Get Everything Done

Oliver Burkeman wrote today about how randomness can be a solution to some decision-making dilemmas. He links out to some interesting articles and tidbits. Reminded me very much of Mark's use of random numbers for task selection. In Burkeman's summary, the randomizing process can bypass the cognitive biases that mislead us.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/10/random-decisions-oliver-burkeman-this-column-change-your-life

Shades of "any decision is a good decision" -- in some cases! (There are folks on this board with more experience in probability theory who can weigh in, I'm sure.)

I've recently returned to the random method (mid September) after a brief month with pure SMEMA. Wow, what an amazing method (random)! it is absolutely incredible, and for me, after having tried all of Mark's systems, I can't see going back to anything else. I'm still in shock about how much I'm able to get done, and I attribute it to the random method. Three things worth noting: I do set the random list aside from time to time, if I have urgent deadlines. But this, to me, is an indication that I may actually have overcommitted, or I'm not spending enough time on the list. But I need to do what I need to do. The ideal, for me, is that if I keep working the list randomly, urgent deadlines disappear. And they generally do. Second, the random method completely eliminates procrastination and resistance. When I work the list randomly, there is no resistance. This list becomes a bit of a game, actually, and a fun one at that. Thirdly, I feel completely free, I don't feel burdened by the sheer volume of work that I'm able to accomplish, and I have lots of time for family and friends and when I'm with them, I'm really with them, not worried about all the stuff I have to do. And I would only add that so far in my life I have never been able to accomplish so much with so little mental or emotional drain. Something about this random method keeps me totally in the present moment, which has untold spiritual benefits as well. I don't know if the random method is for everybody, but my experience has taught me that the outcome that the random method is giving me now (living in the present moment, lack of resistance) is probably the outcome that any good method is trying to achieve. GTD borrowed the concept of "mind like water" to describe it. That's what I experience with the random method.

Hi Mark, my last totally crossed of page was 6 days ago. Last week I had two tasks that took up most of my time, which meant that once I hit them randomly I would stay with them, or, I dropped the list and just worked on those two tasks for a few hours (a French translation exam on Wednesday - needed it for my PhD, and I don't speak French - and I gave paper at an academic conference on Gilles Deleuze last night.). If I have a week where I'm swamped with appointments or committee time, the list gets long because I just can't get to it, meaning I don't have time to do the tasks on it. I'm also a full time pastor, I'm teaching part time at a university an hour away and I'm a elected trustee with our local school board. In last month, my oldest task was usually 2-3 days old only.

I don't use any method to restrict the number of tasks on my list and I don't pre-filter them, with one exception. The list is like a machine: If it gets on the list it gets done, but there are some things will cross my desk that I need to ask whether or not I really want to do it. Some tasks, once done, tend to create way more work than I can handle, and I have to be aware of that. Also, I have been leaving myself the option of crossing a task of that I don't want to do once I hit it randomly, and I have done that occasionally. I call it "the who's kidding who" test. "Who's kidding who? I'm not going to do this." I do miss the dismissal in AF1 and I've been thinking of a way of incorporating dismissal, but I don't think I can without losing the 'randomness" of it.

I also had the unique experience of being totally caught up - in other words, there were not tasks older than today. When that happened (twice, which was the most amazing feeling), I switched to SMEMA and just let loose. Or, on another occasion I just put the list aside and did whatever. Strictly speaking, I don't use any kind of SMEMA type work with the random list, but I have toyed with a rule about switching to SMEMA if I was caught up either by day or by page (i.e. if I have only one page not crossed out). The difficulty with SMEMA was "psychic drag" - I'm a hard worker, but there were always things on the back burner that were drawing my mental focus away from the task at hand. Random seems to take care of that because the list is as full as I can make it, with no restrictions.

Two more things - the key to the success of Random for me is "little and often," and the natural direction of the random list seems to be towards clearing a backlog and doing work as it comes in. Hope that helps, lots more can be said and I'd be happy to answer any more questions.

I've had some good experiences using randomized tasks lists, but I never seem to be able to stick with them for more than a week. At first I feel very energized by the way randomizing breaks down resistance, and also that I am getting started on a fair number of activities. I like the way it shakes up the typical structure of my day, and also the feeling that nothing on the list will slip through the cracks.

After about a week though I find that I simply have too many open projects on the go, which greatly dilutes the amount of time I can spend on each one. Using the little and often approach, I might spend 20 minutes on 30 different activities over the first week. Of those 30 items, a third of them really interest me and I look forward to working on them regularly. But because I am choosing tasks randomly, I may not get back to some of those activities for another week. Or they might be chosen today, but at an inappropriate time.

I find it best now to use randomized tasks to lever out of a rut and get a few irons in the fire, and then from there switch back to something like the original AutoFocus (still my favourite method).

Also, one thing I noticed about an AutoFocus list is that the uncrossed items could be seen as "random". Rather than dismissing the oldest page, I have sometime found it helpful to systematically work through every uncrossed item on the oldest page, which basically has you working on a random assortment of loose ends.