A Variation on My Current No-List System

This is a variation on the system I wrote about yesterday. It’s what I use when I’m not using the other. I’ve never been able to decide which is better, so I tend to switch between them when I feel like it. As I’ve said before there is no real penalty in switching from one no-list system to another.

This system works in very much the same way as yesterday’s but has a rather more rigid structure.

Like the other it’s also fast, effective, flexible and thorough but in a slightly different way. You really have to try both to appreciate the differences - so I’m not even going to try to describe them!

Just as in the other system entry for new tasks is without a buffer, ie. a task is done immediately after it is entered on the list.

The differences in the rules are as follows:

1. There is an entry phase and a follow-up phase.
2. In the entry phase you can enter as many new tasks as you like in succession, re-entering them  as necessary at the end of the list. During the entry phase this will always be on the following line.
3. Tasks are re-entered if they are likely to be required again the same day, regardless of whether there is any work to be done on them at the moment.
4. In the follow-up phase all open tasks above the last crossed out task are worked on again in the order they are written and re-entered at the end of the list if necessary. When all the tasks have been worked on you go back to the entry phase.
5. If there is no work to be done in a task (e.g. no more email has arrived) it is crossed out and re-entered.

The list should be started afresh each day.

My Current No-list System

Following on from yesterday’s post, where I described the fact that I had gone back to using a no-list method, I though it might be useful to describe in more detail exactly what I am using at the moment. This is one of the no-list methods which I have most often used in the past and it is a good example of the genre.

Unlike some no-list methods this only allows new tasks onto the list by doing them. You write the task down and immediately start work on it. There is no buffer.

The easiest way to explain it is by giving an example:

You decide to do email as your first task so write it down thus:

Email

You work on your email, but before you finish it decide to take a break from it and tidy your office. You cross out and re-enter Email and write Tidy as the next task:

Email

Email

Tidy

You decide to take a break from tidying, so cross it out and re-enter it.

Email

Email

Tidy

Tidy

Now here is a very important rule - Before you can enter a new task, you must take action on any active tasks before the last crossing out. In this case there is only one: Email. So you go back and work on Email. Again you don’t finish the task so you re-enter it.

Email

Email

Tidy

Tidy

Email

Now there are no active tasks before the last crossing out, so you enter a new task.

Email

Email

Tidy

Tidy

Email

Write Report

Remember that new tasks are always actioned immediately after they are entered. So you work on it for a bit and then re-enter it.

Email

Email

Tidy

Tidy

Email

Write Report

Write Report

OK, bearing in mind the rules I have given you (have another look at them if you’re not sure), what are you going to do next?

A. Work on Tidy, re-enter it if necessary, then enter and work on a new task?

B. Work on Tidy and Email, re-enter them as necessary, then enter and work on a new task?

C. Work on Tidy, Email and Write Report, re-enter them as necessary, then enter and work on a new task?

D. Keep working on Tidy, Email and Write Report and re-entering them until you have finished them, and then enter and work on a new task?

(Answer at the end of the article)

This method is far easier to action than to explain. In fact if you find it complicated to work, then you’re doing it wrong!

A couple of observations:

1. Be clear how you define when a task is finished so it doesn’t hang around on the list unnecessarily.
2. The number of active tasks on the list is flexible and depends on how many tasks you have re-entered. If you don’t re-enter any then the length will be one task at a time.

I’ve found the characteristics of the method to be:

• Fast
• Effective
• Flexible
• Thorough

Who could ask for anything more than that?

ANSWER TO QUESTION

The correct answer is B. Tidy and Email are active tasks before the last crossing out and so must be actioned before entering a new task. Write Report is after the last crossing-out so is not actioned at this stage.

Motivation (continued)

Several people managed to get the right answer to my question yesterday about the factor that caused me to lose my motivation for two of my major daily tasks. The answer was that I had stopped using a “no-list” method while I experimented with a couple of ways of finding an improved “catch-all” system. As soon as I went back to a “no-list” method my motivation came back.

