Get Everything Done

I've been experimenting with the 5-Task method for a few days now, and have to say, the more I work with a 'No-List' system the more it is making complete sense to me.

Yes, I'd been worried - as others have - about forgetting crucial tasks and the attendant dire consequences. However, to me it's been like that moment when you're learning to swim and you're suddenly faced with that leap of faith moment: letting go of the side, and trusting yourself to do what you need to do and how to do it.

But really, there hasn't been anything of particular importance I've forgotten, and in any case I know I can simply enter such tasks in the next batch when/if I have forgotten something.

One very simple thing that helps me when summoning new tasks for entering is to use Visual Cues. I look around the room - or mentally 'rove' though my house or place of work - and almost always it brings to mind something that needs to be done.

My experience so far is one of liberation (from the long list, and from the pain of having to visually cycle through this pages-long list umpteen times a day); of reduced resistance; of a more heightened, relevant focus; and even of excitement and impatience to get to creating my list in the morning!

So far so good. And I'm really excited to see what further improvements the new system may bring.

"This is pretty much the same experience I am having, too, but sometimes I get overwhelmed by the number of things I need to remember -- deadlines and commitments of various kinds. I still haven't found a really good way to track those without building up a whole new list again, which I then need to manage."

Yes, that's been the only - but only very slightly - problematic thing for me, but I do find that when I let go and trust myself the focus does come. I've been a bit shocked to find that, after trying all the systems over the years, this is turning out to be most effective for me (so far, at least).

I think as Mark has pointed out before, it's not the list that's the problem, it's our thinking about the list that's the problem. I think my own fear of letting go of the master list is more about my thinking of how life will look if I do so, rather than direct experience of trusting myself (I've been an office worker for 25+ years; I've probably already internalized a LOT of habits and helper routines that my reliance on lists have prevented me from accessing.)

I'm still kind of stuttering toward no-list/5T, so my experience is still growing.