separates out re-entered tasks from new tasks, and rather to my surprise I discovered that the number of new tasks that I’m putting on the list is decidedly in the minority. For example, yesterday I re-entered 43 tasks and only added 11 new tasks.

This reinforces a point I have often made, which is that good systems are all important in being well-organised. If the majority of tasks are repetitious, then making sure that those tasks are being carried out as efficiently as possible will bring about huge time savings.

Day 5

I haven’t been around much today because of some outside engagements, but nevertheless the new DWM system has proved its worth. Everything I needed to get done has got done, and quite a bit more. My pages for Feb 6th and Feb 7th have now got no unactioned tasks on them, so I won’t be in danger of any tasks being dismissed until next Monday.

The real crunch of course will come in eighteen days time when the original 1-month page becomes the 1-week page. Until then it is really impossible to judge the system properly.

In the meantime, I keep feeling more and more that the system is very psychologically powerful. I don’t think that I’ve felt quite so motivated and in control of my time with any of my previous systems.

Provisional name for new system

It’s a bit unsatisfactory referring to the new system as DIT2/AF5 so I’ve decided to refer to it from now, until we come up a better, by the provisional name “The Day/Week/Month Time Management System”, for short “DWM”.

Day 4 Stats

Day 4 has gone even better than Days 1-3, in spite of my broadband connection failing late this afternoon which is why I’m writing this at 12.45 am. I’m beginning to appreciate the power of this system.

Here are the stats as they are now:

Feb 6. 0 (36)

Feb 7. 1 (46)

Feb 8. 8 (50)

Feb 9. 23 (39)

Feb 28. 25 (99)

Mar 1. 6 (27)

Mar 2. 14 (31)

Totals: 77 (328)

Day 3 Stats

I’ve been working my new system now for three days. So here are the statistics as at the end of Day 3 for each active page that I have now. The first figure is the number of task remaining unactioned on the page. The second figure (in brackets) is the total number on the page.

Feb 6.  2 (36)

Feb 7. 10 (46)

Feb 8.  23 (40)

Feb 28. 27 (99)

Mar 1. 4 (24)

Totals: 66 (244)

Bear in mind that because of the short month, Feb 28 was open to new entries for two days.