Using a timer

One of the most useful tools for managing your time is, strangely enough, a timer. Most SmartPhones come with excellent timers, but any old timer will do. Note that I’m not referring to an alarm, though these can be useful time management tools too.

My very first book “Get Everything Done” was about the use of a timer to work on tasks for increasing intervals. The intervals I used in the book were increasing intervals of 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes and so on up to a maximum of 40 minutes. if you work on a task in increasing intervals right up to a 40 minute interval, you will have worked on it for three hours.

Guess what? Twenty-one years later the system still works. 

However there are many other ways of using timed intervals, and the only limit is your imagination. And one of the great advantages is that you can use timed intervals in conjunction with almost any other system.

So for instance I am writing this blog post using intervals of one minute increasing by one minute each time. There’s no gap between the intervals. The intervals are just there to keep my concentration going - and they are very effective at that.

Currently I’ve just started a six minute interval, which means that so far I’ve been continuously writing the blog post for 1+2+3+4+5=15 minutes.

This blog post is actually the third item on a list of five items, which I am working through one task at a time. I’m timing each item individually but an alternative (and equally effective) way of doing it would be to time the whole group of five as one.

Another way I’m currently using a timer is for reading books. Though I love reading, it’s very easy to get distracted. Using timed intervals makes it much easier to maintain concentration. I use a slightly different technique for this. This time I count down as well as up. So I aim to read up to ten minutes and then count back down to one. If you want to read for a shorter period or longer period you can use more or fewer intervals, e.g. up to five minutes and back, or fifteen minutes and back. 

How much concentrated reading time does going up to ten minutes and back down to one give you? If you’re not a mathematician you may be surprised at the answer. It’s one hour and forty minutes. That’s a powerfully long session of concentrated reading. 

I find increasing the intervals upwards only is best for tasks when you don’t know exactly how long they’ll take. But increasing the intervals upward and then downward is for something like reading which you want to do for a set time.

My current seven minute interval is coming to an end, and I’m just about at the end of writing this post. So it will have taken me 1+2+3+4+5+6+7=28 minutes.

Why not give it a try? There are many more possible variations. You can experiment to see which suits you best.

A New Random Method - Follow Up #1

At the beginning of Day 4 of testing I have 82 undone tasks in the system (including writing this post). I have the following page stats (I’m using three columns on a page of 33 lines):

Page 1 Completed 99 Remaining 0

Page 2 Completed 99 Remaining 0

Page 3 Completed 66 Remaining 33

Page 4 Completed  3  Remaining 50

Total  Completed 267 Remaining 83

267 tasks completed in three days equals an average of 89 tasks a day.

This means that I’ve got about a day’s worth of undone tasks in the system. This is about the limit that a random method can take without undue delays. 

A New Random Method

One of the favourite systems on this blog is the Random Method which is noted for the way in which it removes resistance to your tasks.

The reason for this reduction of resistance is something which I first experienced in the Army - that it’s much easier to obey orders than to give orders. In other words stress comes from responsibility rather than from the work itself.

Using a random time management system is a bit like deciding what you want to do and then constructing a robot which tells you exactly how to do it, step by step. Easy, huh?

Not so easy.

The bad news about random numbers is precisely the fact that they are random - which means that they are completely indifferent to your wishes, goals, time constraints, and energy levels. The good news is that they are also indifferent to your fears, laziness, resistance, procrastination and wishful thinking.

If you were just to have a long list and circulate around it using a random number generator to select which task to do next, you would have no control at all over what order you do your work. Some unimportant projects would get done in record time, and some really important ones would languish for ages.

Maybe that doesn’t sound much different from your normal work pattern?

So how can we use random numbers to produce better rather than worse results than normal?

Well, here’s a way. It’s slightly more difficult to use than the existing Random Method because you have to keep adjusting the Max setting on the random number generator. But I’ve found the results to be much better.

1. Write out your task list (you can keep adding to it).

2. Set the Max on your random number generator to the number of tasks on the list.

3. Generate a number.

4. Count through the list until you reach that number task and work on it. Delete and re-enter as necessary.

5. Your list is now divided into two unequal halves with the deleted task as the dividing line. Repeat the process using the first half only, and then the second half.

6. Carry on sub-dividing the list in this way.

Some of you may think this is Another Simple and Effective Method used with a random number generator. You’re right - it is. So far I’ve found it fast and efficient, and actually much more so than when the method is used with only my brain in charge. Bear in mind though that I’m only on Day 3 of testing, and new systems always work well to start off with.