This raises some interesting questions for me. First of all, the no-list method I have come back to isn’t the same as the one that I was using before. So it seems to be the concept of “no-list” that provides motivation rather than any one specific method. I’ve already remarked several times that “no-list” methods seem to be interchangeable. If you use one method one day and a different one the next it doesn’t seem to really matter. Just pick the one that suits you best that day.

But the really important question is “Why does a no-list method provide motivation”? I think there are two reasons:

First, a no-list method forces you to keep asking “What should I be doing next?” and then makes you commit to doing it immediately. You have no list to guide you so you have to rely on the resources of your own mind. Using questioning as a method of accessing your inner resources is very powerful.

Second, this questioning also results in the building up of routines that work. Neural pathways are being laid down in your mind which make it easy for you to find your way in most situations.

If you look at these two reasons you can see that motivation is largely a matter of habit. Once you have laid down a habit then it becomes easier to carry out that habit than not to.

I was exercising every day because I’d got into the habit of doing that. But it’s important to realise that the habit includes a lot more than just running or going to the gym. It’s a whole sequence of actions, which starts from the time I go to bed the night before, what I do when I get up, what activities I do before exercising and what I do when I’ve finished. If any one part of that sequence is disrupted then it’s easy to go off in the wrong direction.

The same applies to writing a daily blog post. It’s not just a matter of writing. There’s collecting ideas for future subjects, researching, writing successive drafts, adding links and tags, and starting the sequence for the next day’s blog post.

No-list suits this because your mind is free to run in the well-established pattern.

But throw in a “catch-all” list and suddenly one is back to a more or less random sequence. That’s what happened to me. The habits I’d built up collapsed and my motivation disappeared.

Building Good Routines

One of the things I harp on endlessly about is that good routines are at the heart of good time management. This applies whatever time management system you use (or none).

Having good routines doesn’t mean that you can’t be spontaneous or creative. In fact having good routines means you are freed up so you can be spontaneous and creative.

The key word when it comes to building routines is persistence. This is to be taken two ways:

• Persistence at building the routines
• Persistence in the achievement of your goals as a result of building routines.

So it’s a case of persistence building on persistence.

Among other things, it’s particulary important that routines should establish:

• The habit of creativity
• The habit of extending your boundaries
• The habit of inbox zero
• The habit of exercise

How do you build routines? Actually the answer is that you are already an expert routine builder. You have been building them every day of your life. Every habit you have is the result. This applies to bad habits as well as good habits unfortunately.

You build up the good habits I mentioned above in exactly the same way that you may already have build up their opposite bad habits:

• The habit of not using your creativity
• The habit of sticking to your comfort zone
• The habit of building up backlogs
• The habit of not exercising

If you suffer from any of these, remember that these are habits - not character flaws which are impossible to overcome. They may be difficult to break because after all you’ve spent a long time building them up!

An output (no-list) approach will help to give you a short cut to this. Using this approach, your mind will naturally fall into the same channels each day. All you have to do is check that the channels are right. Fortunately it’s quite easy to check what you have done and to correct it if it’s wrong. For example if you are having trouble exercising put exercising at or near the beginning of the day.

Habits of going to bed and getting up are also very important. The best way of establishing good practice here is to get up at the same time every day, preferably as early as possible, regardless of whether it’s a work day or a day off. If you do this your going to bed time will naturally adjust.

I find that the best output approach for this sort of good routine and habit building is the rotating list.

Input vs. Output

In my February 12th article What is a “no-list” system? I gave an example of what a typical “catch-all” list looks like:

