Get Everything Done

... for handling my workload is based on AF1, with a variation for handling projects. It's been working great with no modifications for a month or two. Maybe others can glean some ideas from it.

This method has me cycling through all my active projects at least a couple times every day -- and the "hot" projects get lots of repeated attention throughout the day. It also keeps me current on recurring tasks and random one-off tasks.

It requires a notebook with moveable pages, though I implement this in Microsoft OneNote 2010. It can also be implemented with a series of accordion files sitting on a shelf, with each accordion file representing a "page".

Pages are of two types:
- Standard AF1 pages with miscellaneous items
- Project pages, with tasks pertaining only to a particular project

Start the same as with AF1, except write "AF" and the date at the top of the page. Do the same for every new standard AF1 page. This helps distinguish the standard AF1 pages from the project pages.

Add and process tasks as you normally would with AF1, with the following exceptions.

As you go along, whenever you feel it would be easier to deal with a task as part of a project, rather than as a random one-off task, you can start a project page. Just use the next available page in the notebook. Write the name of the project at the top of the page. Move the task to that page. (That is, cross it off the standard AF1 page, and add it to the project page).

Whenever you have a new task, you can either enter it as usual, at the bottom of the last standard AF1 page, or you can enter it at the bottom of any project page.

Whenever you add a new task to a project page, detach that page from your notebook, and move it to the position in the notebook immediately preceding the empty, unused pages.

While processing your list, when you come to a project page, work through the page just like you would work through a standard AF1 page. In other words, read through the whole page, then start at the top and work your way down, taking action on anything that stands out.

However, if you do take action on something on the project page, and it's not completed yet, then you should cross it off, and rewrite it at the bottom of that same project page -- NOT at the end of the list as with standard AF1.

Also, when you are done going through the project page, if you took any action on any task on that page, then you should detach that page from your notebook, and move it to the position in the notebook immediately preceding the empty, unused pages.

Finally, if you went through your whole project page, and did not take any action, do NOT dismiss the page. Instead, just move on to the next page.

This has the effect of moving your active projects to the end of the list, where they will get further attention before you cycle back to the beginning of the list.

This is very similar in "feel" to the way that standard AF1 moves each acted-upon task to the end of the list, where it gets further attention before you cycle back to the beginning of the list -- but it applies to the whole project, not just to the individual tasks.

Projects that got no action will just stay where they are.

Over time, the earliest standard AF1 pages are either completed or dismissed. As a result, unactioned project pages start moving more and more toward the beginning of your active pages. Finally, after awhile, the very first pages in your list will be the unactioned projects, followed by active AF1 pages with a date. That date on the first AF1 page shows you how long it's been since you took any action on those old projects. This can help you decide if those projects are really dead or not. You can use your own discretion to decide to "dismiss" these project pages or not.

When a project page fills up, you can start another one, and just keep them together in the notebook, and treat them as one page for processing purposes.


I like to treat my frequently-recurring tasks as a project page, rather than as random AF1 tasks.

Well, that's all there is to it. Like AF1 itself, it takes lots of words to explain, but it's very easy to put into action, and after trying it you really see how the dynamics work.

Mark:

I actually hadn't thought to count my tasks recently -- metrics only seems to come up as a point of interest, when I am having problems keeping up. :-)

So, I just went and counted. I have about 600 active work tasks, and about 200 active personal tasks. But somehow I am able to get through these at least once a day on most days.

Part of the speed increase is due to using OneNote to manage my lists. It's very easy to handle email and web pages, for example -- with one click, they become a "task" in OneNote. As I scroll through the "tasks" in each OneNote "page", all the pertinent information is immediately visible -- no shuffling between notebooks and my email client -- no need to refer back to websites -- the email and the web page are copied straight into OneNote.

Also, since all the project tasks are on their own page, all in one place, and all the pertinent details are immediately at hand, it's very fast and easy to see what needs to be done. I just cycle through the tasks, take some small action to move things forward, and then move on. I don't need to pull out any other information from a physical folder, or go find things somewhere on my hard drive. If I do have project files on my hard drive, it's easy to put a direct link to them in OneNote, so getting to the files is one click.

Hmm, let me think about this some more, and see what else allows me to move so much more quickly through this list. I haven't consciously reduced my number of commitments, and I do seem to have my usual large number of open tasks -- even more than before, if that's possible. :-)

I'm still not sure what allows me to cycle so quickly through this system. Meanwhile I will try to answer some of the other questions that have come up.