P.S. I recommend you to use the Randomizer app as your random number generator. I’ve been using it for years for all sorts of purposes and it’s really excellent.

Halving with 5-4-3-2-1 Follow Up #2

At the end of the day the stats are:

Page 1: 33 done, 0 remaining

Page 2: 33 done, 0 remaining

Page 3: 22 done, 11 remaining

Page 4: 13 done, 20 remaining

Page 5: 5 done, 28 remaining

Page 6: 4 done, 23 remaining

———————————————

Total: 110 done, 82 remaining

=================

That’s in a bit less than two days. It seems to be progressing satisfactorily. I’m particularly pleased that the number of tasks remaining seems to be static, and also that the 5-4-3-2-1 method has not once failed me.

I’ve been thinking up some other ways of using 5-4-3-2-1 which I want to try out. So I’m going to leave the Halving system for the time being and do some more experimenting.

Halving with 5-4-3-2-1 Follow Up

I’ve been going for less than a day with this and already the results are very encouraging.

At the moment I’ve got five pages of 33 lines each and the stats are:

Page 1: 33 done, 0 remaining

Page 2: 26 done, 7 remaining

Page 3: 5 done, 28 remaining

Page 4: 2 done, 31 remaining

Page 5: 0 done, 15 remaining

—————————————————

Total:   66 done, 81 remaining

===================

As you can see it is a characteristic of this system that it is weighted towards the beginning of the list.

Perhaps the most important thing to report is that the 5-4-3-2-1 method didn’t let me down once.

Those who want to have a go at this for themselves please note that I introduced a new rule:

If you come to a single task which can’t be done at the precise time that you come to it (e.g. time of day, weather, etc), it should be left in place for a subsequent pass. 

Halving with 5-4-3-2-1

Recently my attention was drawn to Mel Robbin’s Countdown Method of getting going with tasks and projects which you’re resisting. It’s a bit like a method I used as a child of getting out of bed in the morning (in pre-central heating days). I used to count down 3-2-1. It was sometimes successful and sometimes not.

Space flight didn’t exist in those days so I didn’t have the example of a space rocket launch to add a couple more digits and a lot more excitement. I wish I had because so far I’ve found the 5-4-3-2-1 countdown to be very effective (why do you think i’m writing my first blog post for over a month?)

I haven’t yet gone much further into the ways Mel Robbins recommends this should be used, but it struck me immediately that it would go very weil with one of my methods which I call “Halving” to myself, but was originally published under the title Another Simple and Effective Method

This method has remained one of my “go back to” systems. The main problem with it is that eventually all the easy tasks in the early part of the list have been done and the result can be considerable resistance to the more difficult tasks which remain. So an infallible method of overcoming resistance would be just the thing.

If 5-4-3-2-1 can be used to remove the resistance to individual tasks, “Halving” would make an excellent system to go with it. Because of the way it’s designed, easy or urgent tasks get dealt with quickly but the more difficult or less urgent tasks nevertheless inevitably get dealt with without lingering.

I’m trying it out at the moment. So far very successful, but it’s still Day 1. I’ll report back soon.

Progress Report AF New Rules - #3

I’ve just realised that I never gave a final progress report on the proposed new rules for Autofocus 1.

In spite of the fact that I got a considerable amount of work done in the few days I ran the trial, I came to the conclusion that the new rules didn’t in fact contribute much. I came across much the same benefits and problems as I normally do with Autofocus, which are that the list tends to expand excessively with the result that eventually the size of the list becomes oppressive and it’s difficult to deal with urgent or time-sensitive matters within the system.

I’ve now decided to go back to the Simple New System  which I described nearly two months ago. I’ve never really given it a proper trial, but it seems promising.

Progress Report AF New Rules - #2

Page 1 31 tasks completed, 0 remaining

Page 2 31 tasks completed, 0 remaining

Page 3 31 tasks completed, 0 remaining

Page 4 31 tasks completed, 0 remaining

Page 5 31 tasks completed, 0 remaining

Page 6 29 tasks completed, 2 remaining

Page 7 31 tasks completed, 0 remaining

Page 8, 23 tasks completed, 8 remaining

Page 9, 31 tasks completed, 0 remaining

Page 10, 21 tasks completed, 10 remaining

Page 11, 30 tasks completed, 1 remaining

Page 12, 15 tasks completed, 16 remaining

Page 13, 26 tasks completed, 5 remaining

Page 14, 7 tasks completed, 24 remaining

Page 15, 1 task completed, 17 remaining

Total 369 tasks completed, 83 remaining

11 tasks were yellow highlighted, 2 of these have since been completed.

