How Yesterday's New System (Resistance Zero) Compares with Other Systems
Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at 9:00 Yesterday’s new system is based on using scanning to reduce resistance. Many other time management systems use scanning a list to select what to do next. How do they compare for the purpose of lowering resistance?
Yesterday’s system (I must give it a proper name - suggestions? Resistance Zero)
The whole list is scanned in one go, which allows for one’s mind to do a mini-assessment of every task on the list. This allows for all factors to be taken account of, and also allows the mind to advance each task in readiness.
FV and FVP
Both these systems use scanning to compare tasks in order to create a “resistance ladder”. After a complete scan, further scans are only done over a restricted portion of the list. This means that many tasks are done which are not at zero resistance. This increases the energy needed to do them and also keeps resistance to the list as a whole quite high.
Autofocus
In this system and its variants only one page at a time is scanned so resistance is not lowered on any of the other pages. Instead of being done at zero resistance, all the tasks are done which are below the maximum tolerable resistance. This does have the effect of reducing resistance to the other tasks on the page, but only while that page is being worked on. Again resistance to the list as a whole can build up quite rapidly.
Simple Scanning
Only a small portion of the list is scanned each time and tasks are done up to the maximum tolerable resistance.
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Basically what the new system offers over these systems is a much faster reduction of resistance, plus only having to do tasks for which there is no resistance at all. The result is increased speed, less effort and no resistance to the system as a whole.
Reader Comments (23)
http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2018/10/13/problem-3-resistance.html
Much as I am interested in the new system, it seems like the above did provide one solution to the resistance problem.
Also, a few questions about the new system:
1. How does it handle urgent tasks? "If it needs doing now, do it"? Do you re-select when there has been a change of circumstances? Do you adjust the order of tasks?
2. Let's say you've done a pleasurable task and just re-entered it. Is it expected on your next scan that you will feel a tiny bit of resistance to doing it again it? Otherwise, what is to stop one from spending too much time on "fun" tasks (supposing those are on the list)?
Zero 1 - Z1
Zero two - Z2
etc.
<< How about calling it ZR = zero resistance? >>
Or Resistance Zero?
I've tried the new system for a couple of days and I think I can answer some of your questions from my perspective.
"Much as I am interested in the new system, it seems like the above did provide one solution to the resistance problem."
But the new system actually applies the solution in that post. As it states: "It is not a question of easy tasks v. difficult tasks. It is purely a question of suitability to be done at that time." In other words, no resistance tasks are tasks that, to use the words of the article, the most suitable tasks to do at this time.
"How does it handle urgent tasks?"
By definition, urgent tasks are tasks with the lowest resistance to do right then and there! In my case there has been no problem whatsoever to just do an urgent task even if I drop the task I was doing. If I am feeling a bit obsessive-compulsive about it (especially the first few hours of using this system) I could write the task at the end of the list and dot it, then it should be the first thing I do according to the rules of the system. And even if I don't, the task I was doing last is still dotted and can remind me what I was doing before.
"Let's say you've done a pleasurable task and just re-entered it. Is it expected on your next scan that you will feel a tiny bit of resistance to doing it again it?"
Exactly. In fact, the system has taught me that there are roughly two kinds of resistance. One is what I would call "emotional resistance", this is the traditional resistance we've been discussing here: negative feelings towards a task resulting in avoidance of said task. This kind of resistance seems to be the one affected positively by this system: the more often I read the task, the lesser the resistance becomes.
The other kind of resistance is what I would call "cognitive resistance". Since it is cognitive, it comes from our rational being, from our intellect, morals, and will. It is the resistance that wants to not do or stop doing a task because it intellectually knows it is wrong to do the said task. So this is the resistance one feels when we are starting to abuse fun or pleasurable tasks and habits. And it seems to work differently from emotional resistance: the more often you read the task, the greater the intellectual resistance becomes, but that resistance crumbles quickly if there are no other tasks with less resistance of both types. So in other words, we don't stop doing fun or pleasurable things that we know are wrong because we don't find alternatives to them.
You want to therefore do tasks in this system that have no emotional nor cognitive resistance.
I am amazed at how much of a help this system is in keeping my bad habits and fun activities under control, so much so that my list is now filled with fun and pleasurable activities as well as other tasks, because I am confident in the system's efficacy in keeping them under control.
<< I wonder how yesterday's system compares to using Simple Scanning when accompanied by the attitude that "resistance doesn't exist," "everything is easy," "do what stands out for as long as you feel like doing it and no longer," >>
Ed Z has given a good answer to that question. I would only add that because the whole list is scanned at the same time, rather than the small chunks of Simple Scanning, resistance is lowered faster.
I've also found that if a Simple Scanning list gets too long the length of the list can cause anxiety, which may translate into resistance to the list as a whole. So far this has not happened with the new system, probably because of the feeling that the whole list has been covered in the most recent scan so it's all under control.
