Sunday
Feb152009
AT LAST: Autofocus - the Video!!
Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 22:01 Here’s what you have all been waiting for:
Many thanks to TaraghB for interviewing me and producing and editing the video.
Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 22:01
Reader Comments (43)
I can think of Vimeo, MetaCafe, and DailyMotion as alternative sites.
Best wishes
Taragh
One of the useful things was seeing the speed at which you do the first pass through a page ("Read quickly through all the items on the page without taking action"). I'd been wondering if I was doing it too quickly or slowly, although I realised that was a pretty stupid thing to worry about. :)
Great video - I'm sure this will answer a lot of questions for people. Thanks Taragh for producing it!
Thanks for this video - it has been really helpful to me. I am a very visual person and so actually seeing your list and how you use it has really made a difference. I love video tuition and as a way if sharing knowledge - thanks also to Taragh.
It was good to see that your notebook has many active pages. ; )
Thanks a lot.
I also don't get the "do what you feel like doing" or "do what's ready to be done" attitude. I only *wish* I could work that way. Unfortunately, my items do not share a priority or urgency. Some things are more important and/or more urgent (often with hard deadlines). So what I "feel" like doing or what's "ready" to be done is not likely to be the item I *should* be doing.
And I don't intend to start a flame war over the "paper vs. electronic" issue, but this paper-based system seems to have several flaws. First, what if you lose it or it gets wet or damaged? (My system is online, backed up in several places, and accessible from anywhere on the planet with an Internet connection (as well as offline on my laptop)). Second, if I've got 10 or 20 pages of tasks, how long would it take me to search for something particular? Third, just the re-writing of repetitive tasks and things I choose to defer could take a lot of time.
I apologize, but I'm just not getting this. Is there really something revolutionary here that I'm just not seeing, or is it perhaps an "Emperor's New Clothes" kind of thing?
I'm sure I've mentioned this idea to you on a previous occassion, but this delightful video experience compels me to repeat myself. I wish you would either tape one of your DIT seminars or do something similar to this video. Of course, it would need to be longer.....but then you could add a price tag to it. It could either be something downloadable or a DVD. Many of us would gladly pay to have it. Although I can appreciate how Autofocus has helped many people, there are as least as many who still prefer DIT (or a customized hybrid version) to stay current. All of your alternatives are bold, original and helpful to so many people. Thank you!
learning as I go
I, too, need to plan my week, month, etc via a review and planning process and then use the daily plan as the most granular unit. I need to have a target to aim at. The autofocus method overwhelmed me.
But.......everybody doesn't think and do alike. I tried autofocus and it didn't work for me at all but I am quite happy that Mark offerred up a new idea that helps many, many people. I've learned that it's almost impossible to truly understand the underpinnings of people's thinking and doing styles that are so diametrically different than my own. None is neither superior nor inferior to the others as long as one feels satisfied with their meeting their responsibilities and accomplishing their goals in a timely manner that gives proper satisfaction to their overall quality of life.
We're simply viewing this from a productivity angle. What varied talents and unique abilities spring forth from the many different styles of thinking....that's what leaves me in awe!
learning as I go
Hi Mark - This a truly innovative system. I appreciate the 'flow' element which dove tails so well with current research on brain plasticity. This system is a tool - not a master - and fits well with the way many people in all walks of life are trying to live and work more intuitively. Cheers.
Although I can understand your initial reaction - I had a similar feeling of "Emperor's New Clothes" myself - you should consider 2 very strong benefits of this method:
1) the extreme simplicity of "collecting" tasks - in many other systems there is a threshold of entering new stuff because where you enter it is important. Here you just enter it at the end of the one single list you have, period.
2) the regular review of tasks is done automatically as part of the methodology - in many other systems there will always be "dust gathering in the corners", and by that I mean that there will be legacy tasks that you have entered somewhere smart that just seems to sit there forever. The solution in those systems is to have regular review sessions where you spend time rethinking, reorganizing and deleting dead tasks. In AF you just dismiss them as part of the daily process.