Tidy bedroom
Change bedding
List PR actions
Read “C——-” magazine
Read “K———” magazine
Obtain specimen legacy leaflet
Draft own legacy leaflet
Thank fundraising team
Blog result of fundraising
Thank newsletter subscribers
Cancel newsletter contract
Thank supporters
Blog latest social event news
Call David K
Read —— Newletter
Update giving page
Read “The 100 Years War”
List possible blog posts
Yabla
Read “B———” magazine
Clean sink
Empty WPB
Cut hedge back
Set up L’s new laptop
Read V’s letters
Print more blank schedule sheets
Shred
Dust
Listen to French news
Sort office
Process social event photos
Walk footpaths for Ramblers Association
Money?
Weed desktop
Weed flagged emails
Contact fast walking organization
To think about…
Prune rose bush
Get prescription signed
Sort L’s mail
List action need on C Blog
New house number
Kingsley Vale walk
Destroy old notebook
Re-read L’s instructions
Expenditure audit
Tax return
Weed pamphlet rack
Withdraw money from ——
Book holiday
Check heating settings
Action needed on Legacy campaign?
Write recommendation for N’s book
Push ups
The plank
Check bank balance
Weed this list
Read Pocket articles
Facebook
Email
Synchronise diaries
Put books away
Paper
Thanks to N for party
Check diary
Rake leaves
Voicemail
Do dishes
Adjust carriage clock
Charge batteries
Check heating settings
Ideas for new projects?
etc etc

I also gave an example of what a typical “no-list” looks like. Many “no-lists” are actually or shorter than this:

Blog
List ideas for new book
Email
Publicity Project
Walk 3 miles

And I asked the question “Which do you think is likely to produce the most focused action?”

I was re-reading this article yesterday evening, and it struck me that the real difference between the lists was not their length, but the fact that the “catch-all” list concentrates on input while the “no-list” concentrates on output.

The “catch-all” is basically a list of everything that might, should or could be done sometime in the near future. It gathers together all the ideas, requests, thoughts, obligations, necessities, commitments that continue to enter one’s life in an almost incessant stream. It is in other words a list of all the input into one’s life. When, how and whether it will all actually get done is another question.

The “no-list” on the other hand is a list of the things you are actually about to do in the immediate future, usually in the order in which you are going to do them. Barring unforeseen events, they will get done more or less immediately. The “no-list” in other words is not concerned with listing input, it is purely a list of what is about to be output.

As such it will fill the entire day with output. The list of tasks on your “no-list” which have been crossed out as completed may be almost as long as a “catch-all” list. The difference is the rather major one that the “catch-all” list at the end of the day is a list of what hasn’t been done, while the “no-list” is a list of what has been done.

Of course the real question is not the mechanics of how things get done, but whether the things which get done are what should have been done. The common objection to a “no-list” approach is that one may forget to do things because one is simply relying on one’s memory. This is not really a valid objection for two reasons:

1. The “catch-all” list provides a huge list of things to use as avoidance activities, so you are just as likely to fail to “get round” to doing something with a “catch-all” list as you are to forget something with a “no-list”.
2. The “no-list” does not rely on memory.

Let’s look more closely at the second point. When your mind has no long list to rely on, what sort of tasks is it going to choose next to put on the “no-list”? It will probably come up with some of the following;

• The next task in an established routine
• Something that is on your mind because you are currently working on it
• A project you have previously decided will be your main focus for the day
• An urgent project or task
• Something which is causing you concern because it is overdue or in danger of becoming so
• Something you make a conscious decision to do because you want to do it
• A scheduled reminder

This results in much more focused action than a long diffuse list of “everything”.

No-List Types - IV: Rotating Lists

The final type of no-list system I want to describe is the Rotating List. There are many possible variations, but the essence of a rotating list is that tasks are re-entered if they are going to be needed again at any time during the current day.

This characteristic means that they are normally started again at the beginning of the day. They grow too unwieldy if kept going for a period longer than a day.

They are usually combined with an Entry by Doing approach. The sequence of work is:

1. Write a new task
2. Work on the task
3. Cross task off the list
4. Re-enter the task at the end of the list if it will need to be worked on again that day.
5. Revisit all tasks on the list as in steps 2 and 3.
6. When all tasks have been worked on, go back to step 1.

A variation of this is to enter more than one new task at a time in step 1. Either way the list gradually lengthens as the day progresses.

An example of a rotating list system is Spinning Plates, though this is more complicated than the basic rotating list method described above.

If you find this article useful, why not buy me a coffee?

No-List Types - III: Just Do It

The third type of no-list method I want to describe is to get on with your tasks without doing any writing at all. This is of course the method used by the vast majority of people in the world.