Mark wrote:
<< When do you think that your new system will have finished processing the last of the 800 existing tasks? By processing I include getting rid of tasks which you have realised you are never going to do. >>


I'm not sure I can answer that, since some tasks can stay alive for a very long time, through the "little and often" effect (e.g., reading a very long article), and project pages can stay alive for months at a time, always getting moved forward when I take action.


<< In other words if those tasks were spread over 50 pages in an AF list, how long would it be before he closed the last of those pages? >>

Monitoring the age of the oldest pages on the list seems to give a pretty good idea of how this is working, and might provide the kind of information you are asking for.

The oldest projects have been sitting there for about 3 weeks with no action. Two of them are "explore this idea" or "read these articles on this topic of interest". I think I'm ready to delete one of them, but the other still has some attraction for me -- I just don't have time for it right now. It takes about 1/10th of a second to make that decision every time I cycle through my list.

There are a couple more old projects that haven't seen any action. These are related to events / conferences that will occur next month. The tasks involved making travel arrangements and so on. All those tasks are completed, but I am keeping the project on the list because the conference / events haven't occurred yet, and it's a handy place to keep all the relevant info. Occasionally reviewing it (as I cycle through the list) helps remind me that all the logistics are all taken care of and I don't need to do anything else. Without this frequent exposure I'd probably forget that all the tasks are already done and keep entering "Conference logistics???" at the end of my list.


The oldest standard AF1 page in my list is just under 3 weeks old. I just dismissed several AF1 pages from the same timeframe, but this one still had some lingering tasks of interest.

Three weeks is pretty fresh, by my standards. It's comparable to how old my oldest pages got with SFv3. (But I am now cycling through the list MUCH faster than I did with SFv3). It's also much better than I had with notebook-based AF.

Also, probably 80% of my tasks and projects do get moved forward much more often than that -- several times a day for hot projects.

Smileypete wrote:
<< Out of interest, how many projects do you work on each day, is it typically a few, or anywhere between say 1 to 10 or more? >>

For work, about 7-10 projects get active attention multiple times through the day, and probably another 5-10 get *some* attention during the day. I currently have 36 distinct projects on my work list -- including 5 "agendas" for recurring meetings with individuals or teams, and the rest evenly split between topics of special interest (e.g., "Project Management Articles", "Career Development") and projects that would be more readily identified as projects (specific business objectives with a deadline, often involving multiple people).

For personal., the mix is about the same, and the number of hot projects is about the same, but there aren't as many "warm" projects.

Mark wrote:
<< I would be interested to know how many projects he actually has dismissed! >>

In the two months that I've been using this method, I've dismissed 10 work projects, and about 40 standard AF1 pages.

I've *completed* about 7 projects and about 10 standard AF1 pages.

I've also simply DELETED quite a few projects but I can't count them because, well, they're deleted. :-)

For personal stuff, it's about the same proportions.

Zeloc wrote:
<< How long is so long? >>

A little over two months.

Two things just occurred to me as to why this system allows me to move more quickly.

One - universal capture. I can quickly and easily put almost anything into OneNote, and it automatically shows up at the end of my AF list. ( See my post on Alan's thread at http://www.markforster.net/forum/post/1601014#post1602575 )

Mental drain and delay occur when I don't know what to do with an input -- an email, an interruption, a long URL that someone has recommended to me, etc. That problem has almost entirely gone away since it's so easy to get almost everything into OneNote, without any thought at all, just a click. With AF1, I had to slow down enough to actually articulate succinctly what I wanted to do. It could be very freeform, to be sure -- but with OneNote, it can be just a screenshot with no words at all. It takes the same easy fast principle and makes it even easier and faster.

This isn't just due to OneNote. It also worked with accordion files, and also could work with a looseleaf notebook -- there's no reason you need to limit yourself to single sheets of paper in a looseleaf notebook -- you can also use plastic inserts to hold paper mail, or thumb drives, or interesting leaves, or whatever. It was very liberating to toss my mail into that last accordion folder, knowing it would get processed, and not needing to write anything into a list. The physical mail itself was the task. (BTW, I deal with physical mail a bit differently now -- I throw the mail onto my desk, and it gets dealt with speedily when I come across the "Tidy Desk" recurring task. LOL)


Two - Everything in OneNote takes the same "shape" -- a OneNote page. This conformity allows me to process everything very quickly. AF1 has the same advantage -- every task, from "Feed the dog" to "Build a starship" appears as a single line item. But AF1 by itself doesn't have any grouping of tasks into projects. Those groupings occur "offline" -- perhaps a simple list of ideas or related tasks, to be entered into AF1 as needed -- or perhaps a complex Microsoft Project file with hundreds of supporting documents -- or anything in between.

