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I am doing Serial No-List at the moment, and plan to continue. So that's my choice. :)
Perhaps someone can start a *second* thread that will hold outcomes, progress, learnings, etc. Sometimes, some of us never seem to make it past the first week!
Lent this year is from March 5-April 17.
I will continue to capture email items for tasking in Microsoft To-Do at work, and in GQueues for personal tasks that come to me via Gmail but will not be using either as my active task list.
Have any of you committed to the Lenten Challenge in this way? If so, how did you make it work?
— I think you just started it! ;-)
Avrum: I'd say that, like any experimental system, you'll know yourself when you've fallen off the wagon. Just sketch out what you intend to do?
Anyway, I began this morning with a slightly modified 'Dreams'. After reading a number of books on freewriting the last weeks, and given the way that I (and other Dream-ers) have had problems with the dialoguing as described in Mark's book, I'm trying daily-ish dialogues with the slightly different approach that Mark described in this comment:
http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2139016#post2758142
"The whole point of the dialoguing is to refine your vision and internalize what needs to be done so that your intuition will lead you to do what needs doing by making you feel like doing it."
— instead of the approach described under 'Self-coaching techniques' in the middle of the 'Dreams' book.
So far this seems to work quite well. The obvious starting point, "how can I refine my vision", nicely encompasses the questions listed in the book, and the freewriting output seems to naturally produce questions and answers without descending into the start-stop stilted writing I find the approach in the book produces. This is clearly just a slight change of emphasis and I expect it will naturally visit the type of questions suggested in the book, the 'What's Better' list etc, but it definitely has a more focused and direct feel about it.
I've been doing things with this approach in mind for the last week (almost), so I think I'm basically going to keep following that. I've found it really helpful and I think my mindset has shifted to working towards what I want vs avoiding what I don't. I don't think I understood people who liked working hard until now.
Ah AF1... like classic Coke, or the Godfather 1. The original.
No non-work related websites at work (No YouTube, news, sports, etc.).
This is by far my number one productivity killer, so if I can tackle this, it will be better than any other system I could implement.
1) I'd like to transition to Serial No List but have a large existing backlog of tasks. How do you recommend dealing with the backlog? Let's say the backlog has 100 tasks. Would you add them in gradually, maybe with a Current Initiative-like task like "check backlog"? Or do something else? Or just rely on intuition to recall the tasks already written on the backlog?
2) As we all know, email can generate a lot of tasks. How do you approach processing email in the context of Serial No List task management? Do you add tasks to the list as they arise from emails and just deal with the possibility that you might have a long list of tasks generated on that day?
I've tried Serial No List at least two times, but I've failed to stick with it. The fear of forgetting a task has been a major contributor to my falling off the wagon. I'd love to make it stick!
My entry this year is a hybrid system I made, which I am calling "RanDWM Burst". Using my spreadsheet I have dates attached to entries-- like DWM new entries have 30 days to be acted on, in process entries have one week. I also attach due dates, do dates (dates I would like to work on a task) and things I want to today date. My spreadsheet formulas will give these the right DWM number. Once I have all the tasks identified that are <=0 days away, I use a randomizer and work on each task. I do time bursts for each task of 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then 15 minutes, etc.
I have three other modes I will use: 1) If there are tasks that have to get done today, I may go into 3T mode, and 2) on days where I don't want to do anything, I go into full random mode, without the DWM piece. And if there is anything that is really urgent, I 3) forget all the rules and get 'er done.
<<I'd like to transition to Serial No List but have a large existing backlog of tasks. How do you recommend dealing with the backlog?>>
I'd "declare a backlog" and then add "clear backlog" to my SNL.
<<How do you approach processing email in the context of Serial No List task management?>>
I'd clear as many of the emails as possible when I read them. If there are any left over, I'd add them to the SNL.
The key thing about SNL -- similar to all "No-List" systems -- is to rely more and more on your active intuition and engagement with whatever is on your mind and with the work that is right in front of you. This may require establishing some new mental habits.
E.g., when you start up your work for the day, instead of reviewing your list of things, or checking your email, or even your calendar, first start writing down the things on your mind.
Sometimes nothing comes to mind. So you have to sit with that for a minute or two, and try to remember what's important.
Once you start writing, it usually becomes clear where you need to focus.
So that's the first habit: capture your thoughts before you start doing anything else. This engages your mind and kind of "wakes you up" to your current reality and priorities.
And then there is another habit to establish. Before you jump in and start acting on this list you just captured, take a moment to scan through the previous pages and note anything you may have forgotten. You can copy it forward to your Today page where you just captured everything else.
Once you get in the habit of this, it only takes a few minutes to establish yourself for the day and get moving in the right direction, without fear that you have forgotten something.
Hope that helps!
Yes, give us the details.
STRUCTURE
Using an outliner, I have two lists: Today and Tomorrow (hello DIT!)
In today I have these items
1) Daily tasks
2) Weekly tasks for this weekday
3) Additional things I've committed to today.
4) #days, and outline structured calendar of future tasks
5) #goals, an outline structured list of goals I'm actively working on
6) #ideas, things I'm thinking about working on, organized by area.
ACTING
I scan through the list of daily, weekly and additional and pick something to work on.
When it's complete, I move it where it belongs.
1) Daily things go to Tomorrow.
2) Today's weekday things go to the end of Days
3) Additional things, if it's complete, I can delete it.
If it's ongoing I could move to tomorrow.
If it's part of a goal, I could move it into Goals.
4) Days. In here is a manually run calendar. I have a list of weekdays, each containing routine activities for that day. I also have dated tasks which are for sometime in the future. I pull out tomorrow's Weekly items from #days to Tomorrow
I also may look ahead at future items. E.g. At the end of the week, next week's items get pulled into the weekdays.
5) Goals. I scan through my active goals, and treat it like a short autofocus list. I pick something, work on it (expand the outline, read what needs to be done, make some decisions), and move it to the end. Often, the decision is to commit a task for Tomorrow, and it becomes an Additional thing.
6) Ideas. These are ideas about each area of my life. They contain potential goals, but I'm mostly busy already on my current goals, so I'm not working on the ones in ideas. Nevertheless I scan through the list of areas, and pick an area to think about and maybe move forward. Maybe something needs to become an active goal.
When I'm done with each of these lists today, I move them to tomorrow.
SUMMARY
It may seem a lot but I've never had it simpler to operate. It's a list of things I'm doing today, I look at them, do them, and generally move them to tomorrow or next week for the next recurrence.
One key to this working: Never put in #today or #tomorrow something you are not sure you can get to. That is, typically all the myriad tasks you might have in your AF list, I will put underneath one of my goals, and get to it when I get to it. One-off tasks that just come up I can put directly into tomorrow (or today), but that's rare.
I am assuming that your projects are considered goals or do you subdivide those?
I like your idea of considering goals like autofocus. So I am assuming that you only put tasks on your daily list?
The action that I aim to complete every day with #goals is to look at the goals, maybe define some thing better, and choose something to act on next. Or multiple things.
Thanks for your further explanation.
New Challenge, for those of us who already failed the first one: 2nd half of Lent.