Willpower Training - Maximizing the Effect

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

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

So the rules would be:

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

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

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

So your training session might go like this:

15 tasks - succeed

16 tasks - succeed

17 tasks - succeed

18 tasks - fail

16 tasks - fail

14 tasks - succeed

15 tasks - succeed

16 tasks - succeed

17 tasks - succeed

18 tasks - succeed

19 tasks etc.

Willpower Exercise - What Next?

I finally crashed and burned on yesterday’s Willpower Exercise this afternoon after completing six tasks out of Group 14. That means that I had completed 97 tasks in the order I had written them down. Notice that I completed the tasks, not just worked on them.

So what now?

Well, this is exactly what is supposed to happen. When the list gets too long to be comfortable, it crashes and I start again from the beginning, i.e. at a Group containing one task - which in this case is writing this blog post. 

My aim now will be to beat my previous score of 13. 

This is beginning to sound like some sort of computer game, isn’t it? Yes, and I’m hoping that it will be similarly compulsive. This is a game with positive real world results.

I’ll keep my scores posted:

1
2 (including a five mile walk)
3

etc.

An Exercise for Building Willpower

“Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.” Winston Churchill

Just about the most useful skill anyone can possess is the ability to do what one sets out to do.

I’m not talking here about the ability to carry out massive projects, but rather the ability to deal with one’s email, to keep the office tidy, to produce a report by the due date, to maintain the house properly, to go for a run every morning regardless of the weather, and so on - the thousands of little tasks which form the essential background to our lives. If we can’t rely on ourselves to do these, then we are not going to be able to rely on ourselves for the big stuff either.

So here is an exercise for building this ability. It’s not intended to be a time management system, though I think it might make a very good one. But if you practise this enough, you’ll be much better at working with any time management system - or none. And best of all, you’ll be able to rely on yourself more and more to do what you need and want to do.

It’s a development of an exercise contained in my first book Get Everything Done. Some of you may remember it in its original form.

Instructions 

1. Write down one task. 
2. Do it.
3. Write down two tasks.
4. Do them in the order in which you wrote them down.
5. Write down three tasks.
6. Do them, again in the order in which you wrote them down.
7. Continue in this way, increasing the set of tasks by one each time, for as long as you can.
8. See how long you can continue. Your score is the number of tasks in the longest group of tasks you have completed.
9. Once you fail to complete a group of tasks, start again at 1. 

Your aim is not to keep going for ever, but to keep increasing the average size of the group which you manage to complete.

Example

I am writing this blog post as the second task in a group of 6. That means I have already completed sixteen tasks (1+2+3+4+5+1). If I succeed in completing this blog post but fail to complete the next task, what would be my score? Answer: 5 (which is the number of tasks in the largest group I completed).

A few points: 

• You must complete each task according to how you have defined it, e.g. First Draft of Blog Post; Read “War and Peace” for 15 minutes; Walk 2,000+ Steps; Call Mike re January Figures.
• You must not do any discretionary tasks other than the ones on the list. 
• You may do non-discretionary tasks, e.g. your boss tells you to do something immediately; scheduled meetings; meal times; emergencies, unavoidable interruptions. 

I’ll post here everytime I change my score today:

5
6 (including a five mile walk)
7 
8 
9 
10
11

I think that’s about as far as I’m going to go this evening. A score of 11 doesn’t sound very much. But that’s 66 tasks not only worked on but completed in the order in which they were written down. That’s something which I don’t think I’ve ever done before, let alone in one day.

Since I’ve successfully kept to it without a mistake, I shall be starting tomorrow with 12 tasks. How far can I go?

4 April

12
13

My Conclusions about GIRKIR (Get It Right Keep It Right)

“Get it right, keep it right” is an excellent principle, but this post is not about the principle but about the time management system named after it.

First the good: 

• The system lives up to its title pretty well. The slow build up caused by only entering one new task per pass really works. I amazed myself by the number of things which I only had to expend a minimum of effort on to keep right once I’d got them right. 

Now the bad: 

• Inevitably as the list gradually gets longer and longer so the system slows down. Eventually it becomes unresponsive to new work coming in. Trying to put this right was the subject of most of my experiments, but I never succeeded in solving it. The two most obvious solutions are to start a new list or to weed aggressively. But both result in losing the good effects of the system for a period.