In standard AF1, these projects are usually mentioned in AF1 but you have to leave your AF1 notebook to go deal with the actual project materials. The main disadvantage for me with this approach is that I don't get constant, frequent, repeated exposure to the actual project materials, unless I decide to take action on that project and go look up the offline materials.

To deal with this, sometimes I would put some project items directly into the AF1 list, in order to give them more attention and give them a higher chance of standing out. But, then they'd be disconnected from the overall project. With lots of project tasks like this, scattered here and there throughout the AF1 list, it would begin to feel disjointed, and I'd start to feel lost.

With my OneNote approach (which could be implemented in a looseleaf notebook if one prefers paper), everything is all in one place and basically takes the same form -- a series of items in OneNote. I can actually scan the actual project materials, very quickly, every time I visit that project page in my list. It keeps the details of the project very fresh in my mind. It keeps the looming deadlines very fresh in my mind. It greatly helps optimize the overall standing out process, having that frequent exposure to all the tasks of all my projects. I don't actually read every detail, but just scanning the first line of each item is very helpful. I can scan a fairly detailed project in a few seconds now, and be quickly reminded of any looming tasks that need to be addressed.

The uniformity simplifies the process and makes it more like an assembly line, with fewer and fewer excursions to other systems.

I do still use Excel files and Microsoft Project files and external websites -- but it's all so easy to access in OneNote -- I either include the file itself in OneNote, or I include a link to the file. In any case, those supporting files are only 1 click away.

Alan -

It's not OneNote per se. It's the universal capture, which OneNote handles really well. And it's the standardization of the tasks, which OneNote also does extraordinarily well.

OneNote is also a good fit for me because so much of my work -- both work and personal -- is on the computer.

An accordion-file system based on the same principles worked pretty well for me for personal tasks -- I cycled through the folders quickly, but stalled sometimes in dealing with emails and websites and other computer-based things. As I reflected, I realized that most of my personal tasks, as well as my work tasks, are computer based. So I decided to run everything through OneNote.

I still keep a handful of accordion folders, and one of my OneNote projects is "Accordion Folders". When I come to that task, I go process the accordion folders, then return to OneNote when I'm done. Pretty soon I think most of the accordion files will disappear, their contents being moved to OneNote.

Catherine -

As Alan described, in my OneNote implementation, an AF1 page is represented by a OneNote section. And each individual task is represented by a OneNote page.

This terminology can be confusing but I don't know how to get around it. I will try to be precise in describing it below.

A standard AF1 page is represented by a OneNote section. I don't worry too much about how many OneNote pages are in each section.

I have one section, the "New" section, where I capture new tasks, on new OneNote pages. This section is equivalent to the last page of the AF1 book. After 1 cycle through my list, I typically have 20-50 new tasks entered here = 20-50 new OneNote pages added to the New section. When I come to this section in my normal cycling through the list, I immediately create a new OneNote section, and give it a timestamp for a name (e.g., 0921-1624). I then move all the new tasks from New to 0921-1624. I then move the New section to the end of the list. And then I immediately start working through 0921-1624.

After my first pass through 0921-1624, I find that most of the tasks are moved to a project section; or completed immediately; or some small action is taken, and the task is moved to New again; or deleted. So, I am left with 10-20 tasks. That's well within the normal limits you'd find in standard AF1.

The key is: I never add anything new to this 0921-1624. It is a closed list. If I take any action on a task, it gets moved to New -- or to a project.

I'll try to do some screen shots - that might make it easier to understand.

Mark - Thanks, when I have the screenshots ready, I'll let you know.

Smileypete - Yes, I started handling projects this way 3 or 4 months ago. At that time I also used a "hot" page (or "hot" accordion folder) which represented the Column 2 of SuperFocus. But a little over 2 months ago, I switched to rules less like SuperFocus and more like Autofocus, with no "hot" folder, and it's been working a lot more smoothly, and running a lot faster.

