The Final Version Perfected (FVP) Instructions - Reposted

Somehow the instructions for FVP seem to have vanished from this blog, so I am reposting them here.

The Final Version Perfected (FVP)

 Thursday, May 21, 2015 at 11:58

This is an amended version of the instructions for the Final Version (FV) time management system. It contains an improved algorithm and a new question.

 

Introduction

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Here are the long-awaited instructions for the Final Version Perfected (FVP) time management system. I don’t know if it’s the best time management system ever devised. What I do know is that it is the best time management system that I have ever used myself. It’s shown itself to be even more resilient, responsive and quick than the Final Version.

FV and now FVP are based on my earlier time management systems, particularly the extensive range of AutoFocus and SuperFocus systems developed over the last five years. These were unique in that they were constantly developing with the assistance of a large band of commenters on my web-site. Anyone who has tried one or more of these systems will recognize the strong family resemblance that they have with FV and FVP. The most striking resemblance is that they are all based on one long list (either paper or electronic) which can be used to capture just about every possible action that springs into one’s mind. There is a minimum of special markings or annotations.Such a list depends on an effective algorithm to process it. There are three main requirements which have to be kept in balance. These are urgency, importance and psychological readiness. Traditional time management systems have tended to concentrate on the first two of these. The neglect of psychological readiness is probably the reason that most people don’t find time management systems particularly effective or congenial.The most distinctive feature of FVP is the way that its algorithm is primarily based on psychological readiness - this then opens the way to keeping urgency and importance in the best achievable balance.

The FVP  Algorithm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The FVP algorithm uses the question “What do I want to do more than x?” to preselect a chain of tasks from the list. What exactly is meant by “want” in this context is deliberately left undefined. There may be a whole variety of reasons why you might want to do one thing more than another thing and all of them are valid.The chain always starts with the first unactioned task on the list. Mark this task with a dot to show that it’s now been preselected. Don’t take any action on the task at this stage.This task then becomes the benchmark from which the next task is selected. For example, if the first task on the list is “Write Report”, the question becomes “What do I want to do more than write the report?” You move through the list in order until you come to a task which you want to do more than write the report. This task is now selected by marking it with a dot and it becomes the benchmark for the next task. If the first task you come to which you want to do before writing the report is “Check Email”, then that becomes the benchmark. The question therefore changes to “What do I want to do more than check email?”As you continue through the list you might come to “Tidy Desk” and decide you want to do that more than checking email. Select this in the same way by marking it with a dot, and change the question to “What do I want to do more than tidying my desk?”. The answer to this is probably “nothing”, so you have now finished your preselection.The preselected tasks in the example are: Write report Check email Tidy desk  At this point “Tidy Desk” represents the task you most want to do at the moment. Do it. Note that as in all my systems, you don’t have to finish the task - only do some work on it. Of course if you do finish the task that’s great, but if you don’t then all you have to do is re-enter the task at the end of the list. Now what are you going to do next? “Check email” is the previous task you selected, but that isn’t necessarily the task you most want to do. What you can say though is that it was the task you most wanted to do up until you selected “Tidy Desk”. This means that you only need to check the tasks that come after “Tidy Desk” in the list. So what you do next is to ask yourself “What do I want to do more than check email?” again, but you check only the tasks which come after the task you have just done (Tidy Desk). Once you have worked your way back to the first task on the list and done it (this may never happen!), you take the next unactioned task as your root task.That’s it! You’re now ready to go. Everything else is further examples and explanation.

