Getting Going Again: Day 20 Update

Exactly as I forecast on Saturday, today I succeeded in getting back on top of my work. Everything is now either scheduled for tomorrow or in the backlog from last week (which I cleared approximately half of today). I finished work by 4.30 pm. Tomorrow I have an easily doable list in my Task Diary so should have no problem finishing it - I hope most of the backlog will be cleared too.

If I hadn’t taken action when I realised that I couldn’t catch up last week, I would probably have fallen even further behind today. It’s amazing how quickly a backlog can be dealt with once it is recognised as such.

Getting Going Again: Day 18 Update

There are a couple of lessons that I have been learning:

1) How easy it is to go wrong

My failed experiment has had a severe knock-on effect, not helped by the fact that I have been out of the office a lot in the second half of this week. As a result I have not succeeded in re-establishing the Do It Tomorrow system. Today I am conscious that I am beginning to slip behind badly. Now this is the point at which a lot of people start saying things like: “I’ve got too much to do to use DIT at the moment. I’ll get back into it when I’ve caught up with my work.”

What they should be saying of course is: “I’ve got too much to do NOT to be using DIT at the moment. I’ll get back into it straight away and then I’ll easily catch up with my work.”

2) How easy it is to get right again

To get back on top of my work I need to do three things:

1. Admit that I have got behind and declare a backlog.
2. Draw up my normal Will Do list for Monday and put “Clear Backlog” as the Current Initiative.
3. Get moving on the Will Do list on Monday.

That’s it! What could be simpler? I’m now instantly back on top of my work!

Related articles:

How to Get Rid of Backlogs

Previous posts in “Getting Going Again”

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Getting Going Again: Update Day 9

I finished my Will Do list today at 5.30 p.m. which means that I have caught up with the last two days when I didn’t finish it completely. As I said in an earlier update, not finishing the list for a couple of days is no cause for concern as long as one catches up within 3 or 4 days.

I would have finished earlier if I hadn’t allowed myself to be distracted by all sorts of ideas I had about improving this website. Getting distracted is not a good habit to get into, but there are times when the ideas strike and you just have to ride with it!

I don’t intend to publish daily updates any more as I’ve now got the system working well. But I’ll write about anything interesting that arises as and when.

Previous posts on this subject:

Getting Going Again

Getting Going Again: Day 8 Update

I finished today at about 4 p.m., though I carried forward a few items in the Task Diary to tomorrow to spread the load a bit. I’ve got all day tomorrow to get the Will Do list finished so that shouldn’t be a problem.

One of the tasks I’ve set myself for tomorrow is to write an article on “Friction”, which is the difference between the beautiful smooth-running day that we plan to have and the reality of the chaotic day we actually have!

Getting Going Again: First Week Update

After just one week of getting back on the Do It Tomorrow system, I can’t believe how my life has been transformed. I’m experiencing renewed energy and am moving forwards on all fronts. And as always seems to happen when one starts to move forward, opportunities have begun to open up in front of me.

Specifically I have got rid of all backlogs and so am completely up-to-date. I’ve rejuvenated my blog, got going again on my newsletter, started to develop ideas for new products and generally feel that I’m in the driving seat again.

And I’ve done all this without working later than 3.30 p.m. any day this week. With one exception - today!

Today my computer started playing up badly in the morning and I got the “blue wall of death” twice. However I couldn’t do much about it then because I had a meeting at 11.45 a.m. When I got back from this at 3.30 p.m. I was able to sort the problem out fairly comprehensively but it didn’t leave much time to finish my Will Do list for the day. Bear in mind that in Do It Tomorrow terminology a computer breakdown is an “Immediate” task, since it prevents one from doing any other work.

So I’ve finished the working day with a whole load of tasks to carry forward to tomorrow. That is absolutely nothing to worry about. It is bound to happen from time to time, and is only a cause for concern if one can’t catch up after 3 or 4 days.

Finally, here’s my “What’s Better?” list for my new Current Initiative - sorting out my office:

• Wrote blog entry on the subject
• Moved books back onto shelves
• Made a start on sorting out books
• Tidied area around shredder of bits of paper

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New Current Initiative

Having cleared my paper backlog yesterday (hurrah! hurrah!), I am starting a new Current Initiative today. This is to sort out my office. If I do it properly (as opposed to just a surface clean and tidy) it is a big job because it involves sorting out such things as the best locations for the furniture, computer, printer, phone, fax, etc, and also weeding and revising my filing system, and moving things to storage or dumping them altogether.

There are several ways I could tackle this:

• Empty everything out of the office and start again from scratch.
• Break the project up into a series of smaller areas and deal with each of them as a separate Current Initiative.
• Pay someone else to do it for me

But the way I am actually going to do it is using a “What’s Better?” list. This is a technique from my book How To Make Your Dreams Come True. All it involves is writing out a list of everything that is better about my office today. I ignore things that are worse or the same. The idea is that doing this focusses one’s mind on the growth points. And on the principle that what you pay attention to grows, those growth points will then grow further and faster.

In the book it is used as a way of measuring one’s progress during the day in general - and I know from experience that it is a very powerful way of moving forward. Will it work for a specific project like this? I’ve no idea. The reason I chose this method is precisely because I wanted to see what would happen.

Anyway I’ve got one thing that can go on my list already: I’ve written a blog entry about it. That must be something that’s better!

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Getting Going Again: Day 6 Update

My declared aim today was to complete the clearance of my paper backlog. I took each item in the backlog strictly in order and worked on it steadily and methodically as if it were the only thing I had to do all day. The result was that the backlog was cleared by 9.45 a.m. (I had started work at 8.30). That was much quicker than I had anticipated, which just goes to show how fast things will move if you really get stuck into them.

The rest of the day felt much lighter once the backlog had been cleared, so I finished work by 3.30 p.m.