Doing it effectively is quite another matter though.

I described this method in detail in my book How to Make Your Dreams Come True (Hodder 2002). In it I showed how to arrive at clarity about your goals and keep progressing towards them. Most of what I say in Secrets of Productive People (Hodder 2015) is also relevant to this method.

I’m not going to repeat here what I said in either book. But here are a few practices which will make this method more productive for you:

• Journaling
  The practice of daily journaling - however you do it - is one of the best for increasing clarity and motivation. There are many different methods, but far more important than the method you use is that you do it regularly every day.
• Exercise
  Everything I’ve just said about journaling also applies to exercise, plus some. We all know about the health benefits of exercise, but one huge benefit of exercise from a productivity point of view is that if you learn to push yourself physically, you won’t have too much trouble with pushing yourself to do mere mental activity. 
• Good habits and routines
  To be successful at the “Just Do It” method requires training yourself in good habits and routines. The big danger with this method is that you will end up drifting. One of the most important habits to get into is to do things as soon as you can, preferably immediately. When you hear yourself saying “I’ll do that later”, take action to do it now!

No-List Types - II: Entry by Doing

Entry by Doing is a bit different from the Hammer as described in my post yesterday.

In the Hammer a short list of tasks is written (usually five or less) and then the tasks are done.

However in an Entry by Doing method a task can only be entered on the list by actually doing it there and then.

The simplest form of this is where you write the next task you are going to do and then doing it. You then write the next task you are going to do and do that. The effect of writing it down before you do it is to make you think about what you are going to do next rather than drift into it. It’s an aid to focus.

Once a task is on the list it can be re-entered if there is still work to be done. This can be used with a system like Autofocius or FVP to make an active list in which all the tasks are actually in the course of being done.

No-List Types - I: The Hammer

There are many different types of no-list methods. I won’t go quite so far as to say that they have an infinite variety, but there are all sorts of ways of approaching their design. Since there is no permanent list involved, switching from one method to another can be done without much of a problem.

Over the next few days I’m going to describe some of the main types of no-list method. I don’t claim that the list is exhausive, but I hope that it may spart some ideas in your own mind to experiment with.

First type of No-List method I’m going to describe is what I call a “Hammer”.

The main characteristic of a Hammer is that it concentrates on getting a task finished by constantly alternating with one or more other tasks until there is no more work to be done on the task - hammering it home in fact, hence the name.

The method I recommend in Secrets of Productive People is a Hammer. Five tasks are entered. Each is re-entered until it is finished and when the list is down to two tasks three more are entered.

I call this a 5/2 Hammer. The first figure refers to the number of tasks which are initially entered on the list and the second figure refers to the number of tasks at which the list is topped up to its original number.

Other Hammers include:

• The 2/1 Hammer in which two tasks alternate. When one is finished it is immediately replaced by another so there are always two tasks on the list. This is pretty much a brute force method for getting difficult tasks done.
• The 3/2 Hammer is rather more flexible than the 2/1 Hammer though nearly as effective.
• The x/0 Hammer in which a list of x tasks is reduced down to none, and then another list is written. This suffers from the last remaining task having nothing to alternate with at the end - so it’s not really a genuine Hammer, but can still be very effective.

You can experiment with various different lengths until you find the one that suits you best.

Tomorrow I’m going to describe a completely different type of No-List method.

Final Report on No-List Autofocus

I have decided that I’m not going to take this test any further myself as it hasn’t achieved what I hoped it would for me. I would though be very happy to hear other people’s experiences of it - good and bad - especially from anyone who decides to persevere for a longer period.

I had hoped that it would be successful amalgam of the best features of no-list and catch-all. Instead, for me at least, it fell rather uneasily between them. I didn’t have either the feeling of completeness from a catch all or the freshness of a no-list. The list was definitely feeling rather tired and jaded after three days.

What are other people’s experiences?

3rd Day Report on No-List Autofocus

Started work at 8.20 am today (Wednesday).

Had routine items out of the way in time for breakfast at 9.30 am. That meant I was up to date with email, Facebook, tidying, comments, journal, calendar, blogging, moderating groups, finance, blog reading, computer housekeeping, Evernote, etc.

