Get Everything Done

I am now in a much better place than a year or so ago.
My stress levels are virtually zero. Procrastination has completely disappeared. I am working very efficiently. I might even change my name to MrGeteverythingdone

I was wondering what I have done to achieved this? It is a chain of events: -

1. Reduced commitments so I can easily keep up to date with things.
2. That has led to having no backlog.
3. Being able to then action all new tasks within a day or two.
4. Being able to implement “Do It Tomorrow” (my favorite system).
5. Do a task the first time I see it and complete it as much as possible (no procrastination).

Interesting how important it was to do point 1 and everything else was possible after that.

So in summary, I would say it has simply been point 1 - REDUCE COMMITMENTS that has done it for me. It has been a breeze since then.

Interesting if any others could contribute their thoughts on the number 1 thing that has worked for them. Thanks again Mark for your wonderful ideas!

Reducing your commitments is the toughest pill to swallow. But it may be the best medicine you can take for your sanity, efficiency, and, ultimately, ability to lead a successful life.

I've often found myself stretched thin on numerous fronts. At various times, I've wanted to learn languages (yes, more than one), improve my career, lose weight, get fit, spend more time with my family, spend more time with my friends, write a novel, make new friends, travel the world, take up various hobbies and interests like cigars/scotch, classical literature, and mountaineering, and manage all the car repairs, bills, household chores, and minutiae of day-to-day life.

And all of that is in addition to the 9-to-5 projects, tasks, and commitments for my office job, which are mostly things I cannot ignore or negotiate. Those, of course, represent the biggest bulk of my time at 40 hours per week. Not much time leftover once you remove sleeping, eating, and getting from place to place.

Perhaps there's a way to do all of this. Surely there have been people throughout history—polyglots, geniuses, jacks of all trades—who have done so. But an honest reckoning of your life should cast doubt that you can put yourself among their ranks. And further inspection will probably reveal evidence that these famous historical people were more singularly devoted to a main focus (two or three, at most) than a surface analysis might suggest.

It's really tough to let a dream go. It might be easier if you see it as allowing another dream to have a chance to come true.

Reminds me of a book I read recently. http://smile.amazon.com/Scarcity-Science-Having-Defines-Lives/dp/125005611X

To summarize, you have to have "slack" in the system regarding any given resource, or else the cognitive load of trying to optimize that resource will make the problem worse (making bad decisions) instead of better. To quote a reviewer on Amazon:

'Scarcity results in temporary cognitive impairment that makes people focus on the immediate pressures of scarcity at the expense of long-range planning. For example, a cash-strapped person might take out a high-interest payday loan to relieve scarcity in the present moment, only to find cash-scarcity is even worse later on. A busy executive under time pressure may "borrow" time from future projects (by delaying them) only to find the time pressure increasing in the long run. Scarcity becomes a causal loop...scarcity breeds scarcity. The authors refer to this self-defeating behavior as the "scarcity trap." The poor stay poor, the busy stay busy. Furthermore, cognitive functioning necessary for all other decisions, where scarcity is not a factor, is compromised.'

So when you say "1 - Reduced commitments so I can easily keep up to date with things." that rings true. New tasks will be coming in fast sometimes, and slow other times. If you don't have enough slack to handle the statistical variations, you'll have to put stuff off, and then you end up with even less slack and it starts piling up. (Sounds a bit like Theory of Constraints as well, eh, Seraphim?)

MrBacklog, I have been thinking about what you said about having virtually no backlog when you posted something similar on a thread of mine from a couple of weeks ago. I am super jealous. I think I would love to get to the place you are. If we lived close I would love to buy you lunch and pick your brain on how you made Do It Tomorrow work in person. But alas, I'll have to settle through the clunky internet and typing.

I'll ask you more questions later, but I have another commitment I need to leave for right now. Expect more...

I'm going to adopt that as my new slogan for completing work in addition to my other slogan I've used for some time "I don't know everything, but I can learn anything".

Probably the thing to do is actually try Do It Tomorrow method, and reread the book. Some immediate concerns I have about it are:

1. Knowing that my personal free time for personal tasks is incredibly limited right now (perhaps 15 minutes a day) since we've had a newborn. Even the essentials aren't getting done. How do I even begin to work in a task today that came up yesterday? What do I do with that task if it still needs to get done, but I can't get to it for at least another month? Write it down? Then there is a backlog again.
2. My work comes in huge waves via large projects. As an engineer, I'll get put on a project that can last between 2 months and 2 years. I can get months work of work assigned in one day, and have to space it out. How do you break up a project into pieces whose components will all "get done tomorrow"? It seems like you just keep working on the next piece of the project day after day until its completed. I think I remember something in the book about projects, but I'll need to review it.

If MrBacklog can learn to eliminate backlogs, well, so can I. Heck, I don't know everything, but I can learn anything. It may require some separate threads as I try the system. But I love the idea anti-procrastination, or anticrastination and I call it.