Tomorrow I will have completed a week back with the system, so I will do a summary of what I have achieved during the week. Another task for tomorrow is starting a new Current Initiative. My standard advice on the Current Intiative is that after clearing backlogs the highest priority is to sort out systems. So following my own advice, I am going to do a thorough sort-out of my office and its systems. That will make working a lot quicker and easier.

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Getting Going Again: Day 5 Update

Yesterday was Sunday, so I did no work at all and only switched my computer on in order to watch a downloaded TV programme. So no Will Do list - no Task Diary - though a few ideas did occur to me during the day which I added to the Task Diary for tomorrow. Having somewhere to stash ideas meant that I wasn’t tempted to do some work on them since I knew that I would be able to deal with them on Monday. So today (Monday) I have two days worth of email, paper and voicemail to deal with. That shouldn’t be any problem as long as I get on with it.

Although I gave myself a rest from the DIT system on Sunday, I went through the day using the method for preventing resistance which I described a couple of days ago in my posting Structure v. No Structure. It worked extremely well.

The one thing I would really like to achieve today is to get to the end of my paper backlog. So I am going to concentrate on getting that finished, even if it means that I don’t get through everything else.

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Getting Going Again: Day 4 Update

My intention today was to only work in the morning, which I didn’t quite keep to. I had to do another 20 minutes work after lunch (including this blog entry) in order to finish my Will Do list. Not too bad… now we’re off to walk round the gardens at Polesden Lacey, one of my favourite spots in the entire world.

Tomorrow (Sunday) my intention is not to switch the computer on all day. So no update until Monday.

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Getting Going Again: Day 3 Report

Today I finished my work by 3.45 p.m. which was just as well as I have an engagement at 4.30 which will take out the rest of the day. So far I have succeeded in sorting out quite a number of outstanding matters and, as you will have seen, getting the blog going again. I have a far greater sense of being in control, but there are still many things which need sorting out - especially the state of my office! That will be my next Current Initiative once I have cleared my backlog of paper, which should only take a day or two more.

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Getting Going Again: Day 2 Report

I finished my Will Do list today at about 12.30 p.m., just in time for lunch. Everything has been pretty effortless so far, which is encouraging.

The most important thing I did today was the item “Think about the future of my business”. That actually only took me about ten minutes, but generated a whole stream of other “Think abouts”, including:

Think about:

how to blog regularly
new subjects for seminars
collecting subjects for future articles
subjects for another book
increasing sales of existing books
using audio/video/teleclass formats
touring
publicity
joint projects
increasing website circulation
monetarising my website

I’ve scheduled these forward over the next two weeks in my Task Diary, and added at the end the all-important “Think about the future of my business again”.

The great thing about the Do It Tomorrow system is that it enables one to keep the momentum going.

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Getting Going Again - Day 1 Report

I left my last posting on Getting Going Again at 8.40 a.m. with the question of how long would it take to finish my Will Do List today?

Well, the answer is that I finished it at 11.15 a.m. That included a good half-hour wasted because my computer was playing up.

Lots of things have sprung into my mind though to go into my Task Diary for tomorrow - including the all-important item “Think About Future of Business”. I’ve written before on how important it is to include project management items in one’s Task Diary. “Think About X” is one - it may be followed by “Investigate X”, “Discuss X with Y”, “Plan X” and so on.

Also I have added a couple of items to the Will Do list: “Read Blogs” (that is to say other people’s blogs) and “Reply to Comments” (on my own blog).

The most important thing to avoid here is to add too many things to either the Will Do list or to the Task List. I must keep my projects and activities well audited.

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Update on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 15:32 by Mark Forster

I thought I had written an article on managing projects for this website, but I can’t find it. So I’ve put a task in my diary for tomorrow “Write article on managing projects”

And here it is!

Getting Going Again

As I’ve blogged before in the recent past, I have been working on a new method of time management. Unfortunately in spite of all my efforts - which have been considerable - it simply hasn’t worked. So I think now is the time to call a halt and go back to what I know does work.

Every cloud has a silver lining and this is no exception. It gives me a good opportunity to show how effectively Do It Tomorrow works. After more than a year of not using the Do It Tomorrow techniques, I have badly neglected my business and my work has descended into chaos. So now I have an excellent subject for blogging:- How quickly and effectively can I move forward using DIT?

One of the great advantages of DIT is that it puts you instantly back on top of your work. This is done by “declaring a backlog”. Instead of struggling to get up-to-date with piles of email, paper and tasks, you simply sweep them all into folders and get on with the new stuff. You can then deal with the backlogs at your leisure in the knowledge that they can only get smaller.

The next thing I need to do is draw up a Will Do list. I did that last night and kept it as short as I possibly could. In fact all it consists of is this:

Current Initiative
Email
Voicemail
Paper
Task Diary
Tidy Desk
Draw Up Tomorrow’s List

As I’ve not yet spent any time thinking about projects for the future, the Task Diary list is only four items:

Buy page-a-day diary to use as Task Diary
Follow up lunch with J
Blog: Seminars
Newsletter

And finally, my Current Initiative is to clear the backlogs - the main one is paper.

Remember with DIT the aim is to do everything on the list without exception - that’s why it’s called a Will Do list.  I’ve deliberately kept the list as short as possible today to get myself off to a good start. I shouldn’t have any problem getting through it with ease.

So let’s get going: my first action is to start clearing the backlogs. I’ll start with email. Let’s see, the only email I haven’t dealt with came in yesterday - so that’s not a backlog. Paper? Yes, I’ve got several items including some bank statements to be reconciled. With a Current Initiative, I don’t have to finish everything - I just have to do some work on it.

Time now: 8.40 a.m. How long will it take me to get through everything?

Subsequent Updates

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