One thing I have to be careful of with this system. There’s a tendency - which arrived about mid-morning for me today - to say “Well, I’ve done everything I have to do today” and then to start drifting. I’ve not experienced that with any other systems, probably because I’ve seldom got to that point so early in the day!

I think this could actually be a serious problem if not addressed. Fortunately though I’m fairly confident that I know what’s causing it. It’s the fact that the dismissal rule isn’t stringent enough for this type of list.

So I’m going to change the dismissal rule to a new more activity-orientated one. Accordingly delete the present Rule 5 and insert new rule as follows:

5. At the start of each day’s work all pages which were filled with tasks more than one day ago are dismissed, together with all the tasks remaining on them. This is controlled by dating each page as soon as it has been completely filled with tasks. For example a page which was filled with tasks on March 29th is dismissed at the start of work on March 31st.

I’m also going to introduce a new rule about what happens when entering new tasks:

8. When a new task is entered at the end of the list you are only allowed to move forward and can no longer circulate through the page. This means that entering new tasks becomes a separate phase from working on old tasks. You can enter as many new tasks as you like in accordance with Rule 1, but once you have entered all you want you return to the beginning of the active list.

And a finally a new rule about where to start at the beginning of each day.

9. At the beginning of each day you start by dismissing any pages under Rule 5, then proceed from the beginning of the first remaining page.

The effect of these amendments is that progress through the list consists of three phases:

• Dismissing pages older than one day (on first pass only)
• Doing old tasks
• Entering new tasks 

IMPORTANT AFTERNOTE

For those who are trying this out themselves, please remember that I am experimenting here and have no more idea than you have whether the new rules will have the desired effect.

2nd Day Report on No-List Autofocus

I’ll have to think up a better name for this than “No-List Autofocus” - suggestions, anyone?

The thing which stands out most about this system is how quickly everything gets done. On the first day (Monday) I got all my routine tasks onto the list (which as you know means I actually had to work on them). That took most of the morning, and then I went off and did a long hill walk during the afternoon in training for a Tough Mudder Half. In the evening I watched some videos, did some reading and kept things like email and blog comments up to date.

This morning (Tuesday) I woke up fairly early and started on all the routine tasks which the system listed for me yesterday. By 10 a.m. I had re-established inbox zero on everything, and was actually getting to the stage of wondering what I was going to do for the rest of the day!

There was no difficulty finding an answer to that of course. I had some bigger projects to get working on and these needed feeding onto the list.

I’ve finished the second day with 28 active tasks on my list, spread over three pages. I don’t think it will get much larger. All of these tasks of course have been actively worked on over the last two days. There is nothing on the list which is not current.

I’m surprised to find how different this feels from other systems. It seem to be giving me an entirely fresh perception of time as an unlimited resource, rather than a very limited one. I wonder if this feeling will survive the next few days and weeks.

No-List and Autofocus

I have been pondering the results of my recent test with Autofocus. Autofocus (AF1) is one of my favourite systems and I’ve wanted to see how it can be improved without making it unrecognisable.

I realised that Autofocus can be combined with no-list to make (I hope) a fast, tight and highly-focused system. So here is how it works:

1. It uses the simplest form of no-list, where a task is written down and then immediately done. This is the only way that a new task can be entered onto the list. New tasks can only be entered when you are on the last page of the list.
2. If it is a recurrent task or one that needs more work it can be crossed out once it has been worked on and then re-entered at the end of the list.
3. The list is worked in the normal Autofocus fashion, that is to say you circulate through one page at a time doing as much work as you want to on the tasks on the page. Once you have worked on a task it is crossed out and re-entered as in rule 2.
4. Once a task has been put on the list it remains there until it is no longer relevant or until it is removed by the dismissal process.
5. The dismissal process is different from Autofocus. There is no obligation to do any tasks when you circulate to a page, but if no tasks are done on a page during the course of a day then the whole page is dismissed. This is controlled by writing at the top of each page (except the last page) at the beginning of the day the number of active tasks on that page, and checking whether the same number of tasks remain at the end of the day. In practice this only needs to be done for pages that stand some chance of  being dismissed.
6. A page is dismissed by drawing a single line through the page. If there are no active tasks on earlier pages, then I cross out the page with a double line. Dismissed pages are not included when you circulate through the pages of the list.
7. A dismissed task can only be re-instated by treating it as a new task as in rule 1.

