The secret, known to people like the Native Americans, is to line up two landmarks. When you do this you can easily proceed in a straight line just by keeping the two landmarks aligned. When you reach the first landmark you know you are facing in the right direction so all you have to do is to pick another landmark.

It struck me that this applies to how we go about getting to our goals in our business or personal life. If we aim for just one landmark we are likely to wander about and end up facing in the wrong direction. If we line up two goals then we are much more likely to proceed in a straight line to our desired result.

Let’s give an example of this. We often hear that networking is very important for building a small business. So some people go overboard with networking. They join networking associations, attend lots of events, talk to loads of people, and may even organise their own events.

Then they become disillusioned because their business, far from expanding, is suffering from the amount of time they spend away from it at networking events.

What has gone wrong?

The answer is that they have only lined their actions up on one landmark. They have taken on board that “networking is good” and have therefore lined up on the networking landmark:

——————-> Networking

The result is that they have just concentrated on doing more and more networking without really considering what the purpose of it all was.

If they had remembered that the purpose of the networking was to expand their business they would have approached the networking in a different more focused way:

——————-> Networking ——————-> Business Expansion

As an exercise, you might take a look at some of your goals to see whether they are properly lined up. For instance what might the difference be between these two?

——————-> MBA

——————-> MBA ——————> Promotion to Higher Management

or these two?

———————> Going to gym

———————> Going to gym ———————> Increased energy for work

Wherever you suspect that an activity which should be supporting a higher goal is taking on a life of its own, it’s a good idea to carry out this lining up exercise.

1) Isolate the backlog

2) Get the system for handling new stuff sorted

3) Keep working away at the backlog

People who don’t know this method usually try to clear a backlog by using step 3 on its own. But without doing step 1 first, all that will happen is that the backlog will fill up as fast as you clear it. Even if by some heroic effort you do succeed in clearing the backlog completely, if you haven’t done step 2 you will have a new backlog within days.

This backlog method can be used in many ways which may not be obvious on first sight. Here are a couple of examples:

Tidying an Office

You need to tidy your office. What is untidiness but a backlog of tidying? So carry out the three-step procedure.

1) Dump everything that is out of its proper place (or doesn’t have one) in a pile in the middle of the floor.

2) Work out a routine for cleaning and tidying your office every day. Stick to it religiously.

3) Work on clearing the pile bit by bit.

Getting out of Debt

What is debt but a backlog of money? So three steps to getting out of debt.

1) Consolidate all your debt into one loan, and refuse to take on any more debt of any type.

2) Cut your expenditure so that you can live within your income.

3) Make regular payments towards paying off the loan (capital as well as interest).

I am now working on a time management system which extends this principle to our normal daily work - even where there isn’t a significant backlog. It’s so far proving very powerful. More details soon!

Then I had a period when I used to choose completely at random. I just jabbed my finger at the menu and ordered whatever it landed on. This led to several memorable experiences, but also to some dire ones!

But lately I’ve taken to much more intuitive method of choosing. I read down the list of possible dishes, then read through it again slowly until one of the dishes stands out and I select that one. It’s an easy way to choose and I’ve never yet regretted the choice I’ve made by doing it that way.

If you’re an AF aficionado this will remind you of the way in which we chose the next task in AF. Whether we’re in Forward or Reverse Mode, we are reading through a list of tasks until one feels ready to be done.

However there is one big difference - when chosing off a menu we intend to eat one dish and not eat the others. With the AF list we intend to do all the tasks sooner or later - so our choice is usually about what order to do the tasks in.

However it is quite possible to use AF to make choices of the menu type. Suppose we have decided to take our nearest and dearest out for a meal. Imagine there are three possible restaurants. To make the choice between them all you have to do is put three tasks on your list:

• Book table at The Old Nag Eatery
• Book table at La Pretensiosa Restaurant
• Book table at Joe’s Diner

When one of these tasks stands out, book the table at that restaurant and delete the other two.

You can use the same method for almost any choice you have to make.

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You are recommended to read these instructions through once in order to get an overview and then to follow the step-by-step “Getting Started” section at the end.

Outline

Autofocus consists of one long list of everything you have to do. As new things come up you add them to the end of the list. There are three modes by which you work through the list. These are Reverse Mode, Forward Mode and Review Mode.

Reverse Mode

As the name implies, in this mode you are working from the end of the list backwards. The end of the list is where newly entered tasks are to be found. Reverse Mode is intended particularly for taking action on the more urgent tasks which appear on your list, though it is by no means restricted exclusively to urgent tasks. You always start the day in Reverse Mode.

