Overload
Friday, September 9, 2011 at 10:37 I’ve now put every task I can think of into the Final Version system - that is to say every single thing that I would like to get done, ought to get done, would like to be doing or ought to be doing. I’m not sure that deliberately overloading the system in this way is what I would recommend to others using the system, but it’s important for the purpose of testing.
As of this moment I have 129 separate tasks on the list, which include 74 which are supposed to recur at least once a day. Obviously this is not sustainable even in the short term.
What I am hoping will happen over the next week or so is:
1) The system will weed this down to a manageable size.
2) That I’ll be happy both with what I’ve got done and with what is left on the list.
Of course the alternative would be to sit down and weed the list without using the system to do so. But the trouble with using one’s conscious brain to do this is that it tends to concentrate on what one “ought” to be doing. The result of this is that one is usually left with a list that is logically right but feels wrong.
Reader Comments (4)
I saw a book yesterday, supposedly intended for moms to give their college-bound children, that explained how to manage living well in 52 weeks. It tackled something different every day. By week 48 it was hosting dinner parties. Included with these instructions was tips on how to maintain the order created, with daily, weekly, or seasonal routines to establish.
I would brand the book incredible overkill. The only way to have a reasonable life is to ignore at least half the suggestions, and downgrade the frequency of the routines.
I didn't even have "daily newspaper" on the list!
are all those 129 tasks really current work, or is there a backlog of several tasks in them?
They are all things I've been working on recently or would like to be working on currently. But obviously they need weeding, and this is exactly what the new system is designed to do.