A Longer Example ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In this example for ease of understanding no new tasks are added while working on the list. This of course is unlikely in real life. Your initial list of tasks: Email  In-Tray Voicemail Project X Report Tidy Desk Call Dissatisfied Customer Make Dental Appointment File Invoices Discuss Project Y with Bob Back Up     Put a dot in front of the first task:     • Email    In-Tray   Voicemail   Project X Report   Tidy Desk   Call Dissatisfied Customer   Make Dental Appointment   File Invoices   Discuss Project Y with Bob   Back Up   Now ask yourself ” What do I want to do more than Email?”   You work down the list and come to Voicemail. You decide you want to do Voicemail more than Email. Put a dot in front of it.     • Email    In-Tray • Voicemail   Project X Report   Tidy Desk   Call Dissatisfied Customer   Make Dental Appointment   File Invoices   Discuss Project Y with Bob   Back Up     Now ask yourself ” What do I want to do more than Voicemail?” You decide you want to tidy your desk.     • Email    In-Tray • Voicemail   Project X Report • Tidy Desk   Call Dissatisfied Customer   Make Dental Appointment   File Invoices   Discuss Project Y with Bob   Back Up     There are no tasks you want to do more than tidying your desk, so you have the following dotted tasks:   Email Voicemail Tidy Desk    Do the Tidy Desk task.   Your list will now look like this:   • Email    In-Tray • Voicemail   Project X Report • Tidy Desk   Call Dissatisfied Customer   Make Dental Appointment   File Invoices   Discuss Project Y with Bob   Back Up    Now start again from Tidy Desk (i.e. the last task you did). and ask yourself “What do I want to do more than Voicemail?”  The only task you want to do more than Voicemail is Back Up. Do it.   The list now reads:    • Email    In-Tray • Voicemail   Project X Report • Tidy Desk   Call Dissatisfied Customer   Make Dental Appointment   File Invoices   Discuss Project Y with Bob  • Back Up   There are no further tasks beyond Back Up, so there is no need to check whether you want to do any tasks more than you want to do Voicemail. You just do it. The list now reads: • Email    In-Tray • Voicemail   Project X Report • Tidy Desk   Call Dissatisfied Customer   Make Dental Appointment   File Invoices   Discuss Project Y with Bob • Back Up    There is only one dotted task left on the list and that is Email. You now need to check whether you want to do any of the tasks more than Email. So ask the question “What do I want to do more than Email?” You already know that you want to do Email more than In-tray, so you start scanning from the first task after the task you have just done (Voicemail).   You decide you want to do Make Dental Appointment more than Email, so you dot it and change the question to “What do I want to do more than Make Dental Appointment”. The answer is “Discuss Project Y”. As this is the last task on the list you do it immediately, and then do Make Dental Appointment immediately too. There’s no need to scan because you already know that you want to make the dental appoinment more than you want to file invoices.   The list now reads:   • Email    In-Tray • Voicemail   Project X Report • Tidy Desk   Call Dissatisfied Customer • Make Dental Appointment   File Invoices • Discuss Project Y with Bob • Back Up    So the tasks on the original list have been done in the following order so far:   Tidy Desk Back Up Voicemail Discuss Project Y with Bob Make Dental Appointment   These tasks have been done in the exact order of what you want to do most at the time. There may be a huge number of factors affecting what you want to do most, but you can allow your brain to sort them out for you below the level of consciousness simply by asking the question “What do I want to do more than x?” and applying it in the way shown above.    If you are having trouble following the example above, then I suggest you write the list out on paper and work through it by hand.

Additional Tips  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The best way to sink any time management system is to overload it right at the beginning. FVP is pretty resilient, but at this stage you aren’t. So build up the list gradually. My advice is to start off with the tasks and projects that are of immediate concern to you right now, and then add more as they come up in the natural course of things.Tasks can be added at any level, e.g. Project X, Plan Restructuring, Call Pete, Tidy Desk. If at any stage you find that a task on the list is no longer relevant, then delete it. If you find that your preselected list is no longer relevant (e.g. if you have had a long break away from the list or some new factor has come into play), then scrap the preselection and reselect from the beginning. If one or more very urgent things come up, just write them at the end of the list and the algorithm will automatically select them next (assuming you do actually want to do them of course). Similarly if something already on the list becomes very urgent, then just cross it out and move it to the end of the list.Remember that the aim of any time management system is to help you to get your work done, not get in the way of doing your work. So don’t be afraid to adjust priorities as and when you need to. However don’t overdo this - stick to the rules when possible as they will ensure you deal with your work in a systematic way.