This means that in two and a half days I have done an average of 148 tasks a day.

Progress Report AF New Rules - #1

Page 1 32 tasks completed, 0 remaining

Page 2 33 tesks completed, 0 remaining

Page 3 32 tasks completed, 1 remaining

Page 4 28 tasks completed, 5 remaining

Page 5 33 tasks completed, 0 remaining

Page 6 30 tasks completed, 3 remaining

Page 7 30 tasks completed, 3 remaining

Page 8, 19 tasks completed, 14 remaining

Page 9, 31 tasks completed, 2 remaining

Page 10, 8 tasks completed, 23 remaining

Page 11, 15 tasks completed, 16 remaining

Page 12, 1 task completed, 17 remaining

Total 292 tasks completed, 84 remaining

2 tasks were yellow highlighted, 1 of these has since been completed.

Update on Autofocus Dismissal Rules Trial - Day 2

At the end of the day, I have 9 Full Pages of which two have been completed.

That represents 297 tasks, of which 207 tasks have been done and 90 are undone.

Two tasks have been highlighted yellow under the new rules,

I’m amazed at how much work I’ve got done in a day and a half.

It’s too early to say how much effect the new rules are having, but my impression so far is that the system feels much easier and relaxed than the original AF. I’m sailing through the work.

Autofocus 1 New Dismissal Rule Trial

I’ve started a trial today of Autofocus 1 with a revised dismissal rule.

The new rule is that if you scan a page and no tasks stand out for action, then you go through each task remaining on the page and EITHER delete it OR cross it out and re-enter it at the end of the list.

This is intended to be: 

• simpler
• easier
• less harsh
• just as effective (or possibly even more effective)

I will identify tasks which have been relegated to the end of the list in this way with yellow highlighting. If they get relegated twice in a row then the highlighting changes to orange. That will make it very obvious which tasks are stuck, so that remedial action can be taken.

Anyone who wants to try this along with me is very welcome. You can discuss your experiences with it in the Comments.

Update on Thursday, June 24, 2021 at 15:47 by Mark Forster

After a bit less than 24 hours, how am I getting on?

Very well on the whole.

The real question is whether the new rules for dismissal have made any difference. Since I haven’t dismissed anything yet, it’s a bit early to say. But I do have one page with only one task remaining, and it’s one I’m unlikely to find time to do today.

Under the old rules I’d either have to force myself to do this task when I don’t really have time, or else take it out of circulation for a while.

With the proposed new rules, I don’t feel any tension about it. If it gets done, it gets done. And if it doesn’t get done, then it will be moved to the end of the list and highlighted in yellow so I am reminded that it needs special attention.

So far I have seven full pages, which total 231 tasks of which 77 remain undone. 

Dealing with Addictive Distractions

There’s a question on the Forum about how to deal with addictive tasks in time management systems which, like most of mine, rely on “standing out” and “little and often”.

What the writer of the question was querying was whether “standing out” is capable of dealing with a task which has an addictive quality built into it. Playing computer games is a good example, since they are specifically designed to be addictive. But there are plenty of others. Basically it boils down to “Would you rather be playing Minecraft than writing that difficult report?” Wouldn’t “Play Minecraft” always stand out rather than “Write Extremely Difficult Report”?

And, even worse, once you’d chosen “Play Minecraft” wouldn’t “little and often” turn into “a lot and most of the time”?

This is an extreme example of course, but there are plenty of minor tasks which can be distractions from the real work. On the face of it using methods relying on what you “feel like” doing are bound to fail when faced with tasks like these.

So what is the answer?

Years ago, long before I started this blog, my standard answer to the question “What can I do about distractions?” was “Put them on your list”. So if you are distracted because you are worrying about an upcoming exam, put “Prepare for Exam” on your list. If you are distracted because you are trying to write a report but worried about what you need to do for a meeting the next day, put “Prepare Tomorrow’s Meeting” on your list. If you’re distracted because you’re longing for a nice cold beer, put “Beer” on your list.

The key point here is that distractions are essentially mindless. Once you have made them matters of conscious choice you have gained control over them.