In many other systems you end up spending a lot of time fiddling with the system itself - entering, selecting, and reorganizing where tasks and projects and actions should be, and browsing through dead tasks. The AF method removes those time drainers for you.
Now, I should say that I am myself still in favor of the DIT methodology, but I am beginning to experiment with AF. The reason I still work with DIT is because I feel there it is more goal-driven and AF feels so far to be more activity-driven. My fear is that I will be very busy doing a lot of tasks, but that I am missing doing the things that bring me closer to my goals. With DIT I can select those goal oriented things in the morning and put in my closed list for the day. I would be interested to hear what others have to say about this in AF?
Thanks for all of it Mark. You are a star.
thanks to both of you for the video. This is very helpful.
And YouTube even has miraculously become unblocked in my office. Maybe this is due to some hidden power in AF?
:-)
I don't imagine anything I can say would persuade you to give AF a try, but you might be interested in reading the comments at the Lifehacker review http://bit.ly/OrTjZ
I work in an office in our home, and as well as housework etc., also have other community commitments as well as serious study with regular deadlines. Multi-tasking has me answering the phone with one hand while filling the washing machine with the other. The 'must-be-dones' can't go on an intuitive list.
I've just remembered that you said to keep a seperate list for business and home. I forgot that. Would that mean that you keep a seperate list if you have a lot of study with deadlines, too? I am beginning to see that the answer is to stay in one role, and go through the list for that role for the allotted time. Is that right?
Would you keep all the roles seperate, but in one notebook?
This video was actually very useful to me, if only to reinforce that yes, it really is that simple. There is no advanced set of tricks to Autofocus: you just start your list, start skimming pages and then do the work. I'm not missing something; it really is as elegant as the instructions made it out to be. Nice work, Mark.
The reason you don't get it, is that you haven't tried it. You are mixing up many concepts in your argument, all of which are addressed by the system.
As Einstein said: In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice they are not.
I am so glad I stopped by and watched the video. I tend to work on many projects at once and need a system to keep track of the tasks. I have given up on most systems foe a couple of reasons 1) I spend too much time organising the system that it becomes unproductive 2) My motivation is fleeting. If I work on a task when I am motivated then I get into a 'flow' state and both my productivity and quality improve. I hate working a task "just 'cause its on the list" when I really feel like doing somthing else.
I will start tomorrow and post back next week with how I find it.
How long did you try the system for when you first signed up? Most people find that it is better at getting us to meet deadlines than our rationalising about priorities. The system is not "intuitive" versus "rational". It is intuitive in balance with rational, and delivers better results than either on their own.
If you are working at home, my advice would generally be to have one list for everything. But if you are doing serious study, then you might experiment with blocking off time for study only and having a separate list for that.
At the end of the day, the best answer is what works for you.
Remember the system encourages "little and often" working. If you are spending a lot of time on one page, then I suggest you loosen off a bit and don't feel you have to finish tasks or do nearly everything on the page. If you are moving fairly rapidly round the list, everything works much better, and you are unlikely to get caught out by items with a hard deadline.
Remember too the common sense rule that if something needs to be done now, then do it now. If you know that you aren't going to reach a task before its deadline, then just do it. However my experience is that the more experience you get with AF, the less this will happen.
That really rang a bell in my head. I've been paying almost all my attention to my first page and hardly ever looking at the later pages, and it's been worrying me. May I suggest that you add those sentences or something similar to the main instructions? Perhaps in the Do/Don't section? I know it should be obvious if one really thinks about the process, but I've just realised it's really helped me to have it spelled out explicitly. Your words are gold. :)
When I have finished a page, I cut the corner off at the top - making it really quick to find the last active page.
I have always been able to learn better when I have been shown how something is supposed to work. Seems to transfix it in my mind.
