Get Everything Done

I have been using a "layered" version of SMEMA, designed to keep a given project in focus with smaller tasks slipped in between sessions:

1. Pick a project to focus on. Your first three SMEMA items will be (project), (small task), (project). Write the project's next action on the first line, but on the third line, simply write the project and leave room to append a next action later.

2. Start your list, working on that project for one brief little-and-often session (just be sure to finish *something* concrete). As you finish the session, think about the next action, and write it on that third line showing the project's next session coming up. Now cross out the first project session that you just completed, and do that small second task and cross it out.

3. Now you have one item left (back to your focus project), so it is time to pick two new items. The next item will be another little task, followed by another project session (of that same focus project). Again, you will write the project name but not specify a next action yet.

4. Keep repeating this until you are done focusing on that project for now. Let's assume the project is not finished, but you need to switch away from it for a while, hoping to come back to it later.

Here comes the layered part!

5. Start another SMEMA, thinking of it as a higher-level SMEMA, or a layer above the main SMEMA. This SMEMA will keep track of what you are focusing on now. Meaning, what project is "that project" to which you will keep alternating on your main SMEMA. We'll call this the Higher SMEMA.

6. On your Higher SMEMA, write the next three projects, topics, themes, etc. on which you intend to focus next. The second or third should be the project you were just focusing on, so that it will come back into focus soon. Sometimes you will write several projects, other times you will write "monthly statements" or "housekeeping" or whatever concept is on your mind. These are not actions. They are "stakes in the ground" that you do not want to wander away from as you flit about on the main SMEMA. You will work the Higher SMEMA just the same as any SMEMA, except that "working on" an item means not that you are necessarily working on it right now, but that it is getting alternating attention on the main SMEMA. When it moves off the main SMEMA, you cross it out on the Higher SMEMA, as it is "done for now" on the Higher SMEMA. When you have only one project left on Higher SMEMA, you write two more.

7. Keep working the main SMEMA by alternating between brief sessions of the Higher SMEMA's current item, vs. whatever in-between tasks come to mind. The in-between must be of a smaller scope than the focus project; the idea is to work on one thing at a time without "gridlocking" life's little necessities.

8. What if the Higher SMEMA gets away from you? Too many projects started (more than three), driving you crazy trying to attend to them all? Start yet another SMEMA, "Even Higher SMEMA" ... etc. Note that higher levels of SMEMA will add an ever-expanding fractal structure, not simply a longer buffer of project names. They are the projects that you are focusing on focusing on, or the projects that will be getting another turn at being the focus. More or less, the higher SMEMAs correspond to longer time scales of focus, similar to the old "three goals for the year, three goals for the month ..." method, but for me it works so much better to keep explicit time scales out of it. In principle, you can have as many SMEMA levels as you need. Trying to imagine the meaning of a fourth level, "focusing on focusing on focusing," is like trying to imagine the fifth dimension! Yet you can easily run that many levels. Just know that each level's top item is being "worked on," meaning that it is getting alternating attention on the next-lower SMEMA, until you cascade all the way to the bottom where actual tasks are done. Each level, in between these alternating focus items, can interleave whatever it wants to—whatever you need to attend to at that level of focus—yet you wil not lose your place. For the longer time scales, we need to let ourselves change priorities as needed. I don't think we need to lock ourselves into an exact sequence of three focusing-on-focusing-on-focusing-on-focusing-on-focusing items! Rather, we just don't want to wander away, by accident, from what we were doing or planning.

So far, I have only used two levels, so the rest is nothing but grand theory in the sky for now. My focus so far has been dominated by my tax return and just one other main project, so the system has really not been pushed much. But so far it has completely relieved me of the "gridlock" that I normally experience, with even just one urgent/resisted project, in which I normally fixate on the Big Project while the rest of life falls apart, or vice versa. Why, today I fearlessly took the family out to brunch (Spring Break), returned home and finished the tax return without killing off my houseplant! That is huge for me.

Note that a big project can start out at the lowest level as an in-between task, and if it requires many repeat sessions, it can be "escalated" to higher levels of focus when you are forced to put it away "for now." I.e., your focus levels can arise organically as you work. I'll also point out that SMEMA automatically leaves a nice trail of recent items, so there may be no need to start that next level, if you can glance up the page to resume something you did recently. I would only start the next higher level if there were a feeling of projects getting away from me at the current level.

Now (more theory), I am reminded of SuperFocus. Suppose one kept an AF-style notebook full of task ideas, and used "Column Two" for the main SMEMA. Every new pair of SMEMA tasks contains the focus project and either one task from the current AF page or an urgency. Flip the page after working on at least one AF task from that page. This keeps our SMEMA abreast of all our inputs, rotating our attention through the book a la SuperFocus. Higher-level SMEMAs are kept in a separate notebook and consulted whenever the focus changes on the main SMEMA—you don't need to see the higher levels at all until the main SMEMA changes focus.

Right, I know SMEMA was designed to get us away from these long lists, but that part of it didn't work out so well for me; I wandered away from all the important stuff. However, the "write three things" part created a marvelous sense of flow, so I am eager to work with this layered SMEMA for a while.

Good luck, Philip!
Report back on your experience, especially if you break past that second level.

Seraphim,
I don't know much about Scrum, but my hope with layered SMEMA is definitely to let projects automatically activate and deactivate and reactivate, but with plenty of empty slots (50% of them!) for flow at every level of planning.

I've been having more thoughts about a SuperFocus-like merge of SMEMA in Column Two with an AF-type list in Column One. Dismissal could get interesting if there were an "escalation" for future projects, into a queue bound for a higher-level SMEMA. I hope to try out something along those lines soon.

Seraphim's link to the iDoneThis ebook took me (eventually) to this comment on multitasking in layers, by pairing high-level and low-level tasks:

To Multitask Effectively, Layer Your Tasks
http://99u.com/workbook/24297/to-multitask-effectively-layer-your-tasks

It's a summary of another site's longer article, with a click-through provided. Layered SMEMA fits the bill nicely!

Reading the iDoneThis ebook from Seraphim's thread ( http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2324914 ), it occurred to me that SMEMA builds a "Done List" automatically, without the cited drawbacks of long to-do lists. I didn't end up wanting to use iDoneThis, but the neurobiology was interesting and strengthened my resolve to explore micro-win techniques such as SMEMA.