Forward Mode

In this mode you are working from the beginning of the list forwards. This is primarily intended for taking action on less urgent tasks which have not been dealt with by Reverse Mode, though it is not restricted exclusively to non-urgent tasks.

Review Mode

At the beginning of each day a few of the tasks which have been on the list longest are put on notice for review. If no action is taken on them during the course of that day, then they are highlighted for review and no longer count as part of the active list. They may only be put back on the list once they have been reviewed.

Detailed instructions

Reverse Mode

You always start each new day in Reverse Mode.

Starting from the last task on the list, you read each task until you come to one that you feel is ready to be done. You work on this task for as long as you feel like, and then delete the task from the list.

If you have not finished the task, then re-enter it at the end of the list. If a task is a recurring one (e.g. email), then you should also re-enter it at the end of the list.

Once you have done this, repeat the process starting again from the last task on the list.

N.B. You always return to the end of the list after finishing work on a task.

Forward Mode

Include the task “Change to Forward Mode” on your list.

From Reverse Mode, you switch to Forward Mode when you come to this task and it feels ready to be done.

In Forward Mode you work in a quite different way from Reverse Mode.

In Forward Mode, you move forward through the list on a page-by-page basis. Go to the first page on which there are any unactioned items. Read through all the unactioned items on the page once without taking action on any of them. Then read through them again and take action on any that feel ready to be done.

Keep circling round the same page until no more tasks feel ready to be done. Then move on to the next page and do the same again.

The signal to move back to Reverse Mode is when you come to a page and don’t do any of the tasks on it. This rule does not apply to the last page of the list - the one on which you are currently entering tasks.

When you return to Reverse Mode, re-enter the “Change to Forward Mode” task on the list.

Notes:

1) Whenever you come back to Forward Mode from Reverse Mode, you start again from the first unactioned item.

2) If you cannot do any tasks on a page because of your location (i.e. it’s physically impossible to do them), then you can skip the page and continue in Forward Mode.

3) If you are still in Forward Mode when you reach the last page of the list, once you have finished working on that page start again from the beginning of the list (i.e. the first unactioned item).

 Review Mode

At the beginning of each day, the first contiguous block of unactioned tasks is put on notice for review (this may be one or more tasks). To signal this a line is drawn below them.

Any of these tasks remaining unactioned at the beginning of the next day are put on review. The recommended way of doing this is to highlight them.

These tasks are now treated as deleted, and they may not be re-entered on the list until they have been reviewed. This is done by putting “Change to Review Mode” as a recurring task on the list.

In Review Mode you may re-enter any or all of the highlighted tasks onto the list (see below for guidelines). Highlighted items which have been re-entered should be crossed out so that you know not to include them in subsequent reviews. You should also cross a task out if you decide not to review it again.

Once the review is complete, re-enter the “Change to Review Mode” task on the list, and go back to whichever mode you were in previously.

Guidelines for Review Mode

Please take the rule seriously not to re-enter these tasks before they have been reviewed. Putting tasks on notice for review is one of the most powerful parts of the Autofocus system, and not doing it properly will affect the workings of the whole system.

When in Review Mode you should consider carefully why each task was put on review , whether it really needs to be done at all, whether the time is ripe for it to be done, whether it distracts from your main goals, and any other relevant factors. When you do re-enter a reviewed item, it is often a good idea to break it down or re-phrase it in some way.

Getting Started

1. To start with all you need is a pen and a notebook with ruled lines. Later you will need a highlighter. Please note that it is strongly recommended that you work the system on paper initially, even if you intend to switch to electronic implementation later.
2. Write a list of things you have to do in your notebook - one task per line. There is no need to make this list comprehensive to start with. As you think of things or they come up, just add them to the list.
3. Include “Change to Forward Mode” as one of the tasks.
4. Re-read the Detailed Instructions for Reverse Mode again. Make sure you understand them.
5. Start working the list in Reverse Mode.
6. When you decide the “Change to Forward Mode” task is ready to be actioned, then re-read the Detailed Instructions for Forward Mode again, make sure you fully understand them and start working the list in Forward Mode according to the instructions.
7. Continue working through the list, switching between Forward and Reverse Mode according to the rules. Don’t worry about how often you do this - it will vary a lot according to your circumstances.
8. At the beginning of the following day, re-read the Detailed Instructions for Review Mode and put tasks on notice for review as described in the instructions.
9. Start working the list in Reverse Mode (you always start the day in Reverse Mode).
10. Sometime in the course of the day, re-read the entire instructions.

Sample Page

For an example of one of my own unedited Autofocus pages click here.