Greenchutney - Yes, I do segregate home and work tasks. They are in two separate notebooks in OneNote, but all on the same laptop. They both use the same "unfiled notes" page to capture new inputs -- the exact dynamics of how that works are hard to explain in words -- I'll try to capture that in the screenshots that I owe to Mark.

Greenchutney -

I do these a little differently than Alan, but he's pretty close. :-)

The terms "notebook", "section", and "page" are all used below in the OneNote sense. These correspond to the AF terms "list", "page", and "task", respectively.

1. I disabled the function that asks where to make a new page. I send them all to Unfiled Notes, which is configured as a section called "NEW" in its own notebook, called "AF New". Then, in each of my actual AF notebooks (AF Work and AF Personal), I have another section called NEW. I treat these the same way I treat Project sections, except I never skip them. (Sometimes I do skip project sections if I don't want to work on that project right now.) The first page in these NEW sections is a link to Unfiled Notes.

All new tasks go to Unfiled Notes. All unfinished non-project tasks also go to Unfiled Notes.

I process it as follows. Let's say I am working on my AF Work list. As I cycle through the list, eventually I come to the "NEW" section. Generally the only item here is the section that has a link to Unfiled Notes. So, I click on that link and it opens up Unfiled Notes. There's usually a screenful or two of stuff there. I create a new section in my Work notebook, and give it a timestamp for its title (e.g., 0925-0856). And then I move all those new items to the 0925-0856 section. Then, I move the 0925-0856 section up from the end of the list to the position immediately following the "NEW" section. And then I move the "NEW" section down to the end of the list.

I then immediately start processing the tasks in the 0925-0856 section. Most of them will be work items, because I'm in "work mode". But some of them will be personal items. Usually I move those immediately to the NEW section in my Personal notebook, for processing when I'm on personal time. (Select the page(s), hit Ctrl-Alt-M, type "NEW", maybe one or two down-arrows if needed to select the correct NEW section, and enter -- very fast.)

Some of the new tasks may be project tasks. If they are simple I might take action on them. But I usually move them immediately to the appropriate project section.

After getting rid of those personal tasks and project tasks, my one or two screenfuls of tasks is usually whittled down to 10-20 random one-off tasks. Some of these might get immediate action. Others will sit there till the next cycling through the list. Just like with AF1.

When I come to Unfiled Notes, and it happens that Unfiled Notes has only a dozen items or so, then I don't bother copying it to a new dated AF section. I wait till it fills up some more. Thus, it continues to function as the "last page" in AF1. When it fills up, the section is "closed" and becomes a dated AF section.


2. When I complete a task, I usually just delete it. But sometimes the OneNote page has more info in it, and I want to keep it for future reference. In that case I move it to an "AF Done" notebook, which has weekly sections in it to hold those completed tasks. Sometimes I move it to one of my "Keep for Reference" notebooks, which are not organized around the AF principles at all -- just a big "filing cabinet" of reference topics. Or sometimes, if it's part of a project, I might have a page called KEEP FOR REFERENCE in that project section, and I'll make the completed task a sub-page of the KEEP FOR REFERENCE page.


3. When a task is actioned but unfinished, I move it to Unfiled Notes. If it's a project task, then it goes to the end of the project section. I'll try to show this in the screen shots.

I have a notebook called "AF Dismissed".

Whenever I dismiss a standard AF1 section, I simply move it to that notebook.

If I decide to dismiss a project section, I do the same.

Within a project, if there are individual tasks that I keep passing over, even though they could be actioned now, after awhile I dismiss them. But for these project tasks, I handle it differently. At the top of each project section, I have three pages:

KEEP FOR REFERENCE
DISMISSED
ACTION REQUIRED

When I dismiss a project task, I move its page to become a sub-page under DISMISSED.

I use KEEP FOR REFERENCE for informational pages that don't contain actions -- any reference material I want to keep. Also, if a task page is completed, and I want to keep a record of it for some reason, I usually move it here. All those pages are sub-pages under KEEP FOR REFERENCE.

I usually keep DISMISSED and KEEP FOR REFERENCE collapsed. Every now and then I'll open them and take a look - usually finding lots of things to just delete and be done with.

All new tasks show up under ACTION REQUIRED -- this is the area through which I cycle each time I process the project.

Hope that helps. :-)