It’s a bit like pain. No one wants to feel pain, but the secret of dealing with pain, whether it’s physical or mental, is to put one’s full attention on it. You then to some extent become an observer of the pain rather than a victim of it.

It’s the same with distractions. If you are using “little and often” and “standing out”, you are less likely to be distracted by them, not more, because you have gained control of them with your mind.

That’s it. Can I get back to that game of Minecraft now?

AFTERNOTE:

I omitted to mention that most of my time management systems are designed to be addictive in themselves. That’s why I encourage people to use pen and paper, leave deleted tasks on the page and join contiguous done tasks with a short line. There’s a strong addictiveness in seeing those tasks being “mown down” and seeing the gaps between them get shorter and shorter. 

Plus, keeping stats in terms of task done, rather than time spent, also encourages little and often. One gigantic four-hour session of Minecraft counts as one point. Sixteen quarter-hour sessions count as sixteen points, and you will have done at least another sixteen tasks in between. So 32 points!

Essentially you can look on a time management system like NQ-FVP as a computer game with a real life (yours) as its subject.

Latest on Autofocus Revisit

I’ve just completed my second day of Autofocus using my current list which I started early yesterday.

I’m having difficulty believing that it’s only been two days - I’ve done so much.

I’ve now got to a stage which I remember from when I originally developed the system. It’s where the easy and routine tasks have been brought under control, and one is now ready to tackle the more difficult and challenging (but also more worthwhile) tasks and projects. And probably do some dismissing in the process.

I’ve now got nine full pages and a tenth with only one task on it. That’s 280 in all.

Of these I’ve done 178 tasks and 102 are yet to be done - 42 from Day 1 and 60 from Day 2.

That means I’ve averaged 89 tasks a day, and there’s 1.1 days’ worth of tasks on the list if I keep up the present rate.

I doubt though if I’ll manage so many tasks tomorrow as I’m taken advantage of the relaxation of the Covid rules to have a long lunch in a local pub with friends.

Autofocus Revisit Continued

After getting distracted for over a week, I’m back on my review of Autofocus.

I started with a fresh list this morning with twelve tasks which I’ve been adding to thoughout the day. I now have nearly five pages of tasks in a 31-lines-to-the-page notebook. In total that is 152 tasks. Nothing like starting small!

The good news is that I’ve done all but one of the original twelve together with 52 other tasks, leaving a mere 89 undone. That is definitely progress.

In fact this is progressing exactly as I remember it progressing when I first started using Autofocus. One starts off with the easy routine tasks. That’s not a problem, because it gets all the routines up and running again if they’ve been allowed to lapse (which they have). 

Once the routines are sorted, the next stage is to start tackling some projects. As with the routines Autofocus starts with the easier ones and gets them up and running before starting on the more difficult ones. This is the right order because it’s clearing the way for the more difficult ones.

I’m talking as if it’s the system itself which is making the decisions rather than me myself. And this is exactly what it feels like. The system is imposing order and consistency on me. I could no doubt have written out a detailed plan to get everything in my life sorted out, but writing the plan would probably have taken all day and it would immediately collapse with the arrival of some new circumstances.

Autofocus handles all this for you - if you’ll let it. All you have to do is scan the list according to the rules, get prompted by “standing out” to work on a task for as long as you like, and then continue following the rules. 

For instance, I had no intention of writing a blog post today, but here it is. Autofocus prompted me, and it’s done!

Afternote:

At the end of the first day I have just short of six pages, consisting of 184 tasks, of which I have done 94. 

Revisiting "Predicting Your Day"

I’ve been distracted from my revisit of Autofocus after one very productive day working it. The reason for my distraction is that my attention got drawn back to a post I made in 2008 about Predicting Your Day, which I’d entirely forgotten about. There were two follow-up posts to it, in which I described how using the method I had not missed a single task for a period of eight days.

And then the follow-ups stopped.

So did they stop because Predicting Your Day had spectacularly crashed, or because I’d got distracted onto something else? Trying to remember back thirteen years is difficult, but knowing myself as I do I think that getting distracted is the more likely. Besides I usually own up to spectacular crashes!

What this means is that Predicting Your Day is a system which has never been tested to the full. And wouldn’t it be great if it did work consistently in the long term? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a system in which you just write down a list of what you think you’ll actually do that day, put it in a drawer, and at the end of the day find that you have magically done everything on the list?

Yes, it would. 

