Get Everything Done

Hi Alan, sounds interesting. When it comes to personal rules, and specifically about getting things done (I don't mean GTD), I have distilled the way I approach it down to a few very simple truths which have emerged over the years from using various systems to get things done. They have also come from having to manage rapidly changing situations alongside complex technical projects at work (in the PM sense). These have allowed me to become very productive without stress and without any systems or rules. The truths are:

1. All the things that I have to do, or want to do, represent a commitment to myself or someone else. Each commitment will fall somewhere on a spectrum of cost, reward, burden, importance, significance and so on. There's no need to over-analyse these; we all have a good intuitive sense of how much 'gravity' a commitment carries at a given point in time.

2. If something I have to do is causing me stress (or, if you prefer, a sense of resistance) then as it stands it's either too hazy, so I don't really know how to get going or where I'm going with it, or else it's too big, in which case there's a sense that a first step is going to make no difference at all so why start. When you think about it both of these are actually the same issue. In this case the first thing I must do is clear up that haze. Clarify what exactly needs doing in plain language, or do a small piece that moves me along.

3. The one and only single way that anything will get done is when I start doing it and keep doing it until it's finished and I've experienced all the costs, rewards, etc in point 1. What I call "rolling up your sleeves". This is possibly the simplest yet most avoided truth. Why is it avoided, why do people not get stuck in? Because of point 2. What if I don't do it? Then I'm breaking the commitment. Does that matter? Possibly, possibly not, depends on that gravity metric. If I'm feeling some stress at the idea of not doing it then there's the answer right there. It needs doing, it matters to me in some way. If I'm also feeling stress at the idea of doing it then I'm back at point 2.

Over years I distilled the various rules and algorithm-based approaches I was using down into those three emergent truths. The thing about them being truths is that they don't care whether or not I like them. I might resent them, it doesn't matter. They are simply true and I must accept them. I have accepted them and in return they help me to get everything that matters done.

Using your example of improving sleep habits as if it was something I wanted to do I'll break it down by the truths to illustrate.

1. This is a commitent to myself. I want to feel alert during the day, I want to avoid the various health issues associated with not getting enough sleep. I want to get into a routine and not lie in wasting the day. I want to experience more dreams, associated with a good 9 hours of sleep each night. I want to be feel awake when my kids get up early. I want to experience the benefits of better regulated hunger hormones to improve my diet, which also comes with a good night's sleep. In terms of a commitment I feel this is really important to me, it matters to me that I do it. I'll feel great once I'm into the routine but the first week might be difficult because I've got to break old habits, and I probably won't feel tired early, at least for the first few nights.

2. Does this feel clear to me? Yes I'd say so, I know what I'm doing and why, I know that I'll be feeling a difference almost immediately, and I can easily say that in two weeks time I can review how it's going and see what progress I've made, so I'm happy this is well defined, I can see an end point and it's not hazy.

3. The only way I will make this happen is by starting it and keeping on doing it until it's done. I know I'll do two weeks because I can look at that and see how I did and how I feel. It's Sunday today so it would be good to start tonight ready for work, and I can see how I feel compared to how I normally feel. I'll get a few things ready during the day so I can get to bed at 8.30pm tonight and have a bit of a catchup to kickstart it.

I wouldn't go though all that dialogue in my head normally, it was all for illustrative purposes to show how the distillation of rules into those immutable truths brings clarity to the process.

In this example if I fail to go to bed early and then feel anxious about definitely wanting to do it the next night, and maybe the same thing happens again, then it possibly exposes a sense of open-endedness to it again. I've said two weeks so that shouldn't be causing stress but perhaps I'm aware of an event which might disrupt it. Okay let's do every weeknight this week and assess it on Saturday morning.

It's unlikely that I'll skip it and not be bothered, since that means the commitment carries no real gravity, but I already knew that it did when I looked at how much it meant to me. In my experience failing to get something done that you want to get done indicates that it's not really clear what you're doing or else the work is so open-ended that there's no sense of being able to make any progress from a standing start. If a commitment does indeed have no gravity then bin it and forget it.

This approach works for anything, from life-changing goals you want to do, to chores you have to do.

The rules "go to bed every night at the same time" and "no electronics in the bedroom" are fine but I'd ask myself "what if I did have electronics in the bedroom, or what if I went to bed at different times, does that matter?" The answer for me would be "no, it doesn't matter as long as I'm still delivering on my commitment because the commitment matters". So the electronics and the time are just catalysts and not important in themselves, once I realise that I can have electronics in the bedroom if I want as long as I know it doesn't break the underlying commitment.

