Get Everything Done

Hi Mark,

Don't know if you're aware, but your 5-Task technique is the subject of Oliver Burkeman's column in this Saturday's Guardian magazine.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/20/oliver-burkeman-time-to-ditch-to-do-list

Thanks for this column. I must admit after a few weeks of testing that I agree with his conclusion. Using the system was nice at the beginning. I stucked with my urgencies. But my life is not made of urgencies. My business life is made of lttle things that will little by little become big things or even crucial things. I also know that ma brain is like David Allen said much better for creating than remembering.

So little by little, naturaly I began to make a general list like a FV llist. Then I realised I needed a short list extracted from it that began list 1. So naturaly I re invented one of the most famous systems of MF ie AF4R !

AF4 was the best system I ever tried after AF1 but I really never gave a real try with AF4R

I encountered another difficulty. The list one ie my task for the week was really full and I had some tendancies to do little things instead of crucial things. I realized that making my daily and weekly control).

So I made it differently

I kept the AF4R as it is. But my priority is my procupation. So I came back a little to 5 task but making a daily list in the morning of my 3 tasks

So to resume
1. The first think I do in the morning is making a list of the 3 most important task I have in my head first. This is crucial. Instead I could not do anything. If my intuition is focus on that there is a reason. If anything else is coming it goes on AF4R

2. When it is finished, During the day I works, on AF4R

3 At night I complete the AF4R list and sleep on it

4. the next morning I come back to (1)

VERY VERY Important : AF4R (2 lists) includes only but things that are actionable on the week
- If it is for the next week it goes on a later list
- If it goes after it goes on a someday may be list
- If it is a project or something which needs a control it goes on my paper diary (agenda) which controls anything and plan stuff.

Hope that help

I Haven't used the 5-Task technique - but only because I'm having such a fantastic experience with FVP. It's far and away the best system I've used.

The column I linked above is interesting, but one thing about it that annoys me slightly is that it possibly gives the impression that the 5-Task technique is Mark's definitive/flagship model and/or the only method he uses.

"The column I linked above is interesting, but one thing about it that annoys me slightly is that it possibly gives the impression that the 5-Task technique is Mark's definitive/flagship model and/or the only method he uses"

I agree. But in the book itself I did not see anything about MF systems. What he says is all his explaination about questionning which is for me a simplified system, but as efficient too, of the GTD system.

I am curious but I still wonder how he treats in real life his support systems. Does he uses lists ? or does he stay on the questionning + the 5 tasks. It a a real mystery for me. I fact I miss the bridge upon the 5 asks system.

"questionning which is for me a simplified system, but as efficient too, of the GTD system" of course relative to projects

Mark has said elsewhere that he invented FVP after he submitted the final manuscript of the book for publication. So his most current published system is FVP. And who knows, maybe he'll find a way to make FVP even simpler and more effective! :-)