Get It Right and Keep It Right (Revised Instructions)

This is an extensive re-write of the previous post, which many readers were having difficulty understanding. Even I wasn’t quite sure what I meant in places!

I hope this will be clearer. I’ve left the previous instructions in place for comparison purposes only.

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Here’s a new system which can be used either with or without the New Question. It comes with the warning that I haven’t yet tested it out fully myself.

The nearest of my systems which it resembles is Spinning Plates, but this new system is a bit more flexible.

As the title suggests, the idea is to take one subject in turn, get it up and running and then carry out maintenance to make sure it stays that way.

Summary:

It consists of a task list as in Simple Scanning which you work on in exactly the same way as in Simple Scanning except that you can only add a task to the list each time you go back to the beginning of the list. You start off with two tasks and build up the list gradually.

This is how it works:

1. Start with two tasks. They can be any tasks, but it would be best to go for continuing tasks which require regular attention, e.g. email, paper, etc.
2. Do some work on the first task, cross out and re-enter.
3. Do some work on the second task, cross out and re-enter.
4. Add another task and, without working on it yet, go back to the beginning of the list and repeat the process. 

What you are doing is building up a list of everything you want, need, or have to do by adding one task each time you get through the list. Gradually the list will extend to all your work. The slow build-up allows you to get each subject completely under control and then keep it that way.

Example:

Start the list with two tasks:

Email

Tidy Desk

Do them both and re-enter them :

Email 

Tidy Desk 

Email

Tidy Desk

Add another task and go back to the beginning of the list:

Email 

Tidy Desk

Email

Tidy Desk

Draft Report

Contine rotating round the list, adding one task each time you go back to the beginning.

You can continue adding new tasks one at a time until the system tells you that you are trying to do too much by getting slower and slower. When it gets too slow to be practical, you can take one or both of the following actions: 

• Weed the list of any projects or tasks which you realise are taking up more time than they are worth.
• Start a new list and build it up again gradually.

Comments

[Aaron Hsu]

Thanks for the clarification Mark.

As a meta-point, i think that doing end of list this way is important. It encourages staying up to date on what you already have and prioritizes for that over adding new things to the list. I think that's a critical aspect of this system to manage list growth.