I draw attention to that because it reminds me of the way people approach diets. They think "right, I need to lose weight, so from now on I'll have yoghurt for lunch and just have a salad in the evening". That's a rules based approach but it will almost certainly fail because it's just raw rules that seem to make sense but with no appreciation of the commitment to the self. Following the approach I've detailed allows them to see that it's actually losing weight and feeling fitter that really matters, say, but that it's too vague and open-ended in time. From there it can be defined properly and some tangible checkpoints put in place, and then it can be commenced and followed through each one, all the time delivering more and more on that personal commitment.

In summary my view is by all means rules if needed as long as they follow meaningfully from a well-defined commitment that matters to you and that remains the core driver so you continue to work on it until it's delivered. Never start by defining rules to get something done because you've put the cart before the horse.

Regards,
Chris

Hi Mark. thanks.

> If I can summarize your three points they are:
> 1. Make clear commitments.
> 2. If a commitment is causing stress you haven't thought it through enough.
> 3. Do it or dump it.

That's not right at all, I'm not detailing a prescriptive system for getting tasks done, I'm describing some truths about the things we have or want to do. Take another look at the three points in the my first post.

1. The things on your list *represent* commitments whether those commitments are clear or not.

2. No, not if a commitment is causing you stress, if something you have to do (a task) is causing you stress.

3. Do the task if the commitment and its 'gravity' requires it, or else accept that you're breaking the commitment. Don't keep crossing it out and rewriting it week after week, either cross it out forever or else be clear about what it represents and do it with that in mind. Don't keep cheating yourself and others on your commitments.

I'm responding to Alan's request to hear other people's views on rules to say that I find rules are often used to try and directly influence behaviour, leading to disappointment and a fruitless search for better rules or a new system. The three truths that I mentioned are not my opinion, they're simply true. They can be used as part of an approach to assess everything you've got going on in your life, and I've used Alan's example to illustrate. That insight alone tends to highlight what needs doing next and what can be binned, and provides an impetus to do it.

> It would be a real help if you could give some guidance on how you make the decision about what to roll up your sleeves and do at any given time.

Whatever works for you, eg FVP, a shopping list, top 3 things each day. I tend to work from what needs doing and a simple text file reminder which I've covered previously.

Regards,
Chris

Point (truth, rule) #2 is a very important one, and its significance became clear to me when I started doing AF1. I wrote down a task that seemed quite simple, but I couldn't get around to it. I rewrote it as "get started on that simple task," but that wasn't any better. Eventually I realized that I didn't know how to get started, because I had only a vague notion of what was required.

So then I rewrote the task as "find out how to do to simple task." It still didn't happen. Why? Because I needed a password to log into the website, and I couldn't remember the password!

Working backwards through that chain of thought, I was able to split it into steps. "Get rebate" became "1. Find password; 2. Log into website for instructions; 3. Find the necessary documents; 4. Complete the form; 5. Submit the form and documents."

Thus, a "simple task," expressed as a single step, that I had put off for weeks was completed in less than an hour once I had given it some realistic thought. It would be exhausting to go into such detail for every task I do, but it was necessary here because it pinpointed where I was getting stuck.

I can see how the same is true for coming up with rules. The sleeping example and the dieting example both illustrate where I've gone wrong many times: I try to establish simple rules to make compliance easier, but those rules often miss the mark. They turn out to be overly broad, too trivial, needlessly arbitrary, or ineffective in actual practice because I never identified the real challenges in the first place. For example, a diet book will help you only if the assumptions it makes about your dietary problems are correct.

And this goes right back to the "rules" question and how it relates to truth. In the dieting example, one of the standard rules is to avoid sweets and refined starches. That sounds like a simple, sensible thing. But the TRUTH is that avoiding sweets and starches won't help much if I normally don't go for them anyway. And, like many people, I tend to crave things if I feel that I'm being "deprived" of them.

So if I need to feel free to eat everything, then a more realistic, truth-based, simple rule is "have a little less of everything." Or don't eat as often, or don't eat after 9 pm, or who knows what. I'd have to try it. But I know for sure that a list, however brief, of forbidden foods will not work. That's not the kind of rule that I need.

Fortunately, I don't diet. But I have other goals, problems, and challenges that would benefit from a thoughtful and candid evaluation to identify the kinds of rules I really need. It is easy enough to find advice on practically everything, but it's all a shot in the dark if I can't find the root cause of my resistance.

Avrum: "For you, or for everyone?"

These are my own thoughts, as I have applied them to me, in response to "I'd like to hear other thoughts on rules".

Regards,
Chris

Chris,

Thank you for your detailed post. I think there is a lot of merit to your principles and I will continue to think on them. Contrary to Seraphim's claim, I think this discussion is quite pertinent to the book. The authors agree with Chris that rules need to be founded in meeting your objectives, and it could very well be that my two rules are not ideal for my purpose of improving my energy levels at work. I mean, obviously following these would help, but perhaps they are too strict or hard to follow. (In which case I think your #2 and #3 would be very helpful in assessing the problem. Also Seraphim's link on procrastination fits here.)