Looking at it now I could easily apply as much, or as little, structure around Autofocus as is required. Keeping some of my Task Diary elements for items that require being done on a certain day and my Unschedule for just keeping me generally grounded.
I am looking forward now to giving it another go. I admit I think I got it very wrong before.
Unlike Alys, I tend to put most of my attention on the last page and feel a bit resistant to going back through the old ones.
And I also found the system a bit difficult to get started with, as I had several deadlines coming up. I guess the commonsense rule a couple of messages up takes care of that in a way, but it might be worth noting that nothing will have had much chance of being filtered through the system at the beginning.
Also, is this actually a new system, or a method that fits into systems such as DIT?
You are right that it does get easier as you go on and more of your work has been filtered by the system. At the moment I almost never have to invoke the commonsense rule because the system delivers things on time without fuss.
Yes, this is a new system though many of the principles of DIT can also be applied to it.
That's not quite right. You pick one item that stands out, do it and then carry on round the same page until no items stand out. Then you move on to the next page. Of course it's quite possible that only one item will stand out -especially if you've already visited the page several times.
Dismissing an item by highlighting it makes it stand out, not disappear. The highlighted tasks become Someday/Maybe items.
I have resisting dismissing items because I hate losing the ideas and dreams they represent. But that's not what Mark intends. These items get highlighted and made special. They're easy to find again -- all I have to do is look for the highlighted rows.
Yes, I might be fooling myself about ever getting back to those things, and it's possible to go too far the other way (highlighting becomes procrastination), but I'm going to play around with the new (to me) insight for a while.
1. What are the major points from DIT that you would still emphasize?
2. If I have a project with, let's say, 12 individual items, would I list each item in the list or just the name of the project with the steps located elsewhere?
3. Is there still a daily closed list component written out (as well as the list for tomorrow) or does the system work from the major list?
Thank you for your time.
1. You might find this interview with me useful http://www.markforster.net/blog/2010/2/1/video-interview-with-mark-forster.html
2. You can do it either way.
3. No, this new system is entirely different from DIT. That doesn't mean you can't still use DIT of course.
I noticed how slowly he went down the page, pointing to each item, and then went over the page more slowly, pointing with his pen to each item until one stood out.
Autofocus rules: "Read quickly through all the items on the page without taking action on any of them."
Video: "So, what I do when I come onto a page is I just glance down it, and using a pen, a pointer, or even your finger, just go down looking at each item in turn very briefly, with no intention of doing any of them at all. That’s just to get the page fixed in your mind — what is on it? Your mind is subconsciously starting to think about what order you should be doing things in and whether you should be doing them at all."
My comment: I notice in the video that he pointed with his pen to each item on the page. I have tended to scan the whole page at once, but this is better. I can see that he focused on each item going down the list.
Autofocus rules: "Go through the page more slowly looking at the items in order until one stands out for you."
Video: "The next stage is to start again at the top, and this time go down it a little more slowly, looking at each item and pausing your pen at it until you come to an item which you feel is ready to be done.Now, what do I mean by that? I basically mean that you get that feeling in your mind as you look at the item — okay, I can do that now. It may be a sense of release, it may be very subtle, maybe nothing at all — you may just think, okay, I’m going to do that. So, I’ve just come to this item here — “email.” I’ve decided I’m going to do email, and I commit myself to that item by putting a dot against it. That helps me find out where I am, but it’s also the first action in doing the item. The first step is always the most difficult, so the first step is to put a dot against the item."
My comment: I can see in the video that again he pointed with his pen to each item. He also suggested the finger could be used.
I have started using an index card or slip of paper when going down the page so that the line above the index card is visible. This also slows the process down and makes the open items more visible.
Autofocus rules: "Don’t move onto the next page until you complete a pass of the page without any item standing out"
Video: "So, I’ve done that task. What do I do next? I just carry on down the page in exactly the same way until I come to the next thing I want to do. I carry on down until I get to the end of the page. And what do I do then? I start again at the top until I’ve gone right down the page without doing any items. That means I’ve done all the items on that page which I feel ready to do now."
