Continuing the Experiment
Wednesday, February 3, 2021 at 22:22 I have been continuing the experiments which I described in my previous post on the best way to use the New Question. My main problem has been with using the New Question with a list. Using it as a stand-alone question as described in the post remains effective, but as I said is difficult to maintain for an extended period.
One thing I’ve become aware of is that “What am I resisting not doing?” is by far the most effective form of the New Question. It works much better than “What am I resisting not doing more than x?” for example, which is the form of the Question I was using with FVP.
It occured to me earlier today that the one type of list I had not tried it with to date is one of the simplest. I described it in my first book, and to save you the trouble of looking it up here it is:
- Decide what you are going to do next
- Write it down
- Do it
- Repeat ad infinitum
At the end of the day you will have a list of everything you have done during the day, which you can review in order to see how much you achieved and what still needs to be done.
My idea today was to use the New Question in Step 1 to decide what to do next. I have been trying it out this afternoon and evening and it’s worked like a dream. It’s fast, decisive and so far has produced much better results than I had been getting with the Question used with FVP.
I will be endeavouring tomorrow to spend the whole day using this system. If anyone else want to try it, I’d be delighted to hear how they get on in the comments.
Reader Comments (12)
I haven't been using my previous list for quite a few days, other than doing what I feel like, which has been quite enjoyable, but not very productive. I just got fed up with the whole idea of working from a list because all my recent efforts have failed spectacularly, and no system tricked my brain into doing what needed to be done.
Normally if I haven't been inclined to use a system to work my list during the first half of the day, it's unlikely I'll suddenly feel galvanised into productive action this late in the afternoon. However, since you first suggested the New Question, I've found it intriguing, and have used it to get a few tasks done (or at least started) that have languished for ages, even though I've used the question sporadically rather than as part of a system. The strange thing is that I still don't know how it works, only that it does - magic!
Q: What am I resisting not doing?
A: Everything
This gives me absolute paralysis.
This is why I do better with systems like the Bounce, randomizer or a no list 3 or 5T where the selection criteria is what do I want to work on now. FVP works well for me too, since I can continue selection down the list after taking action on the most recent dot.
Glad this works for some people, and I kind of wish it worked for me, but it is good I better understand why it does not.
Is it really the case that if you shrink the time table of your intuition down a bit that you really feel that everything is so equally important that you can't imagine not doing any of them right now? That seems less like a productivity thing and more like an issue of clarity.
<< I just got fed up with the whole idea of working from a list because all my recent efforts have failed spectacularly, and no system tricked my brain into doing what needed to be done. >>
I know the feeling, but I think it's a mistake to think that our brains need to be tricked into doing what needs to be done.
What we've tended to do in the past is try to motivate ourselves by looking at the positive consequences of doing something, e.g. in my case my homework. And since the tedium of doing homework doesn't compare very positively to the pleasure of watching tv, that's not a whole lot of motivation.
The New Question on the other hand looks at the negative consequences of not doing my homework. Those negative consequences are having to get up early on a freezing morning to do my homework before going to school. And that definitely does outweigh the tv once my attention has been focused on it.
<< Q: What am I resisting not doing? A: Everything. This gives me absolute paralysis. >>
Try one of the alternative questions I gave in the original article:
"What am I most resisting not doing?" or "What am I resisting not doing now?"
I realize I was not as specific as I could be on my psychological state when I try working with the question and not having a list.
When I ask myself "What am I resisting not doing?" A few things come to mind. They are scary to think about for a variety of reasons, and I have a hard time wrapping my head around them and deciding 1) What item to do first and 2) what step should I take with the item?
Contrast this with 5T with time bursts, which I used again today. I started the day by populating the list with:
1) my morning routine (read email, etc.)
2) Planning for a stressful meeting later in the morning
3) a project that I have under control but has more to do
4) a project I don't really have under control (and I am scared of)
5) A brand- new initiative, which is exciting, could be important, requires a lot of work and is time sensitive.