Notes to the sample page:

1) The date is written in the extreme left-hand margin next to the first item for that day. In this case it is 21/7 (which for Americans would be 7/21).

2) The day number only is written to the left of deleted tasks. I write these as a batch at the beginning of each day. Hence you will see that there is one deleted task (Article for “Eaglet”) which has no number against it. That’s because it was done during the current day.

3) Deleted items are crossed out with a single straight line. When I start on an item I put a dot next to it in the margin (you can see where several of them were). This helps me to commit to the task, and also find my place. When I have finished action on the task I draw the line from the dot.

4) Contiguous deleted items are joined with a vertical line. This makes it very quick to identify where unactioned tasks are located on the page.

5) You can see that on two occasions there are lines going right across the page. These are the lines which mark off tasks which are have been placed on notice for review. There was only one item on notice today and that was the previously mentioned Article for “Eaglet”.

Of course there is no need to put in the dates if you are not interested in keeping statistics.

Note that I don’t put any tags, priority signs or category marks on the tasks, so the page remains quite clean in appearance.

What are the advantages of simplicity versus complexity?

To answer that, just think of a few things which people by and large really hate:

• Software manufacturers who instead of ironing out the bugs in the basic functionality of their products keep on adding more and more functions which most people never use.
• Politicians who keep producing more and more laws in an effort to solve problems which they created in the first place.
• Being asked to provide the same information over and over again.

Then think of a few simple solutions which suddenly cut through all the complexity:

• The Amazon “One-Click” ordering system
• The “point and shoot” digital camera
• The Clickfree back up system in which you just plug in an external hard disk to start the back-up and unplug it when it’s finished.

Now please note that a simple system for the user may be the result of a very complex process. To produce any of these three examples of simplicity required a lot of thought and a lot of very sophisticated technology. But because the manufacturers were thinking “How simple can we make this?” the end result was something that revolutionises its field.

So a good question to keep asking yourself is “How simple can I make my life/my business/this particular project”? This is not “simple” as in living in a cave eating vegetables, but “simple” as in “makes it easier to do it than not to do it” or “makes it easier to do it right than to do it wrong”.

The Autofocus instructions state:

If you go to a page and no item stands out for you on your first pass through it, then all the outstanding items on that page are dismissed without re-entering them.

This is where the system finally gets rid of all the items which you entered without evaluation, but which the system has sifted and found wanting. This may happen very quickly (for instance if you have entered a long list of books you are thinking of reading), but more usually quite slowly.

Please take the rule not to re-enter these items seriously. It doesn’t mean you can never re-enter them, but you should let some time pass before you do and consider carefully why they were rejected, whether they really need to be done at all, whether the time is ripe for them to be done, whether they distract from your main goals, and any other factors. When you do re-enter a dismissed item, it is often best to break it down or re-phrase it in some way.

The instructions make it clear that dismissal is where the final stage of the “autofocus” aspect of the system takes place. This is why it is possible to put tasks and projects into the system without evaluation. Without the dismissal process, Autofocus would simply be a method of working a to-do list and little more.

Every page on your AF list is going  to face you at some stage with the choice of either doing the final task on the page or dismissing it. Of course more than one task may get dismissed on the page, but the choice always comes down to: “Do it NOW, or admit that you are not going to do it at all”. Normally of course this stark choice only comes after you have had plenty of opportunity to do the task.

Yes, a task can be re-instated by being eventually re-entered on the list, but this should never be something that takes place without considered thought - preferably after some time has passed. There are four major factors which the instructions ask you to consider along with anything else that may be relevant:

• why the task was rejected
• whether it really needs to be done at all
• whether the time is now ripe for it to be done
• whether the task distracts from your main goals

The instructions invite you initially to enter tasks on your list without evaluating them. This makes AF very different from most time management systems. But, once a task has been sifted and dismissed, then evaluation of the task must take place. If the task has been evaluated and it has been decided to re-enter it, the instructions suggest that you should consider:

• breaking the task down further
• re-writing it

I can’t stress how important it is to the proper working of the system to get this right. Your understanding of the dismissal process will affect how you tackle all your tasks within AF.

There are two common mistakes made by beginners to AF with regard to dismissal. One is to be too willing to dismiss tasks, and the other is to be too reluctant to dismiss tasks.

In fact these are not two mistakes at all - they are the same mistake. In both cases, the beginner has taken a conscious attitude towards dismissal: willing/reluctant.

