Live Demo - 3 Task Method

I’ll be kicking off the live demo somewhere around 8.30 a.m. GMT on this post.

I will only be showing those tasks which are actually being worked on in the 3-Task system. The system is being fed by an AF4 list which will not be shown.

The two things I particularly want to achieve tomorrow are to go for a long walk and to write a plan for our church fund raising campaign. I would also like to remain on top of all routine matters (email, paper, housekeeping, etc) and to watch a movie on DVD at some stage. If I can, I would also like to plan the workshop I am giving in Leuven in two weeks time, and make progress on my income tax return.

All tasks contain three stages: Preparation, the Task itself, and Clearing Up. A task is not complete until all three of those stages have been carried out.

I’ll be starting the day with only two items on my list as one was completed yesterday.

Key: Bold type shows when a task is first introduced onto the 3-Task list. When a task is shown in strikeout it has been completed. Therefore if a task is in both bold and strikeout then it was completed in one go. If a task has been worked on but not struck out, it remains on the 3-Task list. My comments are in [square brackets]

0800 Re-number bins

0802 Computer housekeeping

0809 Re-number bins

0818 Email [bit of a delay here as Outlook has decided not to start properly]

0831 Comments

0838 Email

0841 Breakfast

0901 Check investments [after yesterday’s big rise in the stock market]

0910  Email [Outlook fixed at last]

0921  Breakfast [remember clearing up after a task is part of the task]

0933  Comments [note this is a recurring task - high level of comments expected today]

0943  Cash Flow Forecast

0948   Breakfast

0958   Check Diary

[I think some people are having difficulty in following what is happening, so to make it easier to follow I am changing the way the list is presented. Tasks will only be struck through when they are completed. I hope that will make it easier to see what tasks are on the list at any one time. I’ll also put tasks in bold when they come onto the 3-Task list for the first time]

1008  Download Camera

1023  Email

1031  Comments

1056  TweetDeck 

1102  Paper

[I have now got to the end of the open list in AF4. So there should be weightier matters ahead!]

[A couple of general observations so far: 1) There is quite a considerable overhead involved in putting this all on the blog - so things are moving slower than normal; 2) The dynamic of AF4 is changed by using it with the 3-Task system because all re-entries onto the open list are “empty”, i.e. there is no outstanding work on them.]

1112  Walk

1119  Weed Handbooks File

1129  Walk [This is the bit of the task where I actually do the walking (and it will probably include a pub lunch too). So it’ll be several hours before I post again.]

1619 Leuven Presentation (first draft)

1631 Newsletter (first draft)

1658 Walk

1728 Leuven Presentation (first draft)

1738 Newsletter (first draft)

1812  Fundraising Plan (first draft)

1843 Income Tax Return (next section)

[Here I go back on the open list]

1853 Back Up Computer

1857 “Downton Abbey” [for the non-Brits among you, this is a TV series that has been enthralling the nation]

        Income Tax Return (next section)

I ended after watching Downton Abbey. So how did I do? Looking back on what I said I would like to do during the day, I see I did all of it. The only thing I could have working on further was my income tax return, and I will carry on with that tomorrow.

I mentioned in one of my comments in square brackets that the 3-Task method changes the dynamics of AF4.  If you look at my list of tasks above you will see that the unfinished tasks which I had more than one go at were:

Re-number bins
Email
Breakfast
Walk
Leuven Presentation
Newsletter
Income Tax Return

In ordinary AF4 all these would all have been moved to the open list and the concentration which I brought to them would have been dissipated. So all in all I am extremely pleased with my efforts today and convinced of the benefits of using the 3-Task method with AF4.

Comments

[Jessica]

A pencast would make it easier to see (hear?) how the list changed over time, while Twitter removes that context. Visualizing a paper-based system based on typed descriptions in a blog or Twitter format is hard for me--I really liked the slide-based demo someone put together of Mark's AF4 demo, and had to do much the same in Excel to recreate what he was doing. I think either a pencast or series of scans (like others have done) would be most helpful for me :)