Sheesh. Sorry for the grammar errors in my last post. I hate grammar errors.

I am rereading Do It Tomorrow. I started an attempt Saturday night to implement the system. Some immediate questions I had yesterday, (which is why I am asking them today) are:
1) Are all of today's incoming emails saved and read tomorrow, or is it just the response/action related to the email that is saved for tomorrow (with immediate responses to urgent ones)?
2) What happens on days when normal action is not practical; for example, sickness, vacation, or a non-work day?
3) What about tasks that are very simple to complete today even though they are not immediate, like a short text response?
5) What are the short and long-term solutions to having tasks leftover at the end of each today list? Short: forward the task to tomorrow even if you haven't completed any work on it? Long: don't make as many commitments?
6) If the answer to completing each day's list is to reduce commitments, it seems that we must carefully weigh whether we have the resources to do the task tomorrow? MrBacklog, how do you decide whether to put something down for tomorrow or not? What happens to the other items that you decide not write down?
7) Mr Backlog, you mentioned that you "do a task the first time I see it and complete it as much as possible (no procrastination)." Do you do the task the first time you see it "today" or still save the first work you do on it for "tomorrow" per DIT?

Hi Cameron, here is my exact workflow instructions which answers some of your questions:-
Email/task handling: -
Aims - each day to clear today, yesterday and 1 day before tasks until no backlog.
Instructions to achieve this: -
1. Quickly do new post, telenotes & post-its or email yourself action points.
2. Review projects/reminders list and email yourself any action points.
3. Start of email session - move all emails from Inbox folder to Todo folder.
4. Action Todo folder top down. Aim to clear today, yesterday and 1 day before until no backlog.
5. When Todo folder cleared, go home/take next day off.
6. If emails in Todo over a week old, then review and email yourself any urgents so done next.

Cameron: I do have a few projects that might take a months to complete and I keep track of these in my projects list. As I review that every day it nudges me to email myself a task to jog the project along.
I also have a reminder list to carry forward tasks to a future date that can’t be done now.
That all works fine.

In my experience, I'd say the best time management practices are:

1. Reduce commitments, as noted above. The most powerful way to be productive is simply to not do something, and we can all get away with doing far less than we think. We can even go a little extreme, ala the 80/20 rule or applying the tenets of Gary Keller's The One Thing. I prefer a simple metric: it's either a "hell yeah!" or a no.

2. Focus on achieving results, not simply processing tasks. What results do you want to achieve by the end of this week? This day? I'm a big fan of the Agile Results system because it emphasizes just that. By settling on the results you want to accomplish, and building your day around that, you can get the right things done and make big strides in your life.

3. Keep lists small. Personally I'm a dork for making a backlog and processing it like an Agile project (this works really well for me compared to other methods) but it's still better to make a small list of 3-5 high-value items than 10-20 easy items that won't bring you big results. Dump the rest as much as possible and devote as much of your day as you can to clearing out high-value items that will pay off in dividends down the line.

4. Set up proper margins. You need adequate sleep, exercise, a healthy diet, time for rest and relaxation, etc. For years I've followed Cal Newport's advice to set strict work hours and do whatever it takes to avoid violating that schedule. I'm definitely much more productive when I set up time to recover and to work on personal hobbies that rejuvenate me. We're not robots, as nice as that might seem sometime.

5. Have a capture system. I don't exactly run Getting Things Done but I definitely capture any thoughts in a notebook and transcribe them to my master list. From there I can sort them to any number of lists or just let it hang until I'm ready to act on it or delete it. It takes a load off my memory.

Overall, I'm much more productive when my days are scheduled with intent. Decide on what I want to achieve, go after it, and schedule time ahead of time to sleep/eat/exercise/renew. Do less but with purpose.

Cameron, first let me congratulate you on becoming a father!!

Regarding DIT and your engineering projects I have a few thoughts to share:

#1 Don't trust people who start counting at 1.

#2 All kidding aside, what I've seen in the GTD world is that some people have a hard time distinguishing between a project in the technical and a project in GTD (or DIT.) Be clear that something that is called a project between you and your coworkers can very easily be several projects in your DIT system.

#3 If you use a easily transportable paper notebook (maybe with a pen-holder), you can use your DIT system at work and at home. Which is a big question, the question of wether you want to close the list at work or later at home.

This post makes me want to give DIT another try. But to answer the question posed, I think my answer is similar to reducing commitments. My answer is to Simplify. Every time I focus on that, things get done.

How that relates to DIT for me might be the realization that if I'm comfortable with what I've committed to do tomorrow today, and that once tomorrow becomes today it became undoable, it might be because I didn't define it simply enough or I allowed the scope to expand throughout the day.

Thanks for the reminders.

Brent