The instructions say nothing about taking any attitude towards dismissal. They simply state: If you go to a page and no item stands out for you on your first pass through it, then all the outstanding items on that page are dismissed without re-entering them. So the only matter to be considered is whether any item stands out. You don’t need to consciously consider whether the item should be dismissed at all - your intuition will have already taken all relevant factors into account.

Of course we often don’t really know what is really important to us. Even if we’ve gone through an exercise in writing down our important goals, the results are often contaminated by what we think we “should” have as our goals. Another problem is that we sometimes don’t know that something would be important to us because it hasn’t yet appeared on our scene.

My vision for Autofocus is that through its unique sifting process we will have our goals and vision clarified for us. Perhaps it would be better to express that as “we will be able to clarify our goals and vision”, because Autofocus is after all no more than a framework to allow our intellect and our intuition to work in balance.

After several months of experimenting with other systems I’ve succeeded in reducing my life to a satisfactory state of chaos. So what are the areas that I particularly hope Autofocus will now sort out for me? There are loads, but I think the top three would be:

1) I need to get simple business of running my daily life back on track. Many things are not too bad: my email is up-to-date; my finances are under control; I don’t have huge backlogs of work. But I do badly need to sort out my office which is in a mess; I need to get into a sustainable routine of blogging, tweeting, and writing my newsletter, and I need to take a lot more exercise.

2) I need to get a vision of what I am doing. I’ve been hovering around being “semi-retired” for far too long. I need to have a clear focus. My feeling at the moment is that I want to get my business going again. This needs testing and affirming, and progressing with some positive action.

3) I need to avoid taking on commitments without a positive vision of what they are for. People who are newly retired and still in reasonable possession of their faculties are particularly vulnerable to “commitment creep”, i.e. the steady accumulation of commitments for no other reason than that they seemed a good idea at the time. I’m beginning to notice this in myself and I want to be far more rigorous about it.

Just how much can I expect Autofocus to help with all this? I intend to find out, and my intention at the moment is to blog regularly on my progress. The real test of Autofocus is not statistics on how many tasks one has carried out, but how well it’s sorted out areas such as the three above.

If we need our lives to be integrated, then what is the guiding principle that we should follow which will give that integrity – which will stop us being at war with ourselves?

I would suggest that it is to act always in our own best interests. This is a very difficult concept for most people to deal with. Most of us are brought up to think of acting in our own best interests as selfish. By the word ‘selfish’ they mean a mean-spirited, ungenerous attitude which grabs what it wants at the expense of other people and doesn’t care less what other people think or feel. In fact this is the very reverse of acting in one’s own best interests, since it can hardly be thought to be in anyone’s best interests to alienate other people so that they will not cooperate.

The results of confusing acting in one’s own best interests with a narrow mean-spiritedness are disastrous. In the effort not to appear ‘selfish’ people often become completely cut off from their own wants and desires. And since it is very difficult to give what one doesn’t have, they become insensitive to the wants and desires of those who are close to them too.

Another result of this confusion is to cut people off from reality. As children we are usually discouraged from exploring what our own best interests really are in favour of conforming to other people’s vision of what we should be doing. This usually means that instead of doing what we really believe is best for us we end up either doing what other people want us to do or rebelling against it, neither of which brings us any nearer to following our own vision for our lives.

At its most basic the brain is an instrument for achieving the best interests of the organism. The higher the organism the more sophisti­cated the brain and the more sophisticated the strategies it follows. However, this sophisticated functioning will revert to lower levels of functioning when faced with contradictions it cannot resolve.

The message that is given to us when we are young and that comes over loud and clear is that what is in our best interests is not in our best interests. Faced with having to integrate the contradictions implicit in a message such as this the brain tends to close down whole areas of experience.

Let us look at how someone would act who follows their own best interests consistently. People who act consistently in their own best interests would be likely to:

• be clear about what is important in their lives and pursue those things single-mindedly;

• cooperate with others to achieve results;

• look after their own health and fitness;

• refuse to engage in self-destructive behaviours;

• select their friends carefully and maintain those friendships;

• stay in touch with the reality of situations;

• refuse to take on commitments that are not consistent with their own vision;

• continually expand their comfort zones;

• ensure that they have the education and training to do what is important to them;

• build on the experience and wisdom of other people;

• be prepared to pay the price for what they want;

• regard the selection of a life partner as the single most important decision they will probably ever make;

• keep everything in their lives well maintained;

• be sensitive to their own feelings and needs;

• be aware of the likely consequences of their actions;

• think about long-term results rather than short-term ones.