 Why It Works

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At the beginning of this article I said there were three factors which every time management system needs to address: urgency, importance and psychological readiness. Let’s see how FV deals with each of these.

Urgency. Because of the nature of the preselection process, urgent tasks tend to get selected because generally speaking the human brain wants to do things that it knows are urgent. If things come up that are particularly urgent they can be added to the preselected list at any time.Importance. Generally speaking the human brain is a bit less keen on doing important stuff than it is on doing urgent stuff. This is particularly the case when the important stuff is difficult. However the FVP preselection process ensures that the entire list is kept under continuous review and your brain will start to flag up that it wants you to get on with stuff it thinks you might be neglecting. If this doesn’t happen, then it’s likely to be because you would be better off getting rid of it altogether.Psychological Readiness. This is where FVP really enters new dimensions. By using a pre-selection process, the brain is softened up towards the selected tasks. But this isn’t all. The selection process is based on what you want to do. This colours the whole preselected list so that even tasks which seem like chores get affected. 

Comments

[Paul MacNeil]

Thank you, I think you need to cross out the completed tasks in your examples unless I'm not reading it right.

[Mark Forster]

Thank you for pointing that out. I failed to notice that the strike-outs didn't transfer across from the Evernote copy I was using. I'll have to do them by hand, but I can't do it now as I'm just about to go out.

[Alan Baljeu]

Apparently not the only thing that vanished. This was here when you made your previous blog post, but no longer:

http://markforster.net/blog/2008/8/5/predicting-your-day-follow-up.html

You may want to do an audit.

EDIT: The problem is markforster.net is no longer valid. replace that part with markforster.squarespace.com and it works.

The link that lead me there is the problem, or else a new absence of markforster.net. (Is it possible to do a search/replace across the entire blog?)

[Mark Forster]

Alan:

I'm not sure what's happening here. Markforster.net is still valid. It's what I signed in from when I came here just now. I'll have to sort it out in the morning - it's too late for my brain to be up to it this evening!

[Mark Forster]

Alan:

It appears that Squarespace has recently changed the references for my domain provider to link to (without telling me of course). Which means that I will have to go to my domain provider and re-set the references, which is something I last did when setting up this website - and which I am quite sure will be the opposite of intuitive!

And I don't understand why I can still get to the website by typing markforster.net. It's not my browzer that's doing the translating. I've tried both Vivaldi and Edge and it works on both of them.

[Mark Forster]

http://www.markforster.net

[Ren]

Coming back round to this after many years FVP lite/FVP adjacent. I couldn’t afford the book when I first read this post, so thank you for making the principles available for free. This system helped me to change my life, buy my home, start several businesses (some successful some not so!), manage my ADHD and enabled me to gain qualifications, knowledge and experience within my chosen field. I fell off using the system properly, as I tend to, and now I’m back and love the serendipity of this recent repost of the instructions. Thank you Mark, as always!

[Mark Forster]

Ren:

Glad to be of help. In fact there never was a book attached to this method. What you see is all there is!

[Frances S.]

Thank you for ensuring that my favorite is available :-)

I work with an electronical list (using http://todotxt.org/ - I use the dates, but no projects and no contexts) and I delete the crossed-out lines (marked as done) in the evening (or in the morning). The priority B is used for the dots, while priority A is an extension of mine - stuff like laundry where I wait for half an hour or so before I can continue - I can work on these whenever I switch tasks (and yes, most of the time, there's no task marked with A) - crossing out and reentering never quite worked for me.

Sometimes, I resist building up the "dot chain". In these situations, I like doing one or two passes of simple scanning - when I don't feel like starting the next pass, I know I'm ready to go back to FVP.

[Frances S.]

Correction: crossing out and reentering never quite worked for me for stuff like laundry where I can't stop in the middle - it's perfekt for everything else.