 So my conclusion is that this would be is an excellent system for getting on top of a lot of work which has got well behind (think, return from vacation as an example), but it’s not really viable for long-term use unless your work-load is comparatively light. 

This is a great pity as I had high hopes for it.

Looking forward:

My experiences with GIRKIR led me to look at trying to find a new system which would concentrate on speed and flexibility. No sooner did I express the wish, then the answer dropped into my lap. More soon!

Lenten Challenge Non-Success Stories

If you didn’t succeed in keeping to one system throughout Lent, then the Comments section to this post is the place to record your experiences and conclusions.

Lenten Challenge Success Stories

Anyone who wishes to claim that they successfully kept to the same system throughout Lent please record your experiences in the Comments section below. 

If you did not succeed in the Challenge then I’m going to open a separate Comment section for your experiences, comments and conclusions.

For once I’ve actually managed to keep to one system (GIRKIR) myself, though I admit to having experimented with different forms of it - so it wasn’t exactly the same system throughout. Pretty close though. I will write about my conclusions in a separate blog post.

Thanks to everyone who took part in this.

Reminder: Lenten Challenge

Just to remind you that the Lenten Challenge ends tomorrow evening (Thursday 1st April).

How to Ensure You Re-enter a Task

If you’ve ever found that sometimes you forget to re-enter a recurring or uncompleted task at the end of a long list, then here’s the solution.

It all lies in the order in which you do these three actions:

1) Select the next task

2) Dot it

3) Do it

4) Re-enter it

But if you do them in that order, then you are running a risk of forgetting action 4) re-entering the task.

It’s far better to do them in this order:

1) Select the next task

2) Re-enter it

3) Dot it

4) Do it

If you are using a pre-dotted system like FVP, then just re-enter the task before you start working on it.

If you do it like this, you will never forget to re-enter a task again.

Todoist Review of "Get Everything Done"

Good summary of Get Everything Done and Still Have Time to Play. Can’t believe it’s 21 years since it was published!

The Commitment Inventory: Get More Done By Saying “No” (todoist.com)

A Few Notes on "Get It Right, Keep It Right"

The Get it Right Keep It Right (GIRKIR) system is still working extremely well for me, but I’ve been taking the opportunity of the Lenten Challenge to try out a few variations. Some of you may have already tried these or others and I’d be interested to know how you’ve got on with them.

Entry by doing

This means that when you reach the end of the list you write in a new task and immediately take action on it. This method of entry forms the basis of some “no list” systems. I tried it out with GIRKIR to see whether it would make the system quicker in dealing with urgent tasks.

The answer was that yes, it did - a bit. But it was not enough to outweigh the fact that I am more reluctant to enter a difficult task if I have to do it at once, rather than have a bit of a lead-up time. 

So on balance the existing rule (enter when you reach the end of the list and go back to the beginning without doing it) wins.

Using the Question

By “the Question” I mean “What am I resisting not doing?”. The rules leave it open whether you use the Question or not. I found that using the Question produces a better result, especially in the form “What am I resisting not doing now?”

How long a list?

I haven’t pushed this to the extreme yet, but I have found that every time I start a new list my work goes backwards and it takes time to re-establish everything. 

The maximum length of list I’ve reached so far is a bit more than forty tasks. This is fewer than I would normally have on a long list, but every task and project on it was completely up-to-date, and I was able to move very fast through the list while still keeping it up-to-date.

So my advice is to keep a list going as long as you can, and employ vigorous weeding to keep it manageable.

The exception to this if you are away for some time and work has built up in the meantime. That would be the right time to start a fresh list in order to get everything under control again.

How many tasks to enter in one go?

The rules say you should only enter one task at a time, but I did some experimenting to see if it was possible to enter more. The answer is yes and no.

Yes, because entering three or four minor tasks together won’t really make much difference. 

No, because I found myself unable to resist the temptation to enter more and more and larger and larger tasks together until the system collapsed under the weight of all the new work it was being asked to digest all at once.

So, I recommend sticking strictly to one task entry per pass as per the rules. Otherwise you will quickly find yourself back with a Simple Scanning list in all but name.

Using A Pre-Entry List

As you go through the process of adding one task to the list per pass you will become aware that you have a queue of tasks to add to the list. What makes better sense than to write these tasks down so you don’t forget to enter them?

