Get Everything Done

As have been stated before numerous times in this website, "intuition" is not a magical voice from the gods telling us what to do, but that it is our subconscious mind making answers after analyzing all of our information and experiences. Therefore, if we want to maximize our intuition for task management, then I propose we give our subconscious mind maximum leeway on how it wants to work while giving it what it needs. Let us give it information and a record of our experiences by recording and tracking the tasks we think of and do, then let it analyze and process the tasks however we deem fit.


1. Make two columns on your notebook: one would be labeled "New/Urgent Tasks" and the other "Recurring Tasks" (personally, the right column is "New/Urgent" and the left "Recurring").

2. All new tasks get written in "New/Urgent" column. All tasks that get re-written after doing them are placed in the "Recurring" column. Finally, urgent tasks that need to be done right there and then are (ideally) written on the "New/Urgent" column with an exclamation point ! at the beginning and crossed off after being done.

3. There is no "correct" way/direction of scanning the list, just dot the task that stands out and do it, then cross out and if needed re-write at the end in the "Recurring" column.

4. At the end of the day or the beginning of the day close the list with a line and date it. Once the list is closed you cannot add more tasks above the line, no matter how big the gap is.


The personal experience of one week of using this system this is interesting. Here are my thoughts on it.

A. Work Profiling
The system naturally develops gaps in the list if you find yourself favoring new/urgent tasks over recurring tasks or vice versa, and thus gives you a rather striking profile of your work. I personally found how much I favor doing recurring tasks over thinking of and doing new tasks. It tells me how much in a rut I have been over the week and it has motivated me to think of and try new things.


B. Focus vs Responsiveness and Resilience
I think this system would be the answer to Seraphim and others' concern over "focus vs responsiveness". Not hampered by any scanning procedure, one can decide to work on Focus by working exclusively on "Recurring" Tasks, or on Responsiveness by working exclusively on the "New/Urgent" tasks. Or, indeed, let your subconscious decide on which you need to focus on. And not only that, because of the innate work profiling of the system you can decide which you need to work on more, as explained above.

Finally, I do not think you can "break" the system by overloading it with tasks. We may have an unlimited imagination and an oppressive list of responsibilities from which we can add to the system, but all of these tasks go to the "New/Urgent" column, and our bodies can do only so much, so one can never overload the "Recurring" column, and holistic scanning (as described below, and when you get used to it) will only pick the best from your endless list of "New/Urgent" tasks.


C. A Holistic System
The production of gaps as described above creates a more spread-out type of list, and since a linear scanning of the list will not work, the system therefore shifts to a holistic scanning: each page is taken as a whole or as made of parts of a whole.

This made the system the fastest out of all the Long List systems here by a VERY long shot, since not only do I make only momentary glances on each page instead of scanning down a list before I choose a task, but I make faster decisions because everything "feels" more intuitive. It seems my eyes instinctively "home in" into the tasks I want to do, and tasks more often than not do not "stand out", but "leap out".

Indeed, I think the whole thing is getting faster as I get used to the system.


D. Maximizing "Little and Often", Clumping, Attenuation and Maturity
Mark Forster's article: http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2017/12/13/simple-scanning-clumping-attenuation-and-maturity.html

I am willing to bet that out of all the systems here, this system utilizes and leverages these four concepts of Mark Forster's system the most.

1. "Little and Often" is leveraged because of how fast I can get to the end of the list, which, again, is much MUCH faster than any system here.

2. Clumping is not only achieved faster but also utilized and leveraged to the greatest degree. Remember how the system becomes a "holistic scanning" one, in which each page is processed as a whole or parts of a whole? Those clumped tasks are the "parts of a whole". And there is no "scanning procedure" that tells me how I should do them, but only my discretion.

3. Attenuation is almost ridiculously leveraged in the system. Not only do undone tasks stick out like sore thumbs in holistic scanning, they are also dated.

4. Maturity is I think where this system shines. The holistic scanning means that not only the list becomes unique but also the pages on which the list is written on. My eyes only need to scan momentarily because I intuitively know what is written in each part of each page. In other words, the maturity not only of the list but also of the notebook you are writing your list on is the very reason everything else I have talked about the system works. However, this also means that the system may not work as well electronically.

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In conclusion, I am having a blast from "Task Tracking" for the past week, and I think it is the best Task Management system I have thought of and used. Try it out!