[JD]

I have a question on the root task.

Upon reaching it, if it is not ready to be done for whatever reason, can it remain as the root task while you dot and do other tasks that are ready.

My understanding of the rules is that it cannot. It should be dealt with in some way: crossed out and sent to the end of the list, for example. Or scheduled on your calendar, if it should start later.

Would my understanding be correct?

I know there has been a discussion about this in the forum. I searched it but although the snippet comes up, the full content seems to be inaccessible.

[Seraphim]

Another way is to rethink / rewrite the task so you can do something with it. Not always possible, but sometimes it will give you a little breakthrough so you can get moving with the task.

[Mark Forster]

JD:

<< Upon reaching [the root task], if it is not ready to be done for whatever reason, can it remain as the root task while you dot and do other tasks that are ready? >>

The answer is "no". If it is for some reason impossible to do the root task at that moment, it should be crossed out and re-entered at the end of the list. Then the next live task at the beginning of the list becomes the root task.

On the other hand if it would be possible to do the root task but you don't feel like doing it, then you should either rethink it (as Seraphim suggests) or delete it altogether.

That's the official answer. You of course can do it however you like.

[JD]

Thank you for the helpful guidance Mark and Seraphim. Great to have the official word on the subject to clear my doubts.

Ren, reading your comments further up this thread, may I say that FVP seems to have had a transformational effect on your life. The achievements are phenomenal! May I ask which aspect of FVP you found to have cleared the path for you to achieve such a great deal from Mark’s system.

[Taxidriver]

I read your four books recently, in chronological order. I think you are a great creative thinker. You have managed to look at the problem of time management in an ever new way in each book, without fear of contradicting yourself, always exploring new ways. The fourth book looks like the definitive one, but the suggested time management system doesn't work for me in the long run, for a variety of reasons. I find this FVP perfect for me. I think FVP deserves a book of his own.

I have recently read Oliver Burkeman's book, Four thousand week, I don't know if you know him and what you think. Even in the philosophy expounded in the book, I think FVP would fit perfectly.

Thanks Mark for all your work.

[AR]

Do you have any advice for pruning the list, so it doesn't just grow forever?

[Alan Baljeu]

AR: There are many ways. One is to write "Prune List" on the list.

[Carol Davis-Wilkie]

Hi,
I don't think this is the final version of the instructions, as I have a hard copy from a Newsletter dated 13Mar12 that has all the questions revised to "What do I want to do BEFORE x", whereas this version lists "What do I want to do MORE than x".
Mark highlighted in the Q&A that it's about timing, and not what you want to do more than, so I think there is a later version.

[Mark H.]

I have noticed this difference too

[Voluntas]

"What do I want to do BEFORE X?" - That's Final Version (FV)

"What do I want to do MORE THAN X?" - That's Final Version Perfected (FVP).

[Mark H.]

Voluntas,

Thanks.

There is a difference between these two questions. However, I notice that I have been using either one.
So let's say that X = eat lunch.
What do I want to do before X? Cook lunch.
What do I want to do more than X? Maybe not cook lunch, I'd rather eat lunch. But I can think of a number of things that might be on the list that I want to do more than eat lunch, maybe surf the internet.
I can think a few times when I did choose what I wanted to do more, but it was not the best choice. If there is something urgent, I would tend to pick that one, if the question is what do I want to do before.

Isn't there a version where there is no question, but whatever stands out intuitively?

[Danno]

I asked about this here: http://markforster.squarespace.com/fv-forum/post/2794799

[Voluntas]

Mark H.

You can use standing out too. That goes by "No Question Final Version Perfected", or NQ-FVP.

[Mark H.]

Voluntas,

Thank you. I am impressed by your knowledge.
I think I use all these. Now I know the distinction.

[Margaret1]

In the blog entry, the second and third sections seem to be out of alignment , cutting off the end of each line. Maybe it's a glitch on my mobile.