I’m hoping that these rules will produce an active list of tasks and projects which I am actually working on. This should result in the building up of good systems and routines, while keeping action focused and moving and making the entry of new tasks a matter of more consideration. The list will be no longer than it needs to be and will be kept trimmed automatically by the dismissal process. I’m hoping to that it will shine a spotlight on projects which are not receiving enough attention.

Please note that I have only been using this for one day myself, which is far too short a period to have any idea how well it works. So I am only publishing it at this stage in case anyone wants to try it out for themselves at the same time as I am working with it.

Preview of Tomorrow's Article

Tomorrow’s article will be called No-List and Autofocus.

Today I’m starting a test on an experimental task system which, as the title suggests, is a combination of No-List and Autofocus.

I will be describing it fully tomorrow for the benefit of anyone who wants to try it out at the same time as me.

Back to No-List

After a few days last week trying out Autofocus again with some revised rules, I’m back on a no-list system. After four days the Revised Autofocus didn’t seem quite so successful as it did after the first couple of days.

A few observations:

1) The fact that I had a long list didn’t mean that I actually got anything more done than with a no-list system.

2) In fact I think I did less important stuff because I got led into doing unnecessary things just because they were on the list.

3) After four days I had 76 tasks on my list. This meant that at the end of the test however much I had done, I still had the feeling that I had failed to do 76 things!

4) Contrast that with a no-list system, which at the end of each day gives you a list of things which you have done. You might have one or two tasks you are conscious you didn’t get round to, but it’s easy to put that right the following day.

5) It basically comes down to a choice of a system which accentuates what you have done, or one which accentuates what you haven’t done.

Willpower and Time Management - II

Yesterday in Paying the Price I said that we can only claim that we really want something if we are prepared to pay the price. This applies whether we want to play a musical instrument, get fit, set up our own business, write a book or even just have a tidy office.

This is closely related to what I said In Willpower and Time Management - I :

“Consistent action to follow one’s long-term goals can only be carried out by constructing a scenario in which it’s easier to do the right thing than the wrong thing.”

In the past I’ve frequently used the analogy of a river and a swamp. In both cases water is just doing what water does, and the difference lies in the surrounding circumstances.

In the same way humans just do what humans do. The difference between success and failure in a productive goal is all in the surroundings.

My contention is that no-list systems are better than catch-all systems at providing the surroundings needed for success.

Why?

The reason is because a catch-all system is based on a long list of everything that you have to do. Since the list may be fifty to a hundred items (or more) long it is obviously impossible for it all to be done immediately. So it becomes a list of things over which you are delaying action.

The process you are building into your brain with a catch-all list is therefore:

1. Decide to do
2. Put on List
3. Delay action

A no-list system on the other hand  is about immediate action. A no-list system will typically be dealing with five or less tasks at a time.

Therefore the process you are building into your brain with a no-list system is:

1. Decide to do
2. Put on list
3. Take action

You have the impulse to do something, and almost immediately you take action on that impulse. The act of writing it down prevents you from merely drifting. Writing it focuses the mind and ensures that you are taking action purposefully.

The very fact that you have started to take action begins to lay down patterns of action in your brain.

Perhaps the most important pattern is that when you write something on your list you take action on it. Action becomes the natural consequence of writing something down. And writing something down is the natural consequence of deciding to do it.

Another almost equally important pattern is that once you’ve written something down and have started to take action you tend to continue in that action in the future. Every time you continue to take action you reinforce the new pattern.

A third important pattern is that having written actions down in a certain order you have begun to lay this down as a pattern for action in the future.

What has happened is that you have initiated action, reinforced action and laid down a sequence of action. You have in other words constructed the circumstances which will lead you to sticking with the goal.

