Get Everything Done

I’ve been experimenting with No-List and Serial No-List again, and I think I’ve discovered **why** the list must never be pre-populated or fed from a feeder list.

Think about factory or corporate work -- assembly lines, kanban, Scrum, Scaled Agile. These systems are DESIGNED to optimize for flow.

Work sizing rules, dependency management, deployment methods — everything is tuned to support flow. In a system like that, you don’t have to think much about flow yourself. Just follow the rules, and the structure carries you (assuming the designers did a decent job).

But personal knowledge work isn’t like that. There’s too much variety, too many conflicting demands and unsorted objectives, for any system to impose flow from the outside. A lot of methods **try** -- Personal Kanban comes to mind — but borrowed factory and Agile concepts don’t always translate well.

This is where the immediate-engagement model of No-List comes in. Don’t pull from any backlog, feeder list, or yesterday’s leftovers. Instead, stop and get clear about what your mind is already engaged with.

For example, in SMEMA you write down the next three things you want to do. After completing two, you refill to three -- again, without consulting any lists or backlogs. You just follow the momentum you already have.

What does this accomplish?

It **automatically** balances your current capability and energy with the work at hand. That un-pre-determined freedom to follow what you’re already engaged with generates the flow state Csikszentmihalyi described: not overwhelming, not boring, but exactly matched.

And this, I think, is why factory models, Agile models, and backlog-driven systems ultimately fail for personal time management. They force you to stop working from genuine engagement and turn you into a task slave. The very systems meant to support you end up draining your motivation and freedom.

Of course, unrestricted flow has its own problems. You can lose broader awareness of commitments, constraints, or context. You can get lost in deep exploration while neglecting basic maintenance and execution. But that’s a separate issue -- one I'll take up another time.

Brent and Mike:

I am so glad to see there is still interest in this!

Yes, I keep coming back to No List. It has really helped me the last week or so.

I was using RTM ( http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2795750 ), and it was pretty effective generally. But I would always eventually get the feeling of being a slave to my list.

Even Serial No-List could generate that feeling sometimes, if the pages from previous days started to accumulate too much.

So I tried No List again -- SMEMA (3/1) and the method from Secrets of Productive People (5/2). And suddenly that feeling of task-debt and task-slavery just disappeared.

BUT there is still the same old problem -- how to make sure you don't forget things -- how to keep momentum going on longer projects -- how to make sure you don't miss any of your commitments etc.

The basic idea of my solution to this is that I still keep an RTM list going -- a list of recurring things, a list of new things (catch-all), and a list of unfinished things (projects). BUT I treat it as **reference material**. I completely ignore those lists unless (1) I want to add some new thing to the New list, or (2) the daily flow within No-List makes me think "I should go check my recurring list to see if I am getting behind on stuff" or "What about all those action items from the meeting this morning?" or whatever. Then I write on the No List: "Check recurring" or "Scan New" and go do it.

So far it is working pretty well. That can happen any time we change systems, so the jury is still out whether this will be sustainable. And I keep running into minor kinks to work out.

Overall this just seems like a good example of the "support systems" that naturally emerge whenever you use No List, as Mark often pointed out. Those catch-all lists etc. are just a kind of support system. The problems arise when we LIVE out of those systems and we stop following our natural noetic flow and engagement.

Here is how I have been thinking about it.

TLDR: Create whatever supporting systems you need that protect your personal attention from getting unfocused. Or better: The No-List way of working causes these systems to emerge spontaneously; just make sure they are actually helping you protect your personal attention so you can focus where you really want and need to focus.


The Long Version:

The bottleneck of personal management is our personal attention.

The bottleneck isn't "time".

And it isn't "demands on our time".

It is our ability to make the best use of our most limited capacity -- our personal attention.


A lot of work systems are designed to make use of this.

E.g. factory workstations and manufacturing kanban systems. You only pull work into your workstation when you have capacity. And everything in your workstation is optimized so you have everything you need to complete your task. And everything is ALSO designed to match the personal capability of the worker to the flow of the actual work, so that the WORKER stays in a flow state, just as much as the overall system must stay in a flow state.

Agile software development is intended to do the same thing -- focus on just 1-2 things at a time. Again this optimizes for the personal flow of attention of the developer. And Scrum tries to balance things out so each person is working on the stuff they are best fit for -- keeping each worker in a personal flow state where the demand is challenging and interesting but not overwhelming and not boring.


A lot of time management systems try the same approach. E.g. personal kanban tries to limit work in progress, so you can just focus on 1-2 things at a time. And often, just like a factory kanban flow or an agile backlog, time management systems have some kind of backlog list feeding the main flow. "Zero Inbox" is based on this idea.

And interestingly, I think ** this is exactly where these systems break down **.


The problem is that formal systems like factories and Scrum already put a lot of work into designing exactly what kind of work shows up in that backlog. And the workflow is designed around that. And this is key to how they are able to generate strong flow -- both personal flow for the workers (where capability is matched to the challenge) and overall flow for the system.

But for personal time management, we have all kinds of stuff being thrown into our backlogs and inboxes, without any regard at all for how it generates flow.