I work each item, in order, for 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then 15 minutes etc until I get to 25 and then decrease by 5 minutes. Of course, some things completed before then, some new things got slotted in (and others put on hold to equal no more than five).
By this writing, I made real progress on all items; including the ones I was resisting not doing, and I feel pretty good.
I think I need a short list that builds in "structured procrastination" and a license to start just by "taking out the folder," two tried and true Mark concepts (at least tried, and determined true by me).
What am I resisting not doing just makes me want to crawl into a ball...
<< What am I resisting not doing just makes me want to crawl into a ball... >>
And yet you are resisting not doing all the things you mention
1) you are resisting not doing your morning routine because if you didn't do it you would have a bad start to the day, your email would remain unread, etc.
2) you are resisting not preparing for the stressful meeting because you know that if you don't prepare properly your stress will rise to the nth degree.
3) you are resisting not working on the project you have under control because if you don't you will not succeed in finishing it, which means you will lose control..
4) you are resisting not working on the project which you don't really have under control because you know that if you don't work on it you will lose control over it completely (and that is really scary)
5) you are resisting not working on the exciting brand-new project because you know if you don't the opportunity will be lost.
So the answer to "What am I resisting not doing?" is morning routine, prepare meeting, Project 1 (ongoing), Project 2 (regain control), Project 3 (new initiative).
Not exactly.
First, I never asked myself The Question. It may be that what I chose answered it, but what I asked myself was, "what five things do I want to work on now." There are other things that I am resisting not doing, one comes especially to mind, but I did not pick it.
Second, I am not following: "Decide what you are going to do next, write it down, do it, repeat ad infinitum." When I tried that I balled up. When I use a method like 5/2 with time bursts, I bravely :) tackle some hard things (" a project I don't really have under control (and I am scared of)" and switch off with some easier things (my morning routine.).
To me it is a very different methodology than what you described in the blog post above.
<< I never asked myself The Question. >>
But you got the same answers as you would have if you had.
Why did you want to work on the five things you did chose? Because you didn't like what would happen if you didn't.
You chose five things, all of which you were resisting not doing, but the method I was describing in the blog post only requires you to choose one at a time.
I don't understand why choosing one is more stressful than choosing five.
I haven't yet developed a good question to ask to help me home in on what to prepare for next, (perhaps what am I resisting not doing is the right answer). But when I think about preparation, I am instantly more motivated to do the things now that I know I need to get done. For example, my evening routine consists of making my breakfast the night before, eating an evening bowl of cereal as a snack, flossing and brushing, praying, checking on my kids, and setting my alarm. Amazingly it takes about an hour to do this start to finish. Usually I wait until 9 o'clock to start, but if I think about preparation, I start on this right after my kids go down at 7:30, and it's done. Greg McKeown in Essentialism introduces this concept as "extreme preparation". Starting on something way in advance of when you think you need to. I've often searched for the best antonym of procrastination, and the closest I can come up with is preparation. It puts me in a mindframe opposite to that of procrastination. It shifts the payoff from indulging my present self to investing in my future self by avoiding the negative consequences.
This seems to best be used with a no-list system like the one you describe here Mark of writing down what you're going to do next. I've tried this with a long-list and it just hasn't worked quite as well. Remind me again how a list of reminders (not a catch-all list) is used in conjunction with a no-list like this? Do you read through it whenever you feel like you need to be reminded of commitments? What does this look like practically...3–4 times a day?
"Greg McKeown in Essentialism introduces this concept as "extreme preparation". Starting on something way in advance of when you think you need to."
I think you will find that somewhere in his books or this blog Mark has suggested something similar. The example I recall was starting to work on a report with the longest deadline.
I like the idea of preparation. I am preparing for a meeting in early March. I still have the task of writing the reports as required but "preparing" for the meeting seems to give me additional boost when I start to draft the reports.
Prepare! That's the word I need to focus on this week. I've used it successfully in the past, but not as clearly spelled out. It gives me small, non-scary tasks for now, and gives me confidence that when I finally get to the big scary project, it won't be big and scary.