Usually when I release a new time management system I have tested it quite thoroughly myself. This is important because often any drawbacks only become apparent quite a while down the line.
But in the case of the new DIT2/AF5 system, I think it might be more helpful to have other people working on it with me at the same time so that we can share our experiences of it together.
So what I am going to do now is to share the basic outline of what I’m doing now, so others can run with it and see what they can make of it. I’m not going to go into much detail because I think that would destroy the purpose of the exercise - the detail should appear from our experience of working the system.
This is what it consists of:
1. You need a page-a-day diary with plenty of lines. Also some form of bookmarking for today’s date and the two entry pages (see below) - though turned down page corners are probably quite sufficient.
2. All new tasks are entered on the page which is one calendar month from today’s date. Example: Today’s date is February 1st. New tasks are entered on the page for March 1st. Tomorrow I will enter new tasks on March 2nd and so on.
3. All re-entered tasks are entered on the page which is one week from today. So any task I re-enter today (Monday February 1st) goes on the page for for next Monday (February 8th). Tomorrow (Tuesday) they will go on the page for next Tuesday 9th and so on.
4. Nothing is ever entered on any page, other than the pages currently one month and one week from today’s date.
5. All active pages are treated as if they were one long list and you continue to circulate round them doing the tasks that stand out.
6. All tasks which are on pages earlier than today’s date have expired. They are dead, done for, dismissed, deceased.
The thinking behind this is that you can put anything you like into the system. If you do nothing about it, it will remain there for a month and then expire. If at any time you commit yourself to a task by taking some action on it, you are put under increased pressure to get it finished by being given only seven calendar days to do some more work on it. Of course many tasks are done in one go, so can be deleted without being re-entered.
That’s all you need to get started.