So would you like me to tell you how it’s done? I already have. It’s as easy as what I’ve just written. But notice the wording. You write down a list of “what you think you will actually do that day”. Not “what you want to do that day” or “what you ought to do that day”, but what you predict you will actually do that day.

Anyway, read the article and the comments from readers who tried it, and if you are as intrigued as I am have a go at it.

That’s it. I’ve just completed the “Write Blog Post” task I predicted I would do!

12.30pm Update. Work on my list for today started at 10,36 with the writing of this blog post. The list contained 37 tasks and I’ve completed 17 of them - nearly half - in a couple of hours. So very successful so far.

4 pm Update. Only 12 tasks to go. The eight I’ve done this afternoon were bigger tasks than the ones this morning. The remaining ones are smaller again, so I will have no excuse for not finishing.

Revisiting Autofocus

I’ve decided to revisit the original Autofocus system (or Autofocus 1 as it was later called). It’s always been one of my favourite systems, and I want to see what it’s capable of. As the name suggests it’s not just a way of getting lots of work done, but also a way of focusing that work so that it sifts your to-do list to accelerate what is going someplace and gets rid of stuff which is going nowhere. I’m not sure that that this aspect has been explored enough by me, so my intention is to give it a good long run to see how much it succeeds in emphasing the positive and removing the negative.

This means that the tests will be concentrating on quality of work rather than quantity.

So let’s get going.

My first observation is that Autofocus feels quite unlike any other system. There’s an immediate sense of calm and control.

I’ve been working on it now for two or three hours and have accumulated two pages worth of tasks - thirty-one lines to the page, one task per line. From memory it can handle a lot more than that. I’ve done nothing spectacular so far, just the usual routine jobs like email, paper, Facebook, messages, and so on. And of course writing this blog post. This conforms to my recollections of doing it in the past - it always seems to home in on getting the routine stuff right first - getting things to inbox zero.

I’m talking as if the system has a mind of its own, and sometimes it does seem like that. But in reality of course the system is just a vehicle for my mind to operate. The system itself should be as unobtrusive as possible.

Update tomorrow.

Guest Post: How to Pursue All Your Goals

This is a guest post by Alan Baljeu long-term contributer to the Comments and Forum sections of this blog:

I will describe my process below, but after two months experience working and adjusting, I am convinced that what matters is not the precise process, but the mindset the system supports: Think regularly about your goals, why you want them, and how you will get there. By doing this, you increase the motivation to work on things you care about, and clarity so that your work is more effective.

This idea came to me about two months ago and has proven to be a gift to me from God. I say this because it came to me suddenly in a moment of despair. Prior to this, I had been somewhat successful in sticking to a process of writing tasks and doing tasks, I did not feel I was really making progress on things that mattered. And when I tried to push myself harder to really work on those things, I became overwhelmed and ended up doing less.

At the beginning, I recorded some of my thoughts. (Jordan Peterson’s Self Authoring program surely inspired me here.)

• Overweight, low energy, persistent inflammation issues. I hope to resolve this by eating better.
• Finances are a mess. Get these in order and improve my outlook.
• Software development for business prospects is advancing too slowly. Get back on track and make concrete advancements.
• Social engagement since COVID has been awful. Expand and improve how well and how much I engage with others.
• I had been growing in my faith, but I want to put that into action.
• My general mood has been low, and so I engaged in lots of trivial entertainment but felt things weren’t going forward. On Mark’s “How good do you feel?” question score would vary between 2 and 6.

Each of these statements describes a situation in an area of my life (a Life Area) I wanted to address.  So I developed and followed the system to address all of them at once.  Following the system has been an unqualified success. While life still has ups and downs, days when I execute poorly, I find overall I am more motivated, work harder, I am making progress on all the above, and as a metric my “How good do I feel?” score now averages about 8.

Tracking a Life Area

I tried writing instructions for this process, but every time I did, it got complicated, when it is really simple, as I illustrate here. Basically, it is freeform, whatever I find helpful. I write goals and notes and organize and highlight as will help motivate me to achieving the work.

(the line numbers are merely for discussion)

1 Lose weight and increase health via #food
2 + !(2021-02-25) Overweight, low energy, persistent inflammation issues. Not eating that well, though I have cut some foods. Now setting on a course to become healthy again, like when I was younger.
3 + !(2021-03-01) `goal` lost weight - 1 pant size
4 + `food log`
5 + !(2021-03-30) - !(2021-04-12) Committed to rule: ~~Has wheat? Can’t eat~~.
6 + !(2021-04-13) - !(2021-04-20) Continue healthier diet. Think what else might improve it.
7 * !(2021-04-19) Prepared salad, sandwiches, ribs
(aside: the sandwiches are made without wheat)
8 * !(2021-04-20) Buy fresh vegetables.