Willpower and Time Management - I

On Friday I re-blogged Daniel Reeves article Ego Depletion Depletion from the Beeminder blog

My view about willpower has always been that it is a struggle between one’s short-term and long-term wishes, and that all else being equal the short-term wishes will win out. One can put up a struggle against this for a while but sooner or later (usually sooner) the struggle will be too much for us.

Consistent action to follow one’s long-term goals can only be carried out by constructing a scenario in which it’s easier to do the right thing than the wrong thing.

My contention is that no-list systems are better at doing this than catch-all systems. Over the next few days I want to explore the reasons why this is so.

Living the No-List Way

With his permission I’m reposting a recent forum post by Wooba

—————————————————————————

This is how I have been doing things for a few weeks now:

I don’t use a task list of any kind. I am as No List as you can get.

I have a list of projects. It is short and covers all areas of my life including entertainment. I also have a list of life and work goals that I update as needed.

Every time I finish a task, I ask myself what is the best thing to be doing now, and I do that until I have had enough or it is finished. I try to go through my whole day like that.

I have been operating inbox empty techniques for years and try to always be ahead of the curve. This colours my answers to the question of what is best to do now. Inboxes aren’t just email, post, voicemail and stuff like that, they are shows in your Netflix queue, piles of books to read, dishwashers to empty, kitchens and bathrooms to clean. I clean as I go, tidy while waiting for the kettle to boil, and use triggers to initiate small actions.

If some new urgent task turns up, I deal with it immediately or at the next task change.

If I am interrupted, I stop doing what I am doing and deal with the interruption. That might be by giving it time, or by dealing with it quickly so I can get back to what is the best thing to be doing now.

I use checklists for repetitive projects that I don’t do often enough to have made them routine, such as taxes and accounts.

I (now) use dynamic lists for more complex projects where the next action isn’t obvious. This list is destroyed at the end of the day or more frequently if appropriate.

I don’t have very complex projects that involve lots of people and resources, so I rarely need to plan.

I wouldn’t say it gets as much done as, say, AF1 or FVP, or especially the random method did for me, but it gets the right things done, which those other systems didn’t. I am not busy, because all those small tasks that are written on catch-all lists just don’t crop up, because they either never needed to be done in the first place, or only needed to be done at the moment they were written down, or were just busy-work to make my list look longer and me look busier and thus more important. Now, I have time to breathe, to think, to rest, the urgent is under control and the important stuff is progressed. And I have the capacity to deal with emergencies with less stress.

OK, some of it doesn’t always work, but on the whole my life in general and work-life in particular are running smoother than I have ever known.

Thanks Mark. I couldn’t have got here without you.

Overcommitment and No-List

As you may have noticed I have been writing a lot recently about no-list methods of working.

The hyphen in no-list is important to distinguish it from working without a to-do list at all. Nor does it mean having no lists of any kind whatsoever.

What it does mean is that, instead of having a long to-do list that gets carried over from day to day, you work from a short buffer of tasks which you write from the contents of your own mind. There a many possible ways of doing this, but a typical example is the one given in my book Secrets of Productive People in which you write down five tasks and replenish the list back to five every time only two tasks are left.

The point of no-list methods is that, instead of relying on a list written in the past about what you might do in the future, you are working directly from what is fresh in your mind. You are involved in your own work, and you know better than anyone else what needs doing at the moment.

There are other advantages of the no-list approach:

You can see exactly how much you have done during a day

There is no carry over of undone tasks

It suits inbox zero working

A no-list approach is closely allied with an inbox zero approach. In the inbox zero approach the driver of your work is your inboxes. These may be an actual physical inbox in the case of paper, electronic inboxes in the case of email and suchlike, or metaphorical inboxes in the case of actions falling due for projects. One of the things that needs stressing about the no-list approach is that it is not an exercise in memory. The most common objection to it is “How am I going to remember all those things that I have got to do?”. The simple answer to that question is that there shouldn’t be any things you have to do - because you keep your inboxes empty!