My comment: I didn't dawn on me that he is looking at each item on the page at least twice, and if there is an item that he does, he scans each item at least one other time before moving on.
And here in the video he describes the Autofocus system:
"And the reason I call it the Autofocus system is because of the way it’s designed — you’ve basically got a series of closed lists, and it actually focuses your mind in such a way, on a fairly narrow segment of what you’ve got to do, that your intuition can come into play.
What we’re trying to do here is get the rational part of your mind in tune with the intuitive part. If you like to put it another way — the left brain in tune with the right brain. There are all sorts of ways you can put it. I don’t want to be terribly scientific about it, but when you’re making decisions with your mind in balance, rational decisions often come from feeling you ought to do something, while the rest of you is saying, No, I don’t want to do that.
But if you’re making decisions purely out of your feelings, often they’re not very logical and can lead you astray. If you can get the rational and intuitive sides of yourself in balance, then you’ll be making decisions that make sense both from a rational point of view and from how you’re actually feeling about it."
My comment: Here he says that each page is a closed list. In DIT, he treated each day's list as a closed list.
And then he discusses the balancing of the rational side and intuitive side.
DIT was more rational rather than reactive.
And the Dreams was more intuitive.
So perhaps in the Autofocus system he was looking for a way to combine both elements.
I will post the entire transcript of the video.
0:01 Hello. I have read all these books by 0:03 Mark Fer. Firstly, Get Everything Down 0:05 Done and Still Have Time to Play. Loved 0:07 it. One of my favorites. Still use some 0:09 techniques from that um now every day. 0:13 And how to make your dreams come true 0:14 written in a very interesting format. Do 0:17 it tomorrow. More ideas from Mark on 0:19 time management. But this video is about 0:22 autofocus, which is Mark's brand new 0:24 system. Very, very simple. And he hasn't 0:27 written a book. Well, not 0:29 yet. Um, you can go to his website and 0:32 get some very simple instructions to get 0:34 started straight away. So, I was lucky 0:37 enough to have lunch with Mark and I got 0:39 to ask him a few questions. How would 0:41 you summarize it? Well, it's actually 0:44 very very simple. Um, because the auto 0:47 system consists of one gigantic 0:50 list. Um, and you simply write down 0:53 things as they occur to you. But what 0:55 you're doing is dealing with thought one 0:57 page at a time. You take each page as a 1:00 separate unit and work on it for as long 1:03 as you feel like working on it. And when 1:05 you've finished, you then move on to the 1:07 next page and work on that. And 1:08 eventually go back to the beginning. And 1:10 that means that the number of items in 1:12 each page is getting smaller and smaller 1:15 uh each time you go go around. And that 1:18 produces an effect which is called the 1:20 closed list effect which means that you 1:23 actually get all the items on the page 1:25 done. Um rather than just zoom ahead 1:28 with the with the with the easy ones. 1:31 Okay. It be really interesting to see 1:34 how you actually choose what to do on 1:37 your list and how you decide to go to 1:40 the next page. Sure. Can do that. Well, 1:42 this is actually my genuine list which 1:45 you can zoom in on. uh which has got 1:48 some pretty strange items on it. So 1:49 don't zoom too close. But um this is 1:54 actually the last page we won and I've 1:56 just gone over the the edge here into a 1:59 new page. 2:01 So, what I do when I come onto a page is 2:04 I just glance down it and using a pen or 2:09 a pointer, whatever you'd like to use or 2:10 your finger, just go down it looking at 2:14 each item in turn very briefly with no 2:17 intention of doing any of them at all. 2:20 And that's just to get the page fixed in 2:22 your mind. What is on it? What is on it? 2:25 and your mind is subconsciously 2:28 um starting already to think about what 2:30 order you should be doing things and 2:32 whether you