This list is illustrative rather than exhaustive. But if we contrast the above behaviours with their opposites we can see more clearly how common it is for people not to act in their own best interests. People who don’t act in their own best interests may:

• have no clear vision for what they want to achieve;

• see themselves in competition with other people;

• be overweight, unfit or otherwise not be taking care of their health;

• have self-destructive behaviours such as drug-taking, self-sabo­tage, workaholism etc.;

• neglect their friendships;

• do anything rather than face up to the reality of situations;

• be loaded with commitments that they resent;

• be stuck in a rut;

• fail to keep learning, either formally or informally;

• be reluctant to ask other people for help;

• not be prepared to put in the effort or cost needed to achieve what they want;

• select a life partner on the basis of the whim of the moment;

• live poorly maintained lives which are constantly in a state of crisis or breakdown;

• be anaesthetised to their own feelings and needs;

• ignore the likely consequences of their actions or lack of action;

• think purely in terms of short-term advantage.

So we can see that far from being ‘selfish’ in the pejorative sense of the word, acting in our own best interests results in highly desirable behaviour both from our own point of view and the point of view of other people. In fact an accusation that someone who is acting in their own best interests is ‘selfish’ usually means that the accuser wants the ‘selfish’ person to sacrifice himself or herself for the accuser’s benefit.

Again I would stress the point that what we think of as typically selfish behaviour, such as grabbing everything for oneself at the expense of other people, is hardly ever in one’s own best interests. But the way to discourage such behaviour is not to teach children that they should sacrifice their own interests for the interests of others, but to show them why this type of behaviour is not really in their interests at all.

Exercise

Ask yourself the question: ‘If I were consistently to act in my own best interests, what would I do differently?’ List as many things as you can, both large and small. These are some of the items, out of a very long list, which one of my clients wrote in answer to this question:

• I would only say yes when I was able to say it whole­heartedly, otherwise I would say no.

• I would go to bed at a sensible time every night except for special occasions.

• I would make time to spend on my own.

• I would stop putting off the decision to change jobs.

• I would stop shouting at my children.

• I would make it a priority to get out of debt.

• I would stop leaving the choice of holiday up to my partner.

• I would stop bringing work home in the evenings.

• I would plan a family outing at least once a month.

• I would check the car tyre pressures regularly.

• I would face up to my financial position.

• I would work out why I keep losing vital bits of paper.

We can use this concept of enlightened self-interest as a tool to evaluate potential courses of action. Perhaps even more important we can use it as a tool to evaluate our current actions. I will use the word ‘self-ish’ with a hyphen in this context to distinguish it from the pejorative, narrow use of the word ‘selfish’. Is what I am doing at this precise moment properly self-ish (in the sense of being in my own best interest)?

What I am doing at this precise moment is writing this paragraph, which is part of my goal of writing this book, which is part of my wider vision of where I wish to go in my life. So yes, what I am doing at this precise moment is indeed properly self-ish. But note that although my primary motivation for doing it is my own self-interest it is none the less an action which will (I hope) benefit other people as well. There is nothing anti-social or malevolent about being self-ish.

It has often been pointed out by theologians that the biblical injunction is ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’, not ‘Love thy neighbour more than thyself’ or ‘Love thy neighbour instead of thyself’. In fact logically it would be impossible for everyone to love their neighbour instead of themselves because who would do the receiving if that were the case? It would be like the scene in Father Ted where two women come to blows because each one insists that she should pay for tea. However, the idea that we should love other people more than or instead of ourselves is one that is very prevalent in our culture. And since it is a logically untenable position which it is actually impossible to keep to, it results in either guilt, denial or rebellion.

So one of the most important thing we can do in our lives is to give them integrity and unity by having one guiding principle to follow. And the best guiding principle to have is the enlightened pursuit of our own best interests.

I am going to be away all day tomorrow, so please don’t expect any immediate replies from me to comments or emails about the new system. Don’t let that stop you sending them in though!

One thing that’s become very clear to me throughout the preparation for Autofocus has been how the vision for it has developed through working on it. I didn’t draw up a plan at the beginning and I didn’t even have a very clear idea of where I was heading. In fact at the time I thought I had just succeeded in retiring from work - that didn’t last very long!

What I did was to take what seemed to be the next action. As I progressed more actions became clear and I took them. Some of the actions which I dreamed up, died a natural death once I started looking at them more closely. So for instance there are no elaborate videos on how to work the system, nor are there any onerous forms for testers to fill in. If I had done these things, we would be waiting until Easter for the testing to begin and all momentum would have been lost.

The Autofocus system fits naturally into this way of working. Because it encourages a “little and often” approach and an intuitive sifting of possible actions, it is an ideal system for riding the crest of a wave - and also for spotting likely waves as they approach!