Don’t!

If you do, you will end up with a list that is longer than your GIRKIR list and expanding rapidly. 

My advice is don’t think about future tasks for entry at all. Just use The Question to identify the next task.

"Get It Right Keep It Right" Progress Reports

If I’ve counted right there are twelve entrants in the Lenten Challenge, including myself, who have put Get It Right Keep It Right as the method they are going to keep to for the duration of the Challenge.

As I’m particularly interested in how this particular method works for people, could those using it please put comments on how they are getting on in the comments to this post please.

Comments on how people are getting on with other methods should go on the previous post (Lenten Challenge Entries).

Lenten Challenge Entries

Here are the entrants so far for the Lenten Challenge which starts on Wednesday:

Myself - Get It Right Keep It Right

Skeg - 5T/Get Everything Done

Seraphim - Serial No List

TopherJake - Do It Tomorrow

vegheadjones - 5T with time bursts

Diana - FVP

Athiban - FVP

Laby - Get It Right Keep It Right

Nia - ASEM

Neil - AF2 (New/Old Lists)

Christopher E - AF2 (New/Old Lists)

Brenda - Do It Tomorrow

Aaron Hsu - Get It Right Keep It Right

Grace - How to Make Your Dreams Come True

Alan Baljeu - Serial 2 List (own system)

Caibre - A Simple New System (own version)

MrDone - Get It Right Keep It Right

Paul McNeil - AF1

Christian G. - Get It Right Keep It Right

Jason Dixon - New Question

Ryan Freckleton - Simple Scanning with entry-by-doing and the new question (what am I most resisting not doing?)

Shamil - No List (1/0)

Brandon - Dreams

Andreas Maurer - Get It Right Keep It Right

Natalya - Get It Right Keep It Right

Cricket - own system

Margaret 1 - Get It Right Keep It Right

Cameron - No Youtube

Fintan - DIT

Eugenia - Get It Right Keep It Right

Mike Brown - Get It Right Keep It Right plus New Question

Jens - Get It Right Keep It Right

Tobba - Get It Right Keep It Right (late entry by one day)

 If I’ve missed anyone please let me know.

Further entries in the Comments on this post. You have until midnight your local time on Tuesday/Wednesday (Feb 16/17) to enter.

Journaling - A Useful Tool

One thing that has been mentioned from time to time on this blog is “journaling”.

What I’m going to demonstrate here is the writing of an article by the journaling method. This is how it is carried out. We start with typed articles with a keyboard. There is a strict time limit of 10 minutes. In fact it isn’t a time limit. One has to write for 10 minutes, neither more nor less. There must be no pauses for thought. There must be no going back for editing. That doesn’t mean you can’t edit the result for publication, but that editing must take place after one has finished, not while you are still writing.

What subject should you choose? Well, that is a good question. You can either decide on a subject to explore, or just start writing and let the subject find itself. It’s this second method that I am using now. At the moment I am somewhere around the half-way point. Not quite there. But what I am expressing is coming to me as I write without forethought. I have no preconceived ideas about what I should say, or what style I should be expressing it in.

How much will I edit once I’ve finished? Just enough to make it comprehensible. Not so much that it destroys the sense of exploration of one’s mind. What I am writing at the moment is writing itself. So i don’t want to take that experience away by over-editing.

What can this method be used for? Just about anything, I think. You can write about emotions, about ideas, about exploration, as a diary, as recollection of the past, about hopes for the future - of yourself or your town or your family, your country or humanity as a whole. It doesn’t matter. In fact some people have used the technique to write whole novels. I’ve always loved the idea of this tool because it may not be so beautifully crafted as normal writing, but it does seem to get at the essence of things.

Get It Right and Keep It Right (Revised Instructions)

This is an extensive re-write of the previous post, which many readers were having difficulty understanding. Even I wasn’t quite sure what I meant in places!

I hope this will be clearer. I’ve left the previous instructions in place for comparison purposes only.

——-

Here’s a new system which can be used either with or without the New Question. It comes with the warning that I haven’t yet tested it out fully myself.

The nearest of my systems which it resembles is Spinning Plates, but this new system is a bit more flexible.

As the title suggests, the idea is to take one subject in turn, get it up and running and then carry out maintenance to make sure it stays that way.