I think this is why all the feeder systems (incl. feeding into a no-list) eventually break down. They all eventually make me feel like I am a task slave, just working through my endless task debt, without any hope of getting it all done. There may be bursts of flow here and there, especially when starting up a new system. But ultimately we start to resist the system itself. And I think this is the key reason why.

We lose our agency. We have surrendered it to the System and the Lists.


This is why I said at the top that No-List must never be pre-populated. It eventually devolves into task slavery. In fact, any personal mgmt system that requires some complicated set of rules will eventually fail for the same reason -- UNLESS it directly solves the problems with unfocused personal attention and SUPPORTS our personal attention.


Like I wrote at the top of this thread, the no-list methods automatically balance your capacity with your work. It keeps you in that flow state.


OK so a lot of that just rehashes and expands on my original piece at the top of the thread. The thing I wanted to really emphasize is that the key to the whole thing is optimizing that core bottleneck -- personal attention. And no-list is the key engine that does this.

So then what DO we do with all the other stuff?
-- "managing the little things that are easy to put off"
-- things we can’t afford to forget but can’t do right now
-- recurring maintenance that can't be neglected
-- etc.

I think the key is that we have to developed supplemental systems that allow us to maintain focused attention on the stuff that is top of mind.

Little things that will eventually explode into big things? Well, those will certainly disrupt our ability to focus attention on the stuff that is top of mind.

Same with those little niggling things that we keep getting anxious about. Anxiety does not help us to maintain focused attention hahaha.

So we need to develop TRUSTED SYSTEMS, as Mark has always said, to support all of that.

And I think we can let the No-List process itself guide us here.

Have a bunch of niggling reminders that won’t leave you alone? Just capture that -- "Develop system for niggling reminders". Then go build something simple.

Maybe all you need is a few reminders on your phone or in Outlook or something.

Maybe you need something more elaborate.

The only "rule", I think, is to limit the rules as much as you possibly can. Keep things as simple as possible. And never let the supplementary systems dictate where you should put your attention. Always come back to your own reflection, thinking, intuition to guide your decisions.

Example:
-- I have a LOT of recurring maintenance things that will blow up if I neglect them.
-- I put them in an Asana list with appropriate recurrence set up
-- I already have a habit to check this once or twice a day. It just comes up on its own when I am thinking what to write on my no-list.

Example:
-- I get several new one-off tasks or action items through the day
-- I add these to another Asana list as they come up -- my "catch all" list
-- I don't look at it or work from it
-- Every now and then, I think "I should go check that list" or "Wasn't there some action item from that meeting this morning? I can't remember" or, after just adding a new item to that list, I realize it is getting rather long.
-- So I just add to my No-List: "check the catch-all". And I find I can usually blast right through most of it, and it reminds me of anything I may have forgotten, which I can take care of immediately, or maybe I work on an item for half an hour and then move it to my Unfinished Projects list. (A third Asana list).

The only thing I have to make sure I do every day is open a blank list and type out my no-list before I do anything else. If I start with the "feeder list" mentality, then it all falls into task slavery.

What I have found is that several new simple systems and checklists have emerged very naturally that handle most of these things. And every now and then, some situation comes up where I realize I need to adjust these supporting systems. So I adjust them -- just tinker with something, add a tweak, try some idea, let it evolve till it lands on something that works. And then I can just keep on focusing where I *want* and *need* to focus, which I *already know* in the back of my mind.

By the way, you can think of it as bottleneck management, using Eli Goldratt's Five Focusing Steps. I prefer Clarke Ching's version, called FOCCCUS:

1-- FIND the bottleneck. OK we already did that: our personal attention.

2-- OPTIMIZE the bottleneck. Do whatever you can so the bottleneck works at top effectiveness. This is what the no-list method does: focus where you already have mindshare and momentum. This keeps you in a maximal flow state with high engagement and utility.

3-- COORDINATE, COLLABORATE, CURATE. This is where we bring in other supporting systems to SUPPORT and PROTECT the bottleneck. Offload tasks to a reminder system or calendar. Maintain project files. Maintain checklists. But never let these things eclipse the bottleneck itself, or wrest control of the bottleneck away from you.

4-- UPGRADE the bottleneck. Do whatever you can to increase the capacity of your attentive faculty. Get more exercise and eat better food. Learn how to focus on the key issues and ignore side issues. Resolve persistent conflicts in your life that take you away from the things that generate flow and delight and goodness.

5-- START AGAIN. If you find you have strayed away from your noetic focus, and SOMETHING ELSE has become your bottleneck, then FIX IT. As long as your time, or your tasks, or your money, or your relationships, or your conflicts are at the center -- then you will feel enslaved to those things and it will all go into the ditch. Bring it back so your personal agency and personal attention is at the center. This gives you the freedom and capability to focus on what really matters and actually take responsibility for it.

Final comment, I think Mark was right, Next Hour is the best of the no-list methods. It is the most flexible and the most realistic and the most engaging. http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2016/7/2/the-next-hour-of-your-life.html

Haha, I am astonished how you and I have found ourselves so often experimenting with the same ideas independently.