should be doing things or 2:33 not. So the next stage is to start again 2:35 at the top and this time go down it a 2:38 little bit more slowly just looking at 2:40 each 2:41 item and pausing your pen at it until 2:46 you come to an item which you 2:48 feel is ready to be done. Now what do I 2:52 mean by that? I just basically mean that 2:54 the item um that you get that feeling in 2:57 your mind as you look at the item. Okay, 2:59 I can do that now. Uh it may be a sense 3:02 of release. It may be just a very subtle 3:04 feeling. Maybe nothing at all. You may 3:06 just think, okay, I'm going to do that. 3:08 So, I've just come to this item here, 3:10 email. Um I've decided I'm going to do 3:12 email and I commit myself to that item 3:15 by putting a dot against it. 3:19 um that helps me to find out where I am, 3:22 but it also is just the first action in 3:23 doing the item. The first step is always 3:25 the most difficult. So the first step is 3:29 to put a dot against the item. So I go 3:31 off and do my email. Um and when I 3:33 finish that, what I do is because email 3:38 is something I am constantly going to be 3:40 coming back to is I write it at the end 3:44 of the 3:44 list and it's best to do it in this 3:47 order. write it at the end of the list 3:49 and then cross out the first 3:52 one. So, I've done that task. What do I 3:55 do next? I just carry on down the page 3:57 in exactly the same way until I come to 4:00 the next thing I want to do. Just carry 4:02 on down until I get to the end of the 4:05 page. And what do I do then? I start 4:07 again at the 4:09 top 4:11 until I've gone right down the 4:14 page without doing any items. That means 4:18 I've done all the items on that page 4:20 which I feel ready to do now. What do I 4:24 do then? I turn over the page and start 4:27 on the next page. Right now I don't 4:31 cross anything out or dismiss anything 4:32 at this stage. 4:34 um I just carry on and as I think of 4:38 things or as they come up um I will be 4:40 adding them to the end of the list. So 4:42 that's the simple process. When I 4:44 finally got to the end and there's 4:45 nothing more that I want to do on this 4:48 last page, I will go back to the 4:52 beginning. Now where's that 4:54 going? Um goes back a long way. And what 4:58 I do is when I've finished a page 5:00 completely is I put a cross against it. 5:05 See 5:05 that? And when there's no active pages 5:10 before it, I put a circle around the 5:13 cross. And that means there's nothing 5:15 active before that cross. So what I've 5:18 got to do is to find the last active 5:20 page. That's a cross without a circle. I 5:24 There's the active page. Um, and I've 5:26 just got two items left on that. Um, so 5:30 again, what I do is exactly the same as 5:31 before. Just read those two items 5:34 without any intention to do them and 5:37 then look at them a little bit harder 5:41 and decide which one I'm going to 5:43 do. If I decide I'm not going to do 5:45 either of them, which is quite likely to 5:48 happen down to a few items, what I do is 5:51 dismiss the item. It means that I've 5:54 been through this page loads of times 5:56 already. So these items have had plenty 5:58 of chance to get done. And what I do to 6:00 dismiss an item, you can see it on this 6:02 page here, is that I highlighted. Three 6:05 items got dismissed on that particular 6:09 page. They were basically three items 6:11 which for one reason or another I don't 6:14 actually feel I really want to do. I put 6:16 them down because I thought I ought to 6:18 do them. But in each of those 6:21 cases, I wanted it was a feeling I ought 6:24 to do them rather than that I really 6:26 wanted to do. So, they're out. Um, and I 6:29 haven't actually at any stage re-entered 6:31 them because I still don't want to do 6:33 them and don't feel they're relevant at 6:34 the moment. Um, if I did want to 6:36 re-enter an item at the end of the list, 6:39 um, it's a good idea to look at it 6:41 carefully and rephrase it a bit, break 6:43 it down so that it's easier to do. And 6:46 one of the things that you're saying 6:47 about little and often is a good 6:49 approach. Yeah. One of the things to 6:51 realize is before you 6:53 actually can strike out an item, all you 