Explanation

This is an outline, with a header and the second level items shown.  A leading + indicates there’s more detail hidden at deeper levels.  A * indicates nothing else is below.  Dates are when I started [ or plan to start ] working towards an objective.  A second date is when I accomplished [ or hope to achieve ] the stated outcome.

Line 1, the header, shows an aspect of life I want to improve, with an evocative title.
Line 2, records how things were at the outset, and what I wanted to change.
Line 3 is a goal, with no end date because it’s still being worked on and I haven’t set a target.
The food log is just that; it contains a record of what I ate each day
5 and 6 are a couple subgoals which I tried and completed, as indicated by the start and end dates.
7 and 8 are what I plan to do [eat] today and tomorrow.  When these are done, I will file them away under line 6.

I try to write these goals as outcome based usually (but not always). When I achieve it I will write the end date. Because it was written as an outcome, what I wrote initially stands sensible without having to rewrite. Under this I have archived what I worked on towards achieving it, details I don’t need to see now.

Everything you see here functions as a dashboard to remind me of what I’m trying to achieve.  Everything not presently useful for that is filed away.

Processing a Life Area

Processing the outline is very simple. I simply look at it, remind myself what I want to achieve and what I need to do next. If now is a good time I do that next step. After, I plan a subsequent step. I may choose to plan ahead. I may think about the bigger picture and note those things.

If a goal is achieved, I note the success. If a goal changes, I note the new goal, but also for the record I will note how it changed and when. If a date slipped, I must record it as a way of keeping myself honest and not committing without taking the commitment seriously.

For another kind of goal I might have more hierachy and planning to the subgoals.  In that case, I will show the first step (or two) at each level of the plan, but the format is the same.  When something is complete that I don’t need to see any more, I archive it under the higher goal it belongs to.

There is no rewriting in this process.  Every entry is specific for the detail you worked on each day.  When you are ready to plan the next step, write what you want to accomplish next.

And that’s all!  Processing all of this (not counting actual work such as food preparation) amounts to no more than 5 minutes per day.  The actions described above can be done at any time; you don’t have to do all at once. This is because merely looking at the document makes it obvious what you need to do.

The benefit is, whenever I look at my “Lose Weight and Increase Health via #food” goal, I see why I want to do this, what steps I am taking, and what I am to do next. Because I look at this every day, I remember my purpose, my plan, and the next step. I always know what to do and why.  The tangible effect of this is I keep motivated to move things forward. I also have a total record, so it functions as an ongoing journal of my life by subject which I can review and see what went well.

Building up to a Complete System

The above is a goal achievement process for one area of my life (#food). To make a complete system, I simply replicated this for a dozen separate life areas, covering my whole life. The first week of executing this process was a resounding success. HOWEVER: It was overwhelming in the second week, and I needed to back off a bit. Therefore, I suggest anyone else trying this to start with about three or four goals and build from there after you get those under control.

Start by thinking about basic life areas, such as Food, Fitness, Family, Work, Business, Learning, God, Finance, House Maintenance. Start particularly with what you most want to change.  Currently I have 13 items. I don’t think anyone would have as many as 20, and more than 10 takes effort to manage. I don’t get to all of them every day, but I do get to all of them at least every three days.

To implement this physically, I use an outliner which I find ideal. My outline is simply what I showed above, with one branch for each life area.  If you use any non-outlining note taker, I suggest keeping a document for each life area. At the top of each document, I would keep the dashboard information of what matters now [ e.g., the content you see in my #food example], and then below this keep and organize any the detailed notes.

For paper, I haven’t tried this, but I propose writing in a notebook, not too small. Put each life area on a separate page. Write your evocative title at the top, then the information below. Because you can’t edit your notes, just keep everything as a journal/diary in chronological order within the page.  Use your favorite highlighting techniques to have the important information stand out. Mark off when things are complete.  When the page is full, start a new page and carry forward just the title and the larger active goals - stuff you want to see regularly to that new page - and mark off the old page as complete.

