Resistance: How to Make the Most of It - The Resistance Zero System

Following up from my post yesterday, here is a simple system to make resistance a positive in your work and activities instead of the negative that it is for most people.

1. Write out a list of the things you have to do. You can build the list up gradually, but the aim is to eventually cover everything in your life that doesn’t happen on a set-time basis. You can add further tasks at any time.

2. Starting at the end of the list, scan back through the list dotting every task which you feel zero resistance to doing. 

3. Starting from the end, take at least some action on every task you’ve dotted. Re-enter as necessary.

4. Repeat Steps 2-4.

NOTES:

1) Zero resistance means absolutely no resistance whatsoever. 

2) You must do a complete scan at Step 2 so that every task is considered. This is very important, because it is the scanning process that reduces the resistance you feel for each task. If you skip or foreshorten the scan, resistance will rise instead of fall.

3) This is intended to be a fast scan, so that your brain selects the tasks for action action without conscious thought. It’s similar though not identical to the “standing out” process used in many of my systems.

Comments

[Belacqua]

Interesting! I'm trying to think of why "scanning backwards" rather than forwards in this case. I've never tried AF 2, so I admit I'm not used to scanning backwards.

[Mark Forster]

I wrote it as scanning from the end to the beginning of the list because I found that I got better results having the older slower moving tasks at the end of the scan, rather than at the beginning. Similarly I found it useful to have the more urgent fast-moving tasks done first. But I don't think it really would make a huge difference whether you scan backwards or forwards.

What you don't want to do is to keep chopping and changing the direction of the scans.

[Alan Baljeu]

How does this work in practice? What percent of things are selected on a pass? At first I would expect this to select all the things I enjoy doing and are easy, but I suppose in fact I would resist some of these as "not important now". Do the loathsome tasks eventually get to a state of full readiness? Or maybe after the 20th time looking at item #1 you bite the bullet and declare you're never going to do it, and cross it out.

[Mark Forster]

Alan:

<< What percent of things are selected on a pass? >>

There's no set figure. You select the tasks that you are not resisting at all. My experience so far with a 100-task list is that amounts to about 5-10 tasks each pass.

<< Do the loathsome tasks eventually get to a state of full readiness? >>

Yes, that's been my experience so far. What's more they do so quite quickly. If you were marking the resistance out of 10, each task would drop at least one point per pass and often more.

[spaul]

Hi, this looks interesting, especially as last weekend I had a load of things to do, but couldn't be bothered doing any of them and spent the day lying on the sofa,
Quick question, and I appreciate that this has probably been answered elsewhere, what do you classify as a task? I'm coming at this from the GTD (David Allen) angle of single action/project.
And if a task is a 'project', do you add all the separate steps to the list or just the general heading?
Thanks.

[Mark Forster]

spaul:

A task is whatever you want it to be. You can enter tasks at the project level or at the minutest detail level all at the same time. Something I frequently do is enter something at the project level, and use that to generate tasks at lower levels.

[Alan Baljeu]

I think the intended phrase was 'to generate tasks at lower levels' [corrected - MF], by which I think is meant the Project is on the list, and then in executing the project, subtasks of the project are added to the list.

Myself, I would start with "Project Name" as the task entry. Elsewhere if necessary are project plans. From those plans I determine the next task. I might change the task list entry to "Project Name - specified task", or this task might become an additional entry in the list.

[Mark Forster]

Alan Baljeu:

<< Myself, I would start with "Project Name" as the task entry..... >>

That's a perfectly good way of doing it. As I said: "A task is whatever you want it to be".

[Avi Drucker]

Are there any effective ways of measuring task resistance? I'm curious to know how I could do so, in order to assess why I am struggling with this or that task on a consistent basis. The tasks I tend to "snooze" on can get bumped for weeks or even months at a time. My main process is AutoFocus, not sure though if it's FVP, FP, or something else that I have concocted by now 😅

Ps. I appreciate that measuring resistance for each task may not be the most productive use of one's time, and also, I'm seeking to better understand that which I am, I believe, doing poorly/ineffectively, so I can improve in my efficiency/efficacy. Thank you again Mark for all that you do, it is very much appreciated!

[Mark Forster]

Avi Drucker:

<< Are there any effective ways of measuring task resistance? >>

I'm not clear why you want to measure task resistance when you already know that you are resisting the tasks in question. One way of measuring your resistance to a task is how long you have been putting it off.

Or do you want to know how much you are likely to resist a task before you start putting it off so that you can take measures to reduce resistance, such as breaking it into smaller chunks? If so, you could do a dry run with the FVP algorithm with the question "What am I resisting more than...?" to put the tasks in order of resistance.

Alternatively you could simply grade your tasks from 0 to 10, where 0 is you feel zero resistance and 10 is you feel overwhelming resistance.

[Frank]

Similar idea to the Oasis System, except I do less rescanning of the entire list and more recirculating around the selected tasks until resistance begins to rise on them:

http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2702140#post2702207