Experimenting with a New System
Sunday, November 29, 2020 at 21:36
Mark Forster

I’ve been trying out a new long-list system today, which resembles FVP a bit, but not a lot.

Anyone who wants to try it out at the same time as me is welcome to tell us how they get on in the Comments below.

How it works: 

  1. Draw up a list. You can add more tasks to it as you go along.
  2. Dot the first task (as in FV and FVP)
  3. Go through the list task by task, asking the question “What do I want to do more than x?” (where x is the dotted task).
  4. When you come to a task that you want to do more than x, do it. (This is where it is quite different from FV and FVP.
  5. As in all my systems, you work on a task for as long as you feel like it, and then re-enter it at the end of the list if there is still work to be done on it or if it is a recurring task.
  6. Continue down the list asking “What do I want to do more than x?” and doing the tasks which the question identifies. This is again quite different from FV and FVP, because x continues to refer to the first task on the list. You are in fact comparing every task on the list with the first unactioned task.
  7. When you reach the end of the list, return to the beginning of the list and do the first task.
  8. Dot the next unactioned task, and repeat. 

The system is intended to make use of the principle of Structured Procrastination. The more you are resisting the first task, the more tasks you will do on your pass through the list.

My first day’s report is that it seems to be very fast and very effective, but I know only too well that first day’s results can be deceiving. We will see!

AFTERNOTE:

At the end of Day 1, I have done 70 out of 133 tasks.

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