Summary:

It consists of a task list as in Simple Scanning which you work on in exactly the same way as in Simple Scanning except that you can only add a task to the list each time you go back to the beginning of the list. You start off with two tasks and build up the list gradually.

This is how it works:

1. Start with two tasks. They can be any tasks, but it would be best to go for continuing tasks which require regular attention, e.g. email, paper, etc.
2. Do some work on the first task, cross out and re-enter.
3. Do some work on the second task, cross out and re-enter.
4. Add another task and, without working on it yet, go back to the beginning of the list and repeat the process. 

What you are doing is building up a list of everything you want, need, or have to do by adding one task each time you get through the list. Gradually the list will extend to all your work. The slow build-up allows you to get each subject completely under control and then keep it that way.

Example:

Start the list with two tasks:

Email

Tidy Desk

Do them both and re-enter them :

Email 

Tidy Desk 

Email

Tidy Desk

Add another task and go back to the beginning of the list:

Email 

Tidy Desk

Email

Tidy Desk

Draft Report

Contine rotating round the list, adding one task each time you go back to the beginning.

You can continue adding new tasks one at a time until the system tells you that you are trying to do too much by getting slower and slower. When it gets too slow to be practical, you can take one or both of the following actions: 

• Weed the list of any projects or tasks which you realise are taking up more time than they are worth.
• Start a new list and build it up again gradually.

Get it right - and keep it right

Here’s a new system which can be used either with or without the New Question. It comes with the warning that I haven’t yet tested it out fully myself.

The nearest of my systems which it resembles is Spinning Plates, but this new system is a bit more flexible.

As the title suggests, the idea is to take one subject in turn, get it up and running and then carry out maintenance to make sure it stays that way.

This is how it works:

1. Start with two tasks. They can be any tasks, but it would be best to go for continuing tasks which require regular attention, e.g. email, paper, etc.
2. Do some work on the first task, cross out and re-enter.
3. Do some work on the second task, cross out and re-enter.
4. Repeat this progress until one of the tasks is finished or you don’t want to go further with it for the time being.
5. Add another task and, without doing it, start from the first task on the list until you reach the end again.
6. Add another task and continue in the same way ad infinitum. 

What you are doing is building up a list of everything you want, need, or have to do by adding one task each time you get through the list. Gradually the list will extend to all your work. The slow build-up allows you to get each subject completely under control and then keep it that way.

Points to note: 

• Only cross out a task if you have actually done some work on it. Otherwise leave it where it is on the list.
• One-off tasks are deleted when finished.
• Regularly occurring tasks should be left on the list if they are going to re-occur within a day or so.
• There is a presumption that every task should be worked on each time you come to it. However if there is no work to be done or the conditions are not right, this rule can be ignored.

Example

Start the list with two tasks:

Email 

Tidy Desk

Do them both and re-enter them (if applicable):

Email 

Tidy Desk 

Email

Tidy Desk

(Note that you could continue working on each of the two tasks alternately if you wanted to)

Add another task:

Email 

Tidy Desk

Email

Tidy Desk

Draft Report

Contine rotating round the list, adding one task each time you go back to the beginning.

You can continue adding new tasks one at a time until the system tells you that you are trying to do too much by getting slower and slower. When it gets too slow to be practical, you can take one or both of the following actions: 

• Weed the list of any projects or tasks which you realise are taking up more time than they are worth.
• Start a new list and build it up again gradually.

 One last remark: I need a name for this system. I don’t think GIRKIR quite does it for me! Suggestions in the Comments please.

Lenten Challenge 2021 starts Wednesday 17th

This year’s Lenten Challenge will start tomorrow week on Wednesday 17th February (Ash Wednesday). 

I’ve decided to keep the usual form this year, rather than the different one in my post of 27 January.

The idea is to keep to the same time management system for the whole of Lent, which ends on the evening of Thursday 1st April.

You can use any time management system - it does not have to be one of mine. 

Please book in in the Comments to this post, stating which system you are going to be using. If it doesn’t have a name you should briefly describe it.

If you fail to keep to the system, then please report in the Comments that you have withdrawn from the Challenge. You can also report progress in the Comments and of course celebrate your win if you complete the Challenge!

Please note that this is not intended to imply any religious use or affiliation whatsoever. 