The inbox zero approach is this. Work should never be put off into the future if it belongs in the present. Of course much of our work often does belong in the future. If you are writing a book to a deadline, scheduling construction projects, booking cars into your workshop and so on, then much of the work belongs in the future and that’s when it should be done. Most detailed plans in organizations require the work to be done in stages. But with an inbox zero approach you should always be up-to-date with the current stage.

With future projects the whole point of scheduling is that you avoid taking on more than you are able to do. If you are booking cars for service into your workshop you know how long it takes to service a car and you don’t book in more than you can handle. If you are writing a book, your present work is the number of words you need to write per day to meet your deadline. You are not putting this work off into the future. It belongs in the future.

Everyone adopting a no-list approach needs to be vigilant in not using project plans and schedules as a way of disguising present work as future work. The basic principle to remember is “If it can be done now then it should be done now”. If you can’t do it now because you don’t have time, then you are overcommitted.

How to write a blog post a day

Seraphim wrote in the comments on my artlcle The Minor Tasks List:

“Maybe what’s missing for me is the practical application. Can you maybe give a couple of examples of how destroying the lists helps keep your mind engaged and also develop better systems?”

Well, this website is a good example of how it works. Since I started using “no-list” principles, I’ve blogged every day without fail (something I’ve never managed in the past), and also advanced many other areas of my life. I’ve not done less and spent my time forgetting to do things. I’ve both done more and done it more reliably.

Blogging every day is not difficult providing you use the “no-list” methods - which are founded on the “questioning” principle in Secrets of Productive People. The same applies to almost anything else you want to do. I’m giving you an example of how to do blogging - but you can use the methods on any subject. For instance, my book shows how the principles worked in the lives of a scientist, an artist and an industrialist.

Of course it’s difficult to remember boring work that you’re not really interested in. The whole idea of  Questioning is to get your mind interested, involved and creative.

So when starting a new project the first thing you need is to decide that you really want to do it.

How do you do that?

It’s easy if you use Questioning. You could ask yourself a question daily for about five days on the lines of “Which project do I really want to do most?”. You write five answers down and then shred the paper. Each day you do the same, and gradually an answer will emerge that fires your imagination. By the time the five days are up you will have your answer and you will probably already have started to get moving on it.

If the project is one that has been given to you by someone else, then your question might be “What are my five best ideas for advancing this?”

This project should now be alight in your mind. You’ll have no problem remembering to put it in your no-list system, whatever form of “no-list” you are using.

There are several things you now might do to advance the Blog Every Day project:

1. Identify subjects to write on.

2. Sort the mechanics of publishing a blog post.

3. Write the text

Identify Subjects to Write On

For identifying subjects to write on I use a Questioning method called the Accumulating List. Like all Questioning methods there’s nothing difficult or complicated about it. All you do is think of about five to ten possible subjects for blog posts and then spend a minute or two every day adding to the list. If any ideas come into your head at other times you can add them directly to the list. If you do this you will never be short of ideas for blog posts. Make sure you keep the list weeded of ideas which you come to realise are not going to work.

Sort the mechanics of publishing a blog post

There’s quite a lot more to a blog post than just coming up with an idea and writing about it. So this is an ideal subject for a Dynamic List. Write a fresh one every day until the items on the list solidify into a routine. At that stage you should be able to go through the routine without needing a list.

Your Dynamic List for writing a blog post might start something like this:

Confirm subject
Write text
Enter links

And finish off looking like this after some tasks have been done and others added:

Schedule publication
See also’s
Post link on Facebook
Categorize as Article
Check previous day’s article published ok
Chose next day’s subject
Etc.

Write the text

To write the text I use another Questioning technique called Continuous Revision. Basically you first of all jot down a few ideas, then by a constant process of successive drafts you build the article up until it is the way you want it. In fact I wrote my entire book Secrets of Productive People using this technique. First I use an Accumulating List to gather ideas for chapters. Then I wrote a few notes for each chapter, revised these a couple of times and finally edited the entire book twice.

And finally…

Remember it’s the principles that matter, not the precise method used. I have used many variations of no-list systems recently, but this has not affected the effectiveness of my work because these principles are remarkably robust.