Willpower Exercise - What Next?
Sunday, April 4, 2021 at 17:27 I finally crashed and burned on yesterday’s Willpower Exercise this afternoon after completing six tasks out of Group 14. That means that I had completed 97 tasks in the order I had written them down. Notice that I completed the tasks, not just worked on them.
So what now?
Well, this is exactly what is supposed to happen. When the list gets too long to be comfortable, it crashes and I start again from the beginning, i.e. at a Group containing one task - which in this case is writing this blog post.
My aim now will be to beat my previous score of 13.
This is beginning to sound like some sort of computer game, isn’t it? Yes, and I’m hoping that it will be similarly compulsive. This is a game with positive real world results.
I’ll keep my scores posted:
1
2 (including a five mile walk)
3
etc.
Reader Comments (18)
Thank you!
Have a happy easter
<< do you pick tasks from a long list system or do you add them on the run? >>
I add them on the run, but remember this is an experimental system which I have not done before so your guess about which is the best is as good as mine!
i am a big fan of the GED book but always struggled with this exercise as could never really visualize how it would work in practice. Your last couple of posts have really clarified it. Definitely going to give it a go. Seems compulsive like all your best systems (to me) such as AF. No doubt the detail is in how you define a task for completion, so "first draft of a report" rather than "write a report". So little and often
So my version is similar in a way to the 5min, 10min, 15 min etc time boxing with an upper limit from the same book that this exercise came from..
I also found this morning that I wanted to start at 1 then 2 etc even though I had a partially completed group from last night. so that is what I did. Hope this is of interest and its only been a day and it may lose that "newness" that all Mark's systems bring but I really like this.
This overall system has been working great for me. It definitely makes me think twice about what to put on the list, and in what order. It also forces me to think about what “done” looks like for each given task. I also like that each group of tasks can be produced using any approach you would like - no-list, Randomizer, FVP, etc. - whatever makes sense to you at any moment in time. For me, it marries agility and brief bursts of commitment quite nicely.
I think this is a true keeper!
I think I might need to modify it slightly to work better for me, so the system is broadly as follows:
1. Only review tasks once, being the first time they come in.
2. Mark any that must be completed this week and then do asap.
3. Then clear oldest tasks in strict chronological order.
I wonder if that is the perfect system and just about meets all the criteria in Mark’s post 7 Apr 21 in general forum? Perhaps it might not meet “must be no compulsion to do any task at any time”.
I have tried something similar before, but it is quite demanding to keep working on the oldest so I am hoping will power prevails. I think it is because I am always aware of other tasks I feel I should be working on that are more important or they just attract attention and I want to clear them straightaway. But is it best to just have confidence they will be picked up when the become the oldest task?
Also, I know it is easy to mark too many things as urgent so nothing is then urgent, and the system falls apart. To counteract that point 2 must be used sparingly to catch deadlines only.
I personally find that when I have used simple scanning in the past a lot of tasks get left behind and they can be weeks or months old. I seem to get anxiety with being too aware of all the tasks I have to do and they pop into my head in the middle of the night! A blinkered approach is better for me but with confidence things won’t get too old.
Mark – if you read this I know in your simple scanning system you say don’t mark anything as it works against the system – why is that?
<< Mark – if you read this I know in your simple scanning system you say don’t mark anything as it works against the system – why is that? >>
Because the whole point of Simple Scanning is that selection of tasks is intuitive and relies on your natural instincts and knowledge of what your work consists of..
If you mark up priority subjects beforehand this will have several undesirable effects:
1. The system is intended to be fast and intuitive, not a slow plod through different levels of urgency.
2. Marking up takes time, and the mark-ups rarely survive the reality test.
3. You will be breaking a basic rule, which is that increasing the priority of some things reduces the priority of everything else. Before you know it, you will have marked up so many things as priority tasks that you will need to make a super priority grade for the really important stuff. And then you will get "priority creep" and may have to add yet another grade. In the meantime Grade 4 tasks will never ever get done. So you'll need to introduce a Grade 5 for the tasks which you don't want to delete but don't matter if they never get done.