So each time i scan the list resistance goes down, and each time i work on my batch of zero resistance tasks momentum goes up. Then when its time to scan the list again I have a whole new batch of zero resistance tasks ready to be dotted.
I suggested that, but I actually thought No Resistance (NR) or Zero Resistance (ZR) would win.
Mark and Ed Z:
Thanks, I have a better sense of how scanning for no resistance accounts for urgency. In theory, I suppose, there could be cases of severe procrastination when someone can't get their urgent items down to zero resistance. But this is just an armchair objection. Really, one needs to try it.
For me, the litmus test of this (any?) system would be how fast it handles non-urgent important stuff (like "Write Report" due three months from now). I wonder if this system will consistently reduce such a task to zero resistance before it becomes an urgent task. Or will one keep putting it off with displacement activities? I'm willing to believe that the former will happen--but unfortunately, I can't give this a proper test. My most important tasks are already urgent (my fault)!
Mark, thank you for sharing this new system and your latest thinking.
And a few more hypotheticals in case they are of interest:
1. By no fault of your own you get saddled with a sudden, unpleasant (but urgent) task. Your boss asks you to write a report by end of day. Or you need to call an angry customer. Normally, one would expect some resistance to such tasks. And they won't have had the benefit of being scanned on your list for very long. Will the system still manage to select them? I wonder.
2. You need to do something you're afraid to do--say, learn how to drive or how to swim. Will the system help with that? I wonder.
Belacqua: The psychologist's answer to "do something you're afraid to do" is progressive desensitization. It seems to be the same principle, but instead of just exposure to the idea, it might be getting closer to the action.
Example: Wading in shallow water. Next day, wading deeper. Next day, wading deeper with floatation help. If you need help getting there, your step is to get that help.
Given such a game plan, I believe Mark's system will help you to get it off the ground.
The idiom comes from a time when most men wear hats, and if for some reason they want to climb a wall, there is a possibility that their hats will fall off during the climb, so they just throw their hats over the wall, which in turn gives them additional motivation to climb the wall or they'll lose their hats. It occurred to me that I can use this saying's analogy to get my list moving again, so I devised this algorithm, which follows the rules of Zero Resistance:
1. "Find the part of the wall that is lowest and/or has the best purchase." Of course if one wants to climb a wall, they'd want to find the spot where it's easiest to climb over it. In my list, I look for the "task with least resistance" (TLR). This is the task that seems foremost in my mind. In Belacqua's cases, the urgent yet unpleasant tasks, as well as the fear-inducing tasks that makes one worry you too much, would be the TLRs, because such tasks actually increases the resistance of other tasks: the other tasks become less important (cognitive resistance) and one becomes more anxious to finish the urgent task (emotional resistance).
2. "Situate yourself before the most climbable part of the wall." (Please note that I am using an app on my smartphone for my list, so I am trying to describe what I would do if I was using a pen and paper, which might be found to be impractical.) Cross out and rewrite the TLR at the end of the list, then draw a small empty circle before it.
3. "Throw your hats over the wall." Just like how throwing a hat over a wall uses little effort yet commits one to action, brainstorm and write down zero-resistance tasks that both lessen the resistance of the TLR and increases your commitment to do the TLR. For example, in the case of talking to an angry customer, they could be tasks like "research on the customers' case", " talk to people who have handled the customer previously," and others. For the fear inducing tasks like learning how to swim, those tasks could be "call a friend who knows how to swim", "call a certified swim instructor and make an appointment," "ask a friend to accompany you to one or few of the swim classes," and so on.
4. "Start climbing." Do "Zero-Resistance" with emphasis on staying below the TLR's position, with the goal of lessening its resistance by doing the brainstormed zero-resistance tasks/"hats" to the point it becomes doable. Like the arduous effort of climbing a wall, it is not likely one can reduce a TLR's resistance to zero, as Alan Baljeu points out, but it can be just enough that it practically is. Keep on adding "hats to throw" to keep on chipping away on the TLR's resistance, and if needed take a break once in a while from focusing on the TLR by doing the whole list, or even putting down the list altogether. Once the TLR becomes doable, fill up the empty circle to make it into a dot and do it.
5. "Retrieve the hat on the other side." Of course the analogy breaks down here, but celebrate in your own small way once the TLR is done. Once the TLR in my list is done, I find that the list becomes more relevant and more responsive, so I would say this algorithm works, at least in my case. And note that this follows the Zero Resistance algorithm.
<< I’m struggling with not dotting the first task on the list >>
The first task on the list in this system is not automatically dotted because the whole idea is to reduce the resistance for every task to zero by repeated scanning. If the first task were dotted automatically, that would mean that some tasks would not be at resistance zero when they were done.
My own experience with the list is that the early tasks on the list do in fact have their resistance reduced to zero quite quickly.
If you find that does not happen for you quickly enough (or at all) then you might find NQ-FVP more suitable for you.
Any suggestions on methodically getting rid of the cruft that's just Not Getting Done using this system?