By the way, I used a printed form and placed the papers in a binder. Here is the template, made for 8.5"x11" paper: http://mega.nz/#!61JBAQZD!38sGkXPx-Wcyv1GtaZE8mHQm0FlgeEwscfqRaIOPl5o

On another note, I just realized that this system might qualify for Mark Forster's dream for making a "High Volume, High Speed, Low Resistance" system: http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2017/7/1/high-volume-high-speed-low-resistance.html

@Mark Forster: "Congratulations! Some really good thinking there."

Thanks Mark!

"Re-reading your description after writing this, I think the answer to both questions is "You just do". Am I right?"

Exactly!

I just realized: if a long list has no divisions or need for trimming/dismissal, do you really need to do a strict way of scanning tasks? What if you take your Simple Scanning list and do a "holistic scanning" like what I did here: no "correct" way or direction of scanning or when to go to the previous or next page, just scan how you feel like doing, dot the task that stands out and do it?

Sorry guys, I am noticing I have a habit of disappearing from this forum when I am tweaking the system I am using, not realizing there are people asking about the things I post here. I will try my best not to do that again.

Anyways here are my answers to the posts above:

@Bernie: You have made some great points there. I hope I can hear from you about your adventures into free/holistic scanning!

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@Cricket: "Just to clarify: Only one task per line, so one column has the task and the other is left blank?" Yes.

"I wonder if part of the reason you can scan each page so quickly is they look different. Instead of a long list, there's a pattern of entries in each column. Your brain learns what's on the page, and you don't have to read each line." That is EXACTLY what is happening!

"What do you do if a recurring task becomes urgent? (Not so urgent that you must do it now, but urgent enough that it's worth flagging?) Or do you get through the list quickly enough that it will stand out soon enough?" Yes the latter-most option is one I usually do, but you can also write on the right column in the last page. Depends on what you intuit.

"Favouring doing repeating tasks is problem for you? I consider it a good thing to to come back to tasks until they're done, and not let maintenance tasks slide. There's probably a happy zone in the middle. The ideal spot for each of us might be related to the type of work we do." It's more of for that week I thought of only a few new tasks and did only one of them, if I remember correctly. I do not think it is a good thing to only be doing maintenance things all the time or almost all of the time.

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@Chino: Thanks for the compliment!

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@Seraphim: "Can I ask a clarifying question? In the "recurring" column, it sounds like you are including truly recurring items (such as "check email") as well as "unfinished" items. So it seems to combine the Unfinished and Recurring pages of AF4 (revised) into the Recurring column. Is that correct?" Yes that is correct, but thank you so much for reminding me of that system, it helped me fix some things in Task Tracking. More on that later.

"Anyway, this has given me an idea to try in my "serial no-list" method (which is still going really well!" That's great!

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@Seraphim again: "Anyone have any thoughts on this dynamic?" I think my new changes on Task Tracking will explain the reason for your observations, as you will see next post. However, to summarize, it seems the reason for your observation is that No List systems handle only urgent items, that is, tasks you want to do sometime today. Recurrent items are not necessarily tasks you want to do today. Indeed, they are tasks you want to do some other day when they have been done today. Now what are these urgent tasks that No List systems want to handle? They are the tasks you want to do sometime today, and tasks that are unfinished.

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Next post will be the changes that I have made on Task Tracking.

As is expected of doing something new, I ran into some problems while using Task Tracking, which could be summarized as "not being intuitive enough" and "eating too much paper". I felt that there was something about how the tasks were being divided that was inefficient in presenting information to my subconscious. Moreover, it felt unbalanced: it was almost always the case of "Recurring" tasks bloat and almost no tasks in the "New" column.

It was Seraphim's post above that pointed me to the answer: I was mixing the recurrent with the unfinished tasks, which led to both overloading the "Recurrent" column and diminishing "little and often" by making unfinished tasks less visible. It took me some time to devise a way to fix these two problems: at a few points of my brainstorming I was thinking of adding a third column, which I vigorously opposed myself to doing. But finally I was able to think of a solution, and I tested it out. Not only did it fix the "intuition" problem, but it drastically improved the system while retaining the advantages as noted in the first post. It felt such a different beast altogether that I have to designate it as a new version: "Task Tracking v2".


The Steps
1. Make two columns on your notebook: one would be labeled "Non-Urgent Tasks" and the other "Urgent Tasks" (personally, the left column is "Non-Urgent" and the right "Urgent"). NOTE: Here is the template I used, formatted for 8"x11" paper, http://mega.nz/#!yxgRGITb!trxD3jiE3_kKBgFPdczeBd4CMsn32TBVkHJuDLKY1_c

2. "Urgent" tasks in this system are defined as tasks you want to start sometime today. Therefore, all new non-urgent tasks are written in the "Non-Urgent" column (I personally write a vertical line | before new tasks to help me distinguish them) as well as rewritten/recurrent non-urgent tasks (no distinguishing marks). On the other hand, all urgent tasks, new or otherwise, are written in the "Urgent" column (no distinguishing marks). Finally, all unfinished tasks are also written in the "Urgent" column (I enclose them in /slashes/ to distinguish them).

