Get Everything Done

Some folks here and at timemanagement.freeforums.net were looking for SMEMA instructions and background info. As the locked blog entry on this site is quite terse and has no Q&A or other commentary, the following is the text of Mark's original blog posting from 21 Feb 2013, including a 3-item "FAQ" of sorts:

The Simplest and Most Effective Method of All?
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2013 AT 23:41

The older I get the more I think that I actually know what I should be doing all along, and all the time management systems and prioritising, visioning, and so forth are just ways of avoiding doing the things I know in my heart I should be getting on with.

I know that I know what I should be doing, because if I keep avoiding doing what I should be doing I start to get more and more stressed. The stress comes from my awareness that I should have done it, plus fear of the consequences of not doing it.

So when I construct a enormous list of 150 tasks which “need” doing, I’m becoming increasingly aware that the 150 tasks are there in order to bury four or five things that I really don’t want to do.

And when I spend several hours writing a vision and then an action plan and then a list of monthly,weekly and daily targets, what I am really doing is avoiding doing one particular task which I could have done during the time I spent writing all that stuff.

So can I cut back all the listing and planning so I can access directly what I really need to be doing right now this minute?

I think the answer is “yes”, and I’m now going to try to describe how.

There are three main things we need in order to do the right thing at the right time:

1) identification of what the right thing is

2) a decision to do it

3) a certain amount of distance from the task so we can look at it objectively.

How can we achieve this?

We can achieve the first by NOT having any lists. I know that is going to throw some people into a panic, but think about it. If we are actively engaged in our work, the things which really matter are going to be on our minds anyway. I don’t need a reminder that I need to get the report done for the committee because I’ve spent all week worrying about the fact that the deadline is getting closer and closer and I haven’t done anything about it yet. What I really need is a reminder not to do anything else!

Nevertheless making a decision to do something that I’m resisting is not easy - that’s why I’ve been putting it off in the first place. It can’t just be a matter of deciding to do the report right now because that’s exactly what I’ve been doing anything to avoid doing.

This is where putting a certain amount of distance between the decision and the action comes in. To decide now to do a certain difficult task now is hard - sometimes it feels almost impossible. But to decide now to do the task after I’ve read a few blogs and checked my email is much easier. What’s more it works if all I allow myself to do is read the blogs purposefully and check my email before I do the task. What tends to happen though is that I don’t make a proper decision to do it but instead read blogs aimlessly, check my email, check Facebook, follow links, sharpen my pencils, and before I know it it’s time for lunch. So how can I provide the distance necessary to make the decision, while at the same time ensuring that decision is close enough to the task for it actually to get done?

Simple!

1. Write down the next three things you intend to do in the order you intend to do them.

2. Do the first two, and then add another two tasks at the end.

3. Continue this way, doing two tasks and then adding another two to make it back up to three tasks, ad infinitum.

That’s it!

Those of you who have read deeply in this website may recognise that this resembles very closely a previous suggestion of mine called the Three Tasks Method (3T). In fact the only difference is that in 3T you had to keep rotating round the tasks until two of the three tasks had been completely finished. But with this new method you do not rotate the tasks, but simply cross each task off once you have worked on it, whether it’s finished or not.

So why does the Simplest and Most Effective Method of All work?

!) You are not allowed to use lists, so you have to think carefully each time you add the two new tasks. The things which are most on your mind are the things which you are naturally going to want to add.

2) Having three tasks gives the necessary distance. Every time you add more tasks you have one of the old tasks left to do before you do the first of the new ones.

Some questions:

Q. Why three tasks? Wouldn’t it achieve distance even more effectively if you had four or more tasks?

A. If I start adding more than three tasks, I am losing the impulse which comes from making the decision to add a particular task. Three tasks gives just the right balance between impulse and distance. Another important factor is that the more I go past three tasks the more likely to I am to find that the sequence gets put off by emergencies, interruptions, changes of context, etc. It’s important that once the sequence is decided it actually gets done.

Q. Why replenish two tasks at a time? Why is that better than doing all three tasks and then adding three new ones?

A. If I do all three tasks in one go, then the first of the new tasks has no distance. That means that it will probably be an easy “filler”. Once I’ve decided on one easy filler then it’s likely that I’ll go on chosing easy tasks. It’s important that all the tasks I choose have distance at the time of choosing. It means I am more likely to choose a task because it is right rather than because it is easy.

Q. In that case why not add one task at a time - every time you do one task add another?

A. My experience is that there is a lot of difference between choosing one task and choosing two. I don’t quite know why, but I seem to make more considered choices when I have to choose two. Maybe it’s to do with the amount of time before I get to make another choice. And there’s also a purely practical point - I found I kept forgetting to chose a new task. That never seemed to be a problem when I had to wait to choose two.

Braduro or James:

You asked: "What do you do with tasks that go uncompleted given your allocated time to work on them?"

I think Mark answered this in the instructions I re-posted above. The idea is to have an open list that has only the next two or three tasks that you will take some action on, in the order just listed. There is no compulsion to complete a task or re-enter it anywhere. Just trust yourself that if some uncompleted task needs attention, you will enter it again when you are down to only one item on the list.

In practice, I think about context a lot when doing SMEMA. For example, if I know I've got a meeting in an hour, I'll add two short tasks that will be easy to make some progress on in less than an hour (in addition to the one remaining task). Or I might just add "Attend meeting" as one of the two new items, so it fits in the flow of time that is available.

I hope this answers your question.