Get Everything Done

Over in the RTM thread ( http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2795362 ), Rufat and Miles were asking for an update. I thought I'd start a new thread for the response, since that thread has more than 50 responses already.

Hi Rufat and Miles - sorry for the slow replies, I have not been active here for a few months!

I still use something very close to RTM, but the specifics have evolved a bit.

The key difference is in how I handle the Unfinished tasks. These are the things that always seem to take some time, effort, iteration, or exploration to get them done. Some of them take an hour or two, but others can take several days or turn into extended projects.

So the difference is this: I have a weekly cadence for handling these larger tasks. And a daily cadence for handling everything else: all the fast one-off and recurring tasks.

In Asana, all new tasks land in the New section in My Tasks. I throw stuff in there all through the day, but try to ignore it till the next morning. (Like DIT.) In the morning, I scan through all of it and decide --
-- Quick and easy? Set the due date to Today -- it will show up on my Today list and I will get it done.
-- Not quick and easy? But urgent? Remove any due dates and add it to my This Week project. That's where I have my main work for the week -- the harder stuff that requires extended focus and attention.
-- Not quick and easy, and also not urgent? Remove any due dates and add it to my Next Week project. I ignore it for now.
-- If I find that a "quick and easy" task really isn't, then I can always move it to my This Week or Next Week lists and handle it there.

So, in effect, the This Week and Next Week lists have taken the place of the Unfinished list. And they get handled on a weekly cadence. I find this gives me more breathing space and lets those tasks get worked at a cadence that is more appropriate for their intrinsic nature, if that makes any sense. :)

My daily routine is pretty simple. I have a filter that shows all my tasks that are due today (or earlier). I just blast through all these and get them done. That might take an hour or two. It includes all the quick & easy one-off tasks (mentioned above). It also includes all the regular recurring tasks -- some of which occur daily, some once or twice a week, some once a month, whatever. They show up on my Today list automatically and I just blast through them as fast as I can. This is kind of like DIT's Task Diary and daily Will Do list.

Then I spend the rest of the day working through my This Week list. This generally has 5-10 things that I want to get done this week. Usually a few small projects that take up to an hour or two to get done. Sometimes maybe 3-4 hours. And then I usually have a "current initiative" type of thing that requires sustained focus and attention over several days or weeks -- some important objective that is somewhat exploratory, developmental, or open-ended in some way. Every day I just work through this list in whatever order feels right at the moment, with the intention of getting the whole thing completed by end of the week.

This works very similarly to DIT, but at a weekly cadence. That weekly cadence works really well for these longer and more open-ended tasks.

So that's how I manage my tasks and time every day (in between meetings).

At the beginning of each week, I take 10-20 minutes to reset my This Week list:
-- Start a new empty This Week list
-- What is top-of-mind? Write it down on the This Week list.
-- Review the list from the previous week -- is there anything I didn't finish? Why? Should I carry it forward, or delete it, or refactor it, or what?
-- Review the Next Week list, and decide what I need to focus on, and what seems realistic to do. Move those to my new This Week list.
-- Look over the final This Week list -- re-order, re-group, refactor as needed. If it looks like too much or too little or just the wrong stuff, then add and delete and edit as needed till it looks good. The intention is do GET IT ALL DONE.

I like this approach -- it has the same feel and flow as RTM, but also incorporates elements of DIT -- it has more of a sense of closure and completion at the end of each day and each week.

It's also very low overhead, simple, straightforward.

And with Asana, it's easy to integrate with tasks and action items from team meetings or team projects or whatever.