Continuing the Experiment

I have been continuing the experiments which I described in my previous post on the best way to use the New Question. My main problem has been with using the New Question with a list. Using it as a stand-alone question as described in the post remains effective, but as I said is difficult to maintain for an extended period.

One thing I’ve become aware of is that “What am I resisting not doing?” is by far the most effective form of the New Question. It works much better than “What am I resisting not doing more than x?” for example, which is the form of the Question I was using with FVP.

It occured to me earlier today that the one type of list I had not tried it with to date is one of the simplest. I described it in my first book, and to save you the trouble of looking it up here it is:

1. Decide what you are going to do next
2. Write it down
3. Do it
4. Repeat ad infinitum

At the end of the day you will have a list of everything you have done during the day, which you can review in order to see how much you achieved and what still needs to be done.

My idea today was to use the New Question in Step 1 to decide what to do next. I have been trying it out this afternoon and evening and it’s worked like a dream. It’s fast, decisive and so far has produced much better results than I had been getting with the Question used with FVP.

I will be endeavouring tomorrow to spend the whole day using this system. If anyone else want to try it, I’d be delighted to hear how they get on in the comments.

Update on the New Question

I’ve been hard at work experimenting with the best ways to use the New Question, and I want to share my findings - with the proviso that this is what works for me so far. You may find other ways are better for you.

There are two ways in which I am using the Question at the moment with a great degree of success: 

• As the question in FVP, where it is used in the form “What am I resisting not doing more than x?” My experience using it this way is that it is best to scan fast, and dot tasks only when I get a strong “hit”. This is the best way when I am in my office sitting at my desk tackling a large amount of work.
• As a stand alone question in the form “What am I resisting not doing?” This is faster and more flexible, but difficult to keep up for an extended period of time. So I find it is best for:
  • Times when I am away from my desk and my office
  • Informal occasions
  • Breaking down a selected task or project into small actions
  • Selecting routes when I am walking in the countryside.
  • Any occasion when I just need to make up my mind what to do next.

I’ve decided to modify the Lent Challenge so that entrants can use the Question with any system or systems. The idea will be to report back on your experiences both as you go along and at the end of the Challenge.

Lent 2021

It’s been the tradition on this blog for the last few years to run a Lenten Challenge to see who can stick to the same time management method for the whole of Lent. 

I’m thinking of changing it slightly this Lent to who can maintain the method described in the previous post for the whole of Lent. And the prize (which is only the glory of having won) will go to the person who best describes their experience. The entries will be judged by an impartial panel consisting so far of me.

Reactions to this in the comments please.

LENT IS ONLY FOUR WEEKS OFF. THE FIRST DAY OF LENT (ASH WEDNESDAY) IS ON 17 FEBRUARY.

Disclaimer: This is not intended to imply any religious affiliation or purpose whatsoever.

A New Question - and no answers?

I’ve been spending some time experimenting with the best system to use the new question with. The question itself is not giving me any problems, but the context in which to get the best results from it is proving difficult to find.

I’m beginning to come to the conclusion that the best way to use it - for me anyway - is on its own without any list, not even a short one like 5/2 or other “no list” systems. In fact I’m not at the moment even bothering to get an answer to the question. I ask fairly frequently (but not obsessively) “What am I resisting not doing?” and then just act. It might be any type of action, such as continuing to do what I’m already doing, or starting something different, or even abandoning work altogether and doing something quite unexpected. But the important thing is that I don’t feel that I have to vocalise the answer to myself. 

This changes the emphasis quite a lot. When I’ve been working with the question up to now, whether with a list or not, I have generally waited until I’ve finished the task I’ve been doing, and then I’ve asked the question with the purpose of identifying the next task.

But I find now that I’m more often asking the question at any stage of a task - and that either confirms what I’m doing, or makes some adjustments, or sends me off on an entirely different tack. So it’s more like being at the steering wheel of a ship - making minor adjustments to prevent the ship going off course, rather than making the big adjustment needed to actually change course. Of course when you are at the helm of a ship you have to do both, and so it is with asking the question.

So I’m still exploring exactly what the capabilities of this question are, and I don’t think I’ve got anywhere near to exhausing them yet. You may want to conduct your own experiments with it and you may get different results from me.

I’ll keep reporting back - and so can you in the comments.