6:57 have to do is some work on it. You don't 7:00 have to finish 7:01 it. So for instance, if I was doing the 7:03 email and I had a particularly large 7:06 batch of email, I got halfway through it 7:08 and thought I can't bother doing more of 7:11 this. I could simply cross it out and 7:13 re-enter it at the end and then I get 7:15 another chance. Yeah. A page page 7:17 further off. Just doing something 7:20 towards it gets it moving. Um and once 7:23 it's moving, it tends to get a bit of 7:25 momentum behind it and to carry on. 7:29 So it works very nicely. And the reason 7:31 I call it the autofocus system is 7:33 because of the way it's designed. So 7:35 that what you've basically got is a 7:36 series of closed ls. 7:40 um is that it actually focuses your mind 7:44 in such a way on a fairly narrow segment 7:46 of what you've got to do that your 7:49 intuition can come into play. What we're 7:52 trying to do here is to get the rational 7:53 part of your 7:54 mind in tune with the intuitive part of 7:58 your mind. If you like to put a 7:59 different way, the left the left brain 8:01 in tune with the right brain. There's 8:02 all sorts of ways you can put it. I 8:04 don't want to be terribly scientific 8:06 about that, but but when you're making 8:08 decisions from your mind in balance, 8:11 rational decisions tend very often to be 8:14 the result of you feeling you ought to 8:16 do 8:17 something. But all the rest of you is 8:19 saying, "No, I don't want to do that." 8:21 Um, but on the other hand, if you're 8:23 making decisions simply out of your 8:24 feelings, often they're not very 8:27 logical. Um, and they can lead you 8:29 astray. Um, but if you can get that 8:31 rational and intuitive feeling side of 8:34 yourself in balance, then you're going 8:36 to be making decisions which make 8:39 sense both from a rational point of view 8:42 and from the sense of how you're 8:44 actually feeling about it. I was just 8:46 going to say that 8:48 was that was great. Right, we're off. 8:52 We're off. Thank you to the Groner Hotel 8:54 for hosting our video today. 8:58
Hello. I have read all these books by Mark Forster. Firstly, Get Everything Done and Still Have Time to Play. Loved it — one of my favorites. I still use some techniques from that now every day. How to Make Your Dreams Come True is written in a very interesting format. Do It Tomorrow has more ideas from Mark on time management.
But this video is about Autofocus, which is Mark's brand-new system. Very, very simple — and he hasn’t written a book (well, not yet). You can go to his website and get some very simple instructions to get started straight away.
So, I was lucky enough to have lunch with Mark and I got to ask him a few questions.
How would you summarize it?
Well, it’s actually very, very simple, because the Autofocus system consists of one gigantic list. You simply write down things as they occur to you, but what you’re doing is dealing with thought one page at a time. You take each page as a separate unit and work on it for as long as you feel like working on it. When you’ve finished, you move on to the next page and work on that, and eventually go back to the beginning.
That means the number of items on each page gets smaller and smaller each time you go around, and that produces an effect called the closed list effect, which means you actually get all the items on the page done, rather than just zooming ahead with the easy ones.
Okay. It would be really interesting to see how you actually choose what to do on your list and how you decide to go to the next page.
Sure, can do that. Well, this is actually my genuine list, which you can zoom in on — though it’s got some pretty strange items on it, so don’t zoom too close! This is actually the last page we were on, and I’ve just gone over the edge here into a new page.
So, what I do when I come onto a page is I just glance down it, and using a pen, a pointer, or even your finger, just go down looking at each item in turn very briefly, with no intention of doing any of them at all. That’s just to get the page fixed in your mind — what is on it? Your mind is subconsciously starting to think about what order you should be doing things in and whether you should be doing them at all.
