Get Everything Done

At risk of being too facile with respect to Mark's work, I divide his ideas into two groups:

1. Linear, list driven, comprehensive i.e. Autofocus, DWM, etc
2. Non-linear, organic, open-ended i.e. Dreams, No List, etc

For me, the question that drives my interest to implement any of these ideas is:

What is the **best** approach to managing myself when I have discretionary time. I manage my scheduled time - clinical appts, kids schedules, etc - quite well.

I've experimented with enough of Mark's systems to know that category 2 (non-linear) works best for me. To that end, I started experimenting with a reverse Scatter Map** .

1. Start the day with a blank page
2. Commit to one thing that you think is a good thing to do (based on energy, time available, etc)
3. Write the current time and the thing you're going to work on.
4. If you're torn between a few things, write all of them down (Generally, I never generate more than 3-4 things)
5. Circle the best one
6. Work on the thing
7. Any thoughts, follow-up tasks, questions about the thing you're working on receives a branch to the right of the item.
8. Any thoughts, tasks, questions about something not related to the thing you're working on goes to the left of the thing you're working on.
9. When you're finished working on the thing, and if you have more discretionary time, begin again from #2 --> #9

At the end of the day, you'll have an interesting image - a circuitry of your thoughts, things you've worked on, things you need to do - that serve as a graphic for your journal, or weekly review.

Silly as this sounds, my brain is soothed (and excited) by a blank page at the beginning of the day. It also helps that the flow is not linear, but more akin to a Scatter Map. And the final result has an aesthetic that is closer to what I think is going on in my brain vs the linear to-do/autofocus list.

**For more on Scatter Maps: http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2016/5/19/the-scatter-map.html )