3. There is no "correct" way or direction of scanning the list, just dot the task that stands out and do it, then cross out and if needed re-write at the end of the appropriate column as discussed in Step 2.

4. At the end of the day or the beginning of the day close the list with a line and date it. Once the list is closed you cannot add more tasks above the line, no matter how big the gap is.


In using this revision, all of the observations I have noted in the first post are still true. However, there have been changes.

A. "Little and Often" Maximized Exponentially
Making unfinished tasks more visible combined with the speed of the system meant "little and often" is almost ludicrously leveraged. Resistance as a result has further been reduced because I am confident that things that I start will not be forgotten, which I had noticed in other systems.

B. A More Balanced System
The changes also made the system more balanced when it comes to using the real estate of the pages. The over-utilization of one column as I had seen in the previous version seems to be reduced here.

C. True Long List and No List integration
What surprised me the most about the changes, however, was how the Urgent column felt like a No List system that complimented the Non-Urgent column which in turn felt like a Long List system, but upon observation and analysis this was logical. The Urgent column only has and only processes the things I want to work on today, which is the very definition of a No List. The Non-Urgent column has all the things I may want to do today or some other day or not at all, which is exactly what a Long List is.

Without really aiming for it, I unwittingly made the perfect fusion of Long List and No List systems.

I also found that I can use the Urgent column like Bernie's Day Page, wherein in the morning I can load the column with the tasks I want to do for the rest of the day.

@Alan: "Too bad my current medium doesn't have columns or I would try it." I actually had to abandon my old notebook to be able to do this system, so I know the feeling.

However, there /might/ be a way to do TT using a one column/small notebook. Let me hash it out then try it.

Welp, the single column idea just crashed and burned fast.

My idea of adapting TT to single column/small notebook was to use the "stalactite/stalagmite" technique: Non-urgent tasks would be written from the top of the page going down, and the Urgent tasks from bottom to top.

What was apparent right away was the feeling of crampness and information overload that I felt with so much items with so many symbols and classifications crammed into a narrow space. Therefore I thought of removing the dating and the symbols and keep only the stalactite/stalagmite technique, sort of like a "Task Tracking Lite" system. The clarity, the "intuitiveness" of the original TT disappeared.

So it looks like for now I am sticking to TTv2.

I'm glad TT's working for you, Cricket!

Now I have been thinking long and hard about the need for two columns for TT to work. Don't get me wrong, TTv2 is working really well. Problem is, I miss my old small notebook. I really want to use it again. Besides, the use of two columns can mean for others, like me, to abandon their old lists and thus can be a bit daunting to try out.

That is why when, after days of brainstorming about it, I thought of a way to do one-column TT and it worked well for admittedly less than a day of trying, I was so excited about it that I want to share it here even if it isn't well tested yet.

The solution I thought of is what one can call "pseudocolumns" or "false columns": if the tasks of a certain category are consistently written with a large indent, around 1 inch or more, while the other tasks are written by the left margin, an illusion of two columns is made even if one task per line is maintained and the unindented items overlap the indent. And it seems for TT that illusion is enough.

I will write updates here for how this 1 column Task Tracking is going, but for now all I can say is I am really glad I to use my old notebook for task management again!

Yesterday, I decided to bring my old pocket notebook to work after updating it with the tasks from my previous TT trials and tried 1-column task tracking.

I was blown away. I did not expect it to work that well, or even at all.

Let me explain: my work is fairly routine to the point that Long Lists wouldn't work well (I tried before), which is why I have always used Mark Forster's systems, and all other time management systems that I have trialed, at home only. However, there are still some non-routine tasks I do during work that I thought would benefit from a No-List style of system, and since TT has No-List aspects about it I thought of using it at work.

My non-routine tasks at work were done in record time. Where I usually used all the time I had to finish, I had time to sit down and do nothing. It was all because I was able decide right away the best order to do the non-routine tasks in-between the routine things I usually do with the help of my list, and with the confidence that gave me I was able to focus on my job more. And this was with the SAME LIST I use at home! In fact, during work I was able to think of new things to do at home and add them to the list. And right now at home I am using the same list with no confusion whatsoever with work-type tasks.

As I said, I was blown away. First day of trial of the 1-column Task Tracking system was a resounding success, and looks like it will be so for the second day too.