The next stage is to start again at the top, and this time go down it a little more slowly, looking at each item and pausing your pen at it until you come to an item which you feel is ready to be done.
Now, what do I mean by that? I basically mean that you get that feeling in your mind as you look at the item — okay, I can do that now. It may be a sense of release, it may be very subtle, maybe nothing at all — you may just think, okay, I’m going to do that.
So, I’ve just come to this item here — “email.” I’ve decided I’m going to do email, and I commit myself to that item by putting a dot against it. That helps me find out where I am, but it’s also the first action in doing the item. The first step is always the most difficult, so the first step is to put a dot against the item.
Then I go off and do my email. When I finish that — because email is something I’m constantly going to be coming back to — I write it at the end of the list. It’s best to do it in this order: write it at the end of the list, then cross out the first one.
So, I’ve done that task. What do I do next? I just carry on down the page in exactly the same way until I come to the next thing I want to do. I carry on down until I get to the end of the page. And what do I do then? I start again at the top until I’ve gone right down the page without doing any items. That means I’ve done all the items on that page which I feel ready to do now.
What do I do then? I turn over the page and start on the next page. Right now, I don’t cross anything out or dismiss anything at this stage. I just carry on, and as I think of things or as they come up, I add them to the end of the list.
That’s the simple process. When I’ve finally got to the end and there’s nothing more that I want to do on this last page, I go back to the beginning. When I’ve finished a page completely, I put a cross against it. When there are no active pages before it, I put a circle around the cross — and that means there’s nothing active before that cross.
So, what I’ve got to do is find the last active page — that’s a cross without a circle. There’s the active page, and I’ve just got two items left on that. Again, what I do is exactly the same as before: read those two items without any intention to do them, then look at them a little bit harder and decide which one I’m going to do.
If I decide I’m not going to do either of them — which is quite likely to happen when you’re down to just a few items — I dismiss the item. That means I’ve been through this page loads of times already, so these items have had plenty of chances to get done.
To dismiss an item — you can see it on this page here — I highlight it. Three items got dismissed on that particular page. They were basically items which, for one reason or another, I didn’t actually feel I really wanted to do. I put them down because I thought I ought to do them. But in each of those cases, it was a feeling of “I ought to do this” rather than “I really want to do this.” So, they’re out.
I haven’t at any stage re-entered them, because I still don’t want to do them and don’t feel they’re relevant at the moment. If I did want to re-enter an item at the end of the list, it’s a good idea to look at it carefully and rephrase it a bit — break it down so that it’s easier to do.
And one of the things you were saying about little and often is a good approach. One of the things to realize is that before you can strike out an item, all you have to do is some work on it — you don’t have to finish it.
So, for instance, if I was doing the email and had a particularly large batch, and got halfway through it and thought, I can’t be bothered to do more of this, I could simply cross it out and re-enter it at the end — and then I get another chance, a page further on.
Just doing something toward it gets it moving, and once it’s moving, it tends to get a bit of momentum behind it and carry on. So it works very nicely.
And the reason I call it the Autofocus system is because of the way it’s designed — you’ve basically got a series of closed lists, and it actually focuses your mind in such a way, on a fairly narrow segment of what you’ve got to do, that your intuition can come into play.
What we’re trying to do here is get the rational part of your mind in tune with the intuitive part. If you like to put it another way — the left brain in tune with the right brain. There are all sorts of ways you can put it. I don’t want to be terribly scientific about it, but when you’re making decisions with your mind in balance, rational decisions often come from feeling you ought to do something, while the rest of you is saying, No, I don’t want to do that.
But if you’re making decisions purely out of your feelings, often they’re not very logical and can lead you astray. If you can get the rational and intuitive sides of yourself in balance, then you’ll be making decisions that make sense both from a rational point of view and from how you’re actually feeling about it.
That was great. Right, we’re off. Thank you to the Groner Hotel for hosting our video today.