Particular Life Areas of Note:

• Miscellaneous – a place to throw all those tasks that don’t have a defined goal.  At the outset, this will BE your previous task list. For myself, this list has shrunk to almost zero. Everything else has been subsumed by my life area goals.
• Chores - things that need to be maintained regularly. Dishes. Email.
• Process – where I review how well the system is functioning and to adjust; not only the system above, but all systems in my life, rules, and how I apply them.
• Better Life – where I review the balance of all my Life Areas, and how I feel about it all. Make sure there’s enough fun and meaning in life, and that my goals are serving me. If something feels off, I plan how I might improve it.
• Calendar - exclusively for appointments. It’s in here to be reviewed regularly, as I review all areas regularly.  There are no goals.  My goals have dates but aren’t operated by the calendar.

Processing the Complete System

If you are using a notebook, just flip through the pages until you hit on a life area you want to address - and address it.  Then flip some more.  What could be simpler?

But with a digital approach, I prefer to treat it like one of Mark Forster’s systems with a constantly reorganizing list.  In my case, simply collapse the complete outline and treat my 13 life areas as a short list of 13 “tasks”.  In that context, I found the following algorithm works beautifully:

• Simply scan the list of life areas for one that stands out
• Work on that life area as described in Processing        
• When you set a life area aside (it’s never finished, of course), move it to the end of the list      
• Resume scanning from where you were, upwards or downwards at your whim.
  • Down tends to revisit things you’ve been working on.
  • Up tends to survey things you haven’t been working on.

You don’t need to act on all life areas in a single day, but it is likely you will cover all of them over the course of a few days.

This Morning's Stats

I started a new list today for A Simple New System to Try Out as described in my previous post.

This is the situation as at midday:

0-1: 6 tasks, all done.

1-2: 12 tasks, 11 done, 1 remaining

2-3: 9 tasks, 8 done, 1 remaining

3-4: 7 tasks, 5 done, 2 remaining

5-6: 17 tasks, 11 done, 6 remaining

6-7: 23 tasks, 2 done, 21 remaining

7- ; 1 task

Total Tasks: 75

Done: 43

Remaining: 32

(The numbers (0-1 etc) refer to the lines drawn across the list each time you go back to the beginning. Only the last one (7 in this case) still plays any part in working the system.)

By 7 p.m. the totals were:

Total tasks: 122

Done: 80

Remaining: 42

A Simple New System to Try Out

Here’s a new system which is a sort of combination of Simple Scanning and GIRKIR. I’ve been using it on and off for a bit and it seems to work pretty well. It is quicker than GIRKIR, and restrains Simple Scanning’s tendency to run on.

I’m not quite sure why it works, but it seems to - for me anyway.

I have not tested this thoroughly, and in particular I don’t know how quickly the length of the list will become unmanageable - if indeed it ever does. Nor do I know what to do when it does, though one obvious solution would be to start a new list.

Here are the instructions: 

1. Write a list of five to ten tasks
2. Draw a line at the end of the list
3. Process the tasks as in Simple Scanning, i.e. do the ones the ones you want to do in order and leave the rest.
4. Re-enter as necessary after the line. 
5. You can also add new tasks after the line.
6. Once you’ve reached the line, draw another line at the end of the list and go back to the beginning of the list without doing any further tasks.
7. The old line now plays no further role and can be ignored.
8. Repeat the process ad infinitum. 

Caution:

It’s very important not to pack the list  with tasks at any stage. You will overwhelm it if you do. Add tasks slowly as they occur to you so that it builds up naturally.

Questions and experiences in the Comments section below please.

Willpower Training - Maximizing the Effect

In my post about Willpower Training I suggested that each time you fail to complete a group of tasks you should start again with a group of one task and work back up from there.

But a better way to keep pushing your limits for training purposes would be to drop the number of tasks in the group by two, rather than go right back to one.

So the rules would be:

1. Write a list of tasks which you are fairly confident that you can complete in order.

2. if you succeed in finishing the list, add one to the number of tasks and write a new list. For example, if you complete a list of fifteen tasks, write a new list with sixteen tasks in it.

3. If you fail to finish the list, subtract two from the number of tasks and write a new list. For example, if you fail to complete a list of fifteen tasks, write a new list with thirteen tasks in it.

So your training session might go like this:

15 tasks - succeed

16 tasks - succeed

17 tasks - succeed

18 tasks - fail

16 tasks - fail

14 tasks - succeed

15 tasks - succeed

16 tasks - succeed

17 tasks - succeed

18 tasks - succeed

19 tasks etc.