As Seraphim said, the point is to develop useful habits that help me follow through on my commitments.

Mark: I understand about consistent waking times being more important, but I found e.g. Waking every day at 7am is not great if some nights I'm settling into sleep at 2am. As a separate point, i get the strong impression that your attempts at reframing Chris's 3 truths seem very strongly cast in your way of thinking and rather miss the mark on what Chris is trying to say. Not that i totally grasp it myself; it just doesn't sound to me like it matches up.

Hi Alan, thanks. I called them truths because I slowly noticed that they were always there underneath every productivity system I ever used that I had any degree of success with, but they were not so clear to me and I had to work to distill them over time. I came to see that all of the systems I had been using were like a layer over the top of these truths, some of them pushing in the right direction, others pushing the wrong way. For example I found that a focus on doing tasks and crossing them off missed (or rather glanced off at an angle) #1, and the Someday/Maybe list in GTD totally missed #3. I found that trying to use a system-based approach to dispel task resistance missed #2.

Like I say it took me a long time to really see this and distill the three truths out of these various experiences, using these systems but with something gnawing away at me, always feeling something was not quite right but I couldn't pin it down. I call them three points too because truths can sound a bit pretentious even though they are objectively true.

I used to try and effect change in myself by defining rules to change behaviour, such as "read 4 chapters today" or "walk 100,000 steps this week" and then measure myself against those rules. Sometimes it worked, other times it didn't and I'd often proclaim that I'd "fallen off the wagon" and hunt for a new system that really worked this time.

Now the approach I take to effect change is to still follow the old process and think of some rules but then apply the three points to these rules. This quickly yields the underlying change that I want to get from these rules, the actual wording of the commitment to either myself or someone else (#1). It lets me see straight away why a particular task or thinking about a particular rule is causing a feeling of resistance, in that the task may seem futile in the face of the commitment or else I don't really grasp what I want from a particular rule (#2).

The fact that the one and only single way they will get done is when I do them (#3) allows me to see the futility of postponing them to some later date or 'gaming' them so I can technically cross them off without really doing what I know I should have done. Doing that means I am simply cheating myself or someone else, and having now defined the commitment I can now see the significance of that (which may range from 'very' to 'not at all').

Finally I scrap the rules I thought of and work on the commitment from that point on. So for example "walk 100,000 steps this week" will become a commitment to feel fitter by Christmas and result in me increasing my walking as much as possible, looking up some long distance walking events I might enter, joining the local badminton group and anything else that occurs to me between now and Christmas which moves me towards meeting the commitment.

I no longer have to define a rule to say I'll walk 100,000 steps, nor enter tasks into a system for "look up long distance walking events" and "join local badminton group", nor do I have to create a project for "get fitter" and add more things to it. I already know what I want to do and I also know that if I don't do it then I'm just cheating myself. Note that this may be okay too, but that depends on what that commitment means to me; it can be illuminating to reassess some assumed commitments to yourself and others in this way.

I think of it like a game in my mind, thinking of new ways to meet the commitments and making progress on existing ways as advancing through the levels towards the defined result, and interspersing with unrelated jobs and tasks as filler. I find it a very enjoyable way to get the stuff that matters done with no resistance and no productivity system administration, just a short list of some filler tasks and any reminders for the day.

I suspect that applying simple rules as detailed in the book at this stage would provide a powerful tool for cutting through any obstacles and helping to move laser-like towards meeting ones commitments. The reviews look great, I'll look for an ebook version at the weekend and failing that buy the tree version (can't beat new book smell anyway). I also bought "A Factory of One" a while back which I think Seraphim first mentioned; that's a really good book.

Regards,
Chris

Thanks for this interesting subject! I believe in simple rules very much. That often means: routine, regularity, the same order etc. When I speak about it with my clients (I am psychologist), they often object: But is not life boring with such sameness? And I say: Try it (and of course find your level of appropriateness), but what you will find is, that only at the time you have enough structure (simple rules, routines) for doing mundane staff in your life, you will find new space to pay attention to what is really important/interesting in your life and work and what you normally postpone indefinitely.

I would like to stress one important point: the need for individualisation. Rules should be based on our EXPERIENCE with what works for us. It is not useful to decide for particular simple rules for oneself just because other people do so, or it helps my friend, or we read about interesting ideas. We must first try them and decide for them only if they really works for our individual personality/conditions. Or - even better - we should look back at what worked for us, what conditions helped us with the problem in our history...and try to make them our individual simple rules.