4. You will find yourself resisting some of the highest priority tasks. As you feel you *must* do them because they are such high priority, the only solution is to transfer them to a second list which you intend to "blitz". But before you start on your "blitz list" you will need to prioritise the tasks on it...
It’s interesting too how it makes a distinction between discretionary time and not discretionary. Because the non-discretionary stuff would break the order, so it doesn’t go on the list. I note when those happen in square brackets on the right side of the page.
I also like how it has a running list in order that you can refer back to. I’ve also been writing down the start/stop times of each list. Some lists I can get through in like 30 seconds per item and some lists are more like 15 minutes per item on average. (Actually that may be because I cheated on the last list. I just wanted to set up an eBay account but I also ended up shopping for and buying the stuff I was setting up the account for. I should have waited and put that on a future list. I’m going to start over at 1 today anyway.)
Another “cheat” I did was I put “wash clothes”, “dry clothes”, “fold and put away clothes” (one load of laundry) as 3 items on the list but did not do them in list order because: I wanted to get the wash started ASAP. I wanted to move them to the dryer ASAP after they were done. I wanted to put them away ASAP after they were dry so the shirts wouldn’t get wrinkled. But it occurs to me that in a way, phrased that way, these steps are really non-discretionary! I should move them to the right side in brackets (the way I have been tracking non-discretionary things that come up).
Do you ever get started working on the current list before you finish writing it, and then add some more as you work and think, until you get to N items? Is that cheating? I did that sometimes.
It’s a very unusual situation to be doing things faster than I can even think of them. Quite the opposite of the usual situation!
However, as the list got longer, I started seeing some problems.
One -- when there are too many tasks pre-defined, it starts to conflict with the situation on the ground. By the time I am actually working the last items on the list, the situation can be quite different than at the time when I created the list. This creates a sense of conflict -- do I abandon the list, or keep powering through it for the sake of completeness? Usually, the power of the gamification leads me to opt for completeness -- so I give each of those last items cursory attention so I can say I stuck to my list, and I can say I "won". But did I really?
Two -- Related to the first problem -- the gamification can help to get lots of things done, but over time they tend to be too many of the wrong kinds of things -- lots of little trivial things. The things that need more expansive thinking and more sustained attention can suffer. One reason this happens is that, as the list gets longer and longer, it becomes harder and harder to forecast what kinds of things will be useful and relevant to be doing when it is time to take action on those items. So I find myself putting trivial things on the list -- clear my email one more time, declutter my desk one more time, etc.
Maybe it's a case of diminishing returns -- a short Willpower list creates a little extra discipline to get myself moving on tasks when there is really no good rationale for delaying -- this is very useful. But as the Willpower lists gets longer and longer, each new item seems to add less and less value.
It transforms from a Willpower tool into a kind of prediction problem -- can I put things on the list that will be valuable for me to do, regardless of how my day will change over the coming 1-2 hours? It becomes harder and harder to do that -- and seems less and less useful.
<< just start a new list and keep adding as many things as you think you can tackle then stop adding and start doing.>>
Yes, I've been thinking on those lines myself.
But I think it needs to be a bit more systematic than that, otherwise the training effect will get lost.
I think the following would be more in line with good training practice:
1. Start with a list of as many tasks as you are confident you can complete easily in the right order.
2. When you succeed, write a new list one task longer.
3. When you fail, write a new list two tasks shorter.
That should keep you pushing your limits without over- or under-whelming yourself.
<< However, as the list got longer, I started seeing some problems. >>
This is supposed to be an exercise. An exercise to increase your will power.
So what is the point of making the tasks so easy that it doesn't exercise your will power? All you are doing is exercising your power of inventing easier and easier tasks.
And of course if you've made the tasks so easy that you can do hundreds and hundreds of them you are not going to be available to do the difficult stuff, which is what you are really supposed to be training for.
I don't know if you do weight training at the gym, but if you do you'd get laughed at pretty hard for trying on this sort of thing.
So the solution to your problem is to make your tasks harder, not easier.