How to Do Anything - Part III

I reminded you yesterday that the secret for advancing a project is to give it sufficient regular focused attention.

This all boils down to a matter of time. Most worthwhile things don’t happen quickly. You don’t become a great violinist overnight, or a great athlete, or even a good friend or a good employee. It takes time and persistent effort for things to come to fruition.

Even when something seems to happen in a flash, it’s usually due to good preparation over the years. As Seneca is reputed to have said (though he probably didn’t):

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

Another saying, which this time I can attribute correctly because it’s mine, is:

Better to do a few things well than a lot of things badly.

In the latest edition of my newsletter, which went out yesterday, I give a simple exercise for focusing your mind before and after your working day. It helps you to concentrate on the relatively few things which are an absolute priority for you.

Another thing to bear in mind is that the better ordered you are in general the more projects you can take on. Most people make the mistake of taking too many projects on before they have brought order to what they are already doing.

Tomorrow: Short-term versus Long-Term Results

How to Do Anything - Part II

In my previous blog post I said that you can do anything provided that you are willing to pay the price - and that the price is all the other things you could have been doing instead.

To put it another way, the price is being willing to give the project enough time.

As I said in my book Secrets of Productive People the secret of advancing a project is to give it sufficient regular focused attention.

Time is the essence of providing this attention.

And now, an example of how not to do it!

On March 24th, I published an article called My Book Challenge Amended in which I said that I was giving up my idea of reading one book at a time. The reason I gave was that I wanted to read Proust’s Du côté de chez Swann, but because it would take so long I was going to read it along with Tom Holland’s Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic and the third part of Andrew Robert’s Napoleon the Great.

What was the result of this decision? Well, I’ve just finished Rubicon, but I’ve read nothing at all of the other two books.

Now just see what has happened here. What I wanted to do was read a book (the Proust) which would take a considerable mental effort and a large investment of time. What I actually succeeded in doing was to read the easiest book on offer instead. I always went for this easy option rather than the two more demanding books.

The price of reading Rubicon was to have not read Proust. I would much prefered it to be the other way round. I’ve would have liked it to have been that the price of reading Proust was not to have read Rubicon.

Now if I’d decided to stick with my one book at a time rule I would have read quite a bit of the Proust, and none of Rubicon or Napoleon. But since it was the Proust I really wanted to read, that would not be a matter of too much concern.

This is how it works for us if we don’t identify clearly what it is that we want to go for, zero in on it and then devote our efforts to it as a priority.

Tomorrow: How to Do Anything - Part III

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Is DIT still alive?

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How to Do Anything - Part I

There’s a well known saying “You can do anything, but not everything”. I think it’s basically true, allowing for all the usual provisos about physical capacity, age, etc. Though these can sometimes prove less of an obstacle than expected.

Recently on this website I’ve tended to concentrate on the second half of this. I’ve spend a lot of time persuading people (including myself) that a huge list of everything is counter-productive. It’s a lesson that has to be rammed home over and over again - that trying to do everything is the best way to stop yourself from doing anything.

The no-list method is part of this effort to avoid the evils of over-commitment.

But what I have not emphasized much recently is the first part: “You can do anything.”

Well, ok, I’m never going to make myself into an opera singer or a rock start and to be honest I probably never had the talent for either. But then I never really wanted to be an opera singer or a rock star enough to become one.

How do I know I never wanted to be either?

Because I was unwilling to pay the price.

So let’s amend the statement to “You can do anything, provided you are prepared to pay the price.”

Part of the price is of course the things you won’t be able to do if you really do go for your goal.

I often used to say to my coaching clients, “At the end of each day what you haven’t done is the price you paid for what you have done. Was it worth it?”

If you’ve spent your day lying on the couch in front of the tv drinking six-packs of beer, that is your choice and it’s absolutely fine. But it doesn’t come without a price. The price is your health, your income, the respect of your friends and family, and the self-respect that comes from achieving worthwhile goals.

If you’ve spent your day in the office ticking trivial busywork tasks off your huge to do list, that doesn’t come without a price either. The price is that a project is stagnating for lack of attention, your work has become flabby, you miss out on promotion, etc.

Tomorrow: Part II - What happens when you pay the price? 

First Issue of My Revived Newsletter

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How to Read a Book Once Twice

The benefits of reading something twice are well-known. On a second reading one understands more, remembers more and integrates more. This applies to just about any type of reading apart from the most ephemeral. It also applies to any length of reading from a multi-volume history to a short article or blog post.

There are many experts who say that there are more efficient ways of understanding and remembering written material. These include pre-questioning, note-taking, outlining and various other techniques. I’m not saying they are wrong, but my feeling is that re-reading is easier and less intellectually demanding and therefore more likely to get done. The best method is the one that you actually do.

The problem is that all these methods, including re-reading, take time and this time has to be found from the time you need for all the other books and articles you have to read. So how about if you could read a book for the first and second time in one go?

