Get Everything Done

People experimenting with time management techniques means it is time for me to do my own!

Reverse FVP was a bust for me because of how clunky it was with urgent tasks, and it felt too complicated. It showed me, however, how great of an idea it was to have one or more "current initiatives" to keep my focus on the important stuff throughout the day.

So, I thought, why not simplify Reverse FVP by removing all preselection except for the current initiative? Of course, by doing that, the new system becomes a lot like AF2, which is why, after refining the rules, I call it CIAF2.

1. Select a "current initiative" from anywhere in the list, cross it out, and re-enter it at the end of the list with a special mark like an asterisk or a cross.
2. Scan from the end of your list going up, looking for a task that "stands out". This can include the "current initiative". Mark it with a dot.
3. If the task that "stood out" was not the current initiative, do it in whole or in part, then cross it out. Re-enter the task at the end of the list if necessary. Go back to step 2.
4. If the current initiative was the task that "stood out", and you have done some work on it but not finished for the day, cross it out and rewrite it with the special mark at the end of the list, then again go back to step 2.
5. Once the "current initiative" is done for the day, cross it out and, if needed, re-enter at the end of the list without the special mark. Go back to step 1.

Since it would give the user a context for selecting a task, I predict that the current initiative will overcome the major weakness of AF2, which is the phenomenon of "playing catch-up": as the list becomes longer, it becomes harder to choose a task as you may have to scan many pages before a task could be selected. Meanwhile, AF2's strengths in urgent tasks and in encouraging "little and often" (arguably the strongest among Mark Forster's systems) will be kept intact.

Anyways I will report on CIAF2 for the coming days in this thread, and of course anybody who wants to try this is welcome to do so.

Reporting on my 3rd day of use of CIAF2:

Wow, I didn't realize how much I missed "standing out"! Since there is minimal preselection before picking a task, I am finding this system to be more nimble than even vanilla FVP. And compared to both FVP and rFVP I seem to feel more free in picking tasks.

At the same time, I sense that I am also more focused as I choose tasks that are in context with the current initiative.

Another report:

Traditionally, lists are used to relieve distractions: if you are being distracted by thoughts of other tasks to do later, just write them in a list and get back to them later. Because of how the other AF's were, this way of relieving distraction was not so good since it will take some time before you can get back to them. Not so with CIAF (and maybe AF2 back in the days) because you always start from the end of the list. I am getting confident of how CIAF is reminding me of ideas I thought of just minutes ago, and thus has been very good in relieving distractions.

Oh, and by the way: I found a way to use CIAF2 to break down a current initiative into smaller steps and then do these steps into however order you want to do them, irrespective of the order you wrote them in the list, WITHOUT losing the focus of the current initiative. I will show how I do this with examples; the plus symbol + will be used as the special current initiative symbol, and the bullet • will be used to mark the task being done.

Let us say we have a list of five tasks:

Task A
Task B
Task C
Task D
Task E

And I want to use Task C as my current initiative, so the list becomes

Task A
Task B
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task D
Task E
+Task C

I wanted though to break down Task C into smaller tasks. Therefore, Task C "stands out", I dot it as my present task, and wrote down the subtasks of Task C, like so:

Task A
Task B
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task D
Task E
•+Task C
Task C1
Task C2
Task C3
Task C4
Task C5
Task C6

But since I did Task C I cross it out and re-write it at the end of the list like so:

Task A
Task B
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task D
Task E
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task C1
Task C2
Task C3
Task C4
Task C5
Task C6
+Task C

So let us say I added a few more tasks and worked on tasks other than Task C and its subtasks:

•Task A
Task B
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task D
Task E
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task C1
Task C2
Task C3
Task C4
Task C5
Task C6
+Task C
Task F
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task H
Task I
Task G

After doing Task A I scanned again the list, and Task C3 "stood out". However, since I know Task C3 is a subtask of the current initiative Task C, I crossed out Task C3 and rewrote a short description of it right beside Task C, then dotted it.

-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task B
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task D
Task E
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task C1
Task C2
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task C4
Task C5
Task C6
•+Task C: C3
Task F
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task H
Task I
Task G

I then do Task C3, then once done I crossed out Task C and re-wrote it in the end of the list with the special current initiative symbol beside it.

-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task B
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task D
Task E
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task C1
Task C2
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task C4
Task C5
Task C6
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task F
-c-r-o-s-s-o-u-t-
Task H
Task I
Task G
+Task C

So yeah I love how CIAF2 is evolving in front of me.

Hi Caibre65! Yes the current initiative is there to "draw your attention to it and make it more likely to stand out" as you put it. You do not have to do it when you get to it

The current initiative essentially replaces the dismissal process of AF2 and the rewriting of the oldest task of AF2ND as the motive force of the system. How well it does to clean up the system though remains to be seen.

And you are still using AF2ND occasionally still? I'm surprised you are still using that!

Hello again Caibre65.

Well I don't think I ever mentioned why I stopped using AF2ND, but if I remember right there were basically two reasons. One is, as you mentioned, the tediousness of rewriting the oldest tasks. Second is that the mixing of old and new tasks just diluted the power of AF2, since the newer tasks get buried by the older tasks and the older tasks blend in with other tasks when scanning.

Although it never did occur to me to do the process at bursts only. Interesting idea, I might try that in the future.

And hello Michael B. I do not know why, but I never did like dismissal on any of the AF's, and Mark's systems did seem to abandon the idea eventually.

I have decided to abandon this idea. Too much resistance was happening in using it, to the point that there were days I did not pick the notebook up.