Get Everything Done

I've heard of DWM in passing throughout this website. What would you say makes it better over the other methods Mark offers?

You can actually use http://www.futureme.org (or several other sites... that's just the first to come up in a search) to email yourself in the future. That is assuming you don't change your email address in the meantime, and the site is still operations, etc.

[Link edited so it's live - MF]

<<Which suggests that the "month" part of DWM may be redundant, and it would work perfectly well (for me anyway) with only the 7-day dismissal. But I guess the 30-day dismissal does act as a sort of mental safety net.>>

Avrum actually suggested this very thing on a recent thread. And, of course, it is very similar to your 1-2-7 experiments. I still have a feeling that a variation of 1-2-7 could be worked out that would avoid the problems you encountered, but I haven't figured out what the solution might be yet.

Here's that thread: http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2329537

A 30 day dismissal might work best for me as I have a lot of 'waiting for items' (the waiting for items can be listed as new tasks) that can be dealt with on a dwm list instead of putting them into a calendar or outlook tasks.

<<@Mark Forster and @Don R: I think the futureme.org posts are for the "Time capsules" thread, right? :D>>

Correct! (That explains why I didn't see it there.) I guess I should repost it there.

When I used DWM 2 (I'm currently experimenting with Spinning Plates), I found that 7 and 30 day cycles resulted in too slow a pace for me. I found that I would start too many things, such that I would continually have to automatically dismiss unfinished tasks at the 7 day mark, and my list grew to unmanagable lengths. Deciding I needed something more focused, I shortened the cycles to 3 and 15 days. I simply dismissed unfinished things after 3 days, and unstarted things after 15. (A-C / 1-15 ~ A1, B2, C3, A4, etc)

By "Dismissed" I mean I would decide whether to "Kill it" (deleted for good), "Suspend it" (as in "Suspended Animation," on a Maybe/Someday List, or the Calendar), or "Reincarnate it" (re-enter it on the list, either broken down into component tasks, or re-written with a different scope). I would consider those three options for each task upon dismissal, in that order of preference. More often than not, I would in fact, grant my dismissed tasks a merciful death.

This focused my efforts considerably. I found that a 3 day turn-around time for unfinished tasks put pressure on finishing in a more timely manner because I could not let my unfinished tasks coast for long. It kept me from over-comitting because I could easily see how full my plate was by the number of unfinished tasks within the last 3 days. Additionally, each task I began felt like more of a COMMITMENT, because I knew I would hold myself to keeping at it with a certain pace until it was finished.

As the months went by, I graduated, and I had a summer off. The pace of summer - sans college, was much slower and I found the 3 / 15 day pace too unrelenting. So I switched to a 5/15 day cycle, then a 7/15 day cycle, and felt comfortable with that... Then I moved to a new, more demanding position at my job, and I kept a 3/15 pace at work, and a 7/15 pace at home...

All in all, I don't suppose I could rightly continue calling it "DWM" when it was more like "Day / 3 Day / 2 Week." But I found that adjusting the cycle times for the pace of my life at the time made this system much more useful to me than straight Day, Week, Month.

What does it mean (A-C / 1-15 ~ A1, B2, C3, A4, etc)?

All this discussion on DWM2 is bringing back memories. And I hadn’t considered (until nuntym mentioned it above) that you could use Mark’s other systems with DWM2.

So, I think I’ll give the following amalgam a shot:

1) Create your list in a manner similar to DWM2 – Separate it into blocks, one day each, and give each block a sequential letter that repeats (I choose A-D, this means the days will be lettered ABCDABCDABCD etc.)

2) Process the list using FV: Dot the oldest open task as the root; Ask “What do I want to do before X?” to create the preselect list; Work the preselect list in reverse order; Cross off each task when you finish working, and re-enter the routine and unfinished tasks

3) Each day, dismiss all open tasks on the most recent day with the same letter, by making some kind of dismissal mark. I think I will draw a vertical line straight down, just to the left of each task so that it is clear from looking at the task that it is dismissed. However you mark it, you must leave enough room in the margin to dot the dismissed tasks as you would normally dot them. (eg: undismissed task = “___Task”, dismissed task = “__| Task”, note in both cases, there is room to the left to dot the Task)

4) Consider all dismissed tasks to still be “open.” As such, you may dot dismissed tasks as the root task, and you may dot them as part of the preselection process – just as you would dot any other task. You work them off the preselection list just like you would any other task. The difference? Dismissed tasks have only one action that can possibly be done on them: Review. I described Review in an earlier comment, but I will reiterate it here for convenience, and because I added an option.

5) Review entails thinking about the task, its nature, its value, its feasibility and urgency etc., and then DECIDING to do one of the following (in this order of preference):
- a. Kill it – delete it from the list and don’t re-enter it anywhere
- b. Suspend it – delete it from this list and add it to another reminder system (calendar, tickler file, maybe/someday list etc) so that you may revisit it in the future
- c. Reincarnate it – re-enter it on this list, but re-written somehow (broken down into several component tasks, rolled-up with other tasks to form a larger objective, or just re-written to specify or widen the scope of the task)
- d. Reanimate it – re-enter it on this list, exactly as is – this should be an absolute last resort. I chose the word “reanimate” because it conjures the image of a zombie. A corpse of a task that grows more rotten with age and keeps coming back despite your efforts to dispatch it. Like zombies, one or two are manageable, but in throngs they can drag your living tasks down with them.

6) Review may be done on any task, at any time, whether part of a preselection or not. But on dismissed tasks, it is the only action that can be taken.

7) I consider all tasks after the dismissal line to be in “limbo” or “purgatory”, and those tasks which have not yet crossed over to be “alive.” The goal is to keep your roots alive. If you find yourself dotting dismissed tasks as your root tasks, then you have more work than you can rightly keep up with. You can catch up using the method in DIT: ("You fall behind because you either have too much work, you’re not working efficiently enough, or you’re not leaving enough time to work – examine your situation and take appropriate corrective action")

8) If limbo grows too much, you can clean it up by creating your preselection lists by asking “what do I want to REVIEW before X?” instead of the normal question. This will result in preselected lists consisting entirely of tasks to Review. However, you would not want to keep doing this. The goal is to keep limbo from growing in the first place, by working at a pace that keeps your commitments current – not to compensate for its growth by cleaning up periodically.

On paper, it looks like this method will have all the benefits of FV, with the added benefits of keeping the list pruned to a manageable size similar to DWM2, and the "pacing" mechanism that monitors the amount of work you have in the system like DIT.

I’ll give it a try…