In fact there is a very simple technique for doing this, which I have found remarkably effective. All you need is two bookmarks (Book Darts are even better) or the electronic equivalent. Here’s how it works using Book Darts with a printed book:

1. Put both Book Darts at the beginning of the book.
2. Read for as long as you wish.
3. Mark the place where you stop with one of the Book Darts.
4. When you want to read some more, start from the beginning of the book again, read for as long as you wish and mark where you stop with the second Book Dart.
5. The next time you read, start from the Book Dart which is nearest the beginning of the book, read for as long as you wish, and mark where you stop with that Book Dart.
6. Continue reading as in 5 until you have got both Book Darts to the end of the book.

Note that it doesn’t matter how far you get in a reading session. It makes no difference whether you stop before or after the leading Book Mark. You always start reading from the Book Dart nearest the beginning of the book. Doing it this way ensures that every bit of the book gets read twice regardless of how long or short your individual reading sessions are.

How much longer does it take to read a book in this way? Not as long as you would think. Your first reading is more relaxed than normal reading because you are not struggling to understand and take in all the meaning in one go. The second reading is also more relaxed because you know what’s coming and your mind has had a bit of time to work on the material.

I’ve used this method to read dense material such as history books, classic novels, scripture, and works in foreign languages. I’ve also used it for instruction books, magazines and individual articles. It seems to work well with all of them.

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No-List and Autofocus

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.

No Article Tomorrow (Easter Day)

I’m taking the day off from writing blog posts tomorrow so the next article will be published on Monday.

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Is DIT still alive?

“… I for one believe that DIT is by far the best system for managing your time and your life, solidly based on an understanding of how our minds work. The other systems don’t even come close… “

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Willpower and Time Management - II

“… 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…”

Catch-All Revisited

I’ve spent the last few days revisiting my old catch-all method, Autofocus (more often known as AF1 these days) to see how it feels after having spent quite a while with various no-list systems.

As I expected, the first thing that I experienced was that my list started to expand rapidly. By the third day there were seventy-four tasks and projects on the list with no sign of a slow-down in the expansion. I must admit that it was nice to have everything written down on one list, even though there wasn’t the slightest chance of getting through it all.

I did however make a major change to the rules of Autofocus for my revisit. I decided to do without both the dismissal process and the rule that at least one task must be done on each visit to a page.

These rule changes were accompanied by a big change in mental attitude. Instead of seeing each page as a list of things to be done, I saw it as a list of things from which I could choose what to do, but without any obligation to do anything. The result was that writing something on the list was no longer a commitment to do it, or even to try to do it. It was something I might do. If some tasks languished on the list without ever being done, that was absolutely fine. I refused to be concerned even if something I considered vital got passed by.

This change of attitude makes a huge difference. Strangely enough it makes Autofocus more like a no-list system because you simply have to trust your mind to come up with the right stuff at the right time.

I was expecting to find that Autofocus felt unwieldy and overwhelming after my experiences with no-list, but in fact quite the opposite has been true so far. But it’s only been a few days, and that may change.

I also have the question in my mind of whether I could have made the mental shift to a freer version of Autofocus if I hadn’t had my mind trained by using no-list systems. I don’t know the answer to that.

My Book Challenge - Amended

One thing has become very clear to me over the last few days, and that is that reading one book at a time doesn’t work when I’m dealing with a book like Du côté de chez Swann. This is a book I want to read slowly, savouring every word - more like a poem than a novel. It could take me months, possibly years to read it this way. Trying to read just this one book and no other is frustrating because there are loads of other books I want to read and also because it puts pressure on me to read Proust faster than I want to.

So I’m going to change the rules to say that I can read more than one book, but any book that I start I must finish - unless I discover that I really don’t want to read it at all for whatever reasons.

The immediate effect of this rule change is that I have added Tom Holland’s Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic to my current reading list, as well as continuing Napoleon the Great.

I’m hoping this will result in a lot more books getting read - without adding to the pile of half-read books!

My Book Challenge - Update

Just finished Powell’s The Military Philosophers. What next?

I think I shall start on one of my major book projects - to read Proust’s À la Recherche du temps perdu in French (I read it in English translation more than 40 years ago). So here goes on the first volume,  Du Côté de chez Swann. Even just one volume of Proust is not exactly one of the shorter books I promised myself in my last update, so it will probably take me quite a while. Anyway, here goes:

« Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure… »

Read Since January 24th:

The Evolution of Everything by Matt Ridley.

The Valley of Bones by Anthony Powell

Napoleon the Great (parts 1 and 2) by Andrew Roberts

In Parenthesis by David Jones

The Soldier’s Art by Anthony Powell

The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell

Edison's Notebooks

There’s an interesting article on the Evernote Blog Taking Note: Lessons in Collaboration & Creativity from Thomas Edison