Get Everything Done

Mark

Interesting stuff - and nothing like I thought it might be, though I did wonder when a diary wasn't one of the required items!

I was also intrigued to observe that my initial internal reactions were 'That'll never work' and 'What'll I do with date-specific items?'. On first read, it seems remarkably similar to how one of my colleague processes her to-dos, though I can't check the fine details as she's on leave at present.

I guess one of the hurdles for those looking to implement a digital version of this will be the need to find the pixelated equivalent of 32 line pages and highlighting. I suppose that 'one big text file' - a much beloved tool of many a geek - could be split up into 32 lines sections and incrementally saved each days as a record of actions done.

I look forward to trying to put this into action at work tomorrow. Having said that, things are so quiet in my corporate role at the moment, I think that I'll test this on the activities around growing my own small coaching practice.

Many thanks for sharing this - I look forward to the discussions to follow!

I agree with you Jon that it is exciting to be starting this.
Mark, do I read it right that we are giving up on "closed lists" ??

I too agree with Jon's first reaction - I read the whole email twice through and my first reaction was that I'd end up in chaos :-) To be honest I *love* the principle of closed lists. Before a day starts it makes me feel right on top of everything to know what I'm doing when it arrives. Previously my main issue was that there were so many things to do at any given time, I was put into a kind of paralysis of never doing any of them. Closed lists have helped me get over that "if i can't do it all I right now I might as well not bother!" mentality. I'm worried an endless to-do list will just leave me doing nothing.

Nonetheless, I've filled my notebook with tasks (around 38 off the top of my head this morning). I still have a list of daily items, and my calendar has all the repetitive tasks still in it (like cleaning, food shopping, and all that other boring stuff that I forget about if I don't have it written somewhere). To start with I feel as though I've added a tool to my existing system, but we'll see how we go!

My own understanding is that closed lists haven't gone - each page of the notebook is a closed list and you don't start on the next page until you have had a go at each task on the current page. Its actually very similar (but simpler and more elegant) to Mark's modified DIT that he suggested 2 months or so ago, apart from the added possibility of rejection.

I'm interested in Faye's problem as I don't know quite what to do with repetitive stuff either. I have several tasks which need to be done on specific days of the week (eg get dinner money ready, prepare weekly hymn sheet, check Brownie uniform is clean). My home and work lives are so jumbled up I'm not sure I can separate out the tasks without finding I've forgotten something, so I just have one system on the go at the moment - I work largely from home anyway.

At the moment I create my daily DIT-style closed do-list from a template which has weekly tasks listed by day - I just delete those which are not marked with the particular day of the week.

Instinctively I feel I should use a notebook so it can come around with me, but actually I am going to work electronically as I hate paper and pen so much - I don't like the mistakes.

Hope this isn't confusing, but I'm replying to my own post above. After some thought I realised that virtually all my 'need to be done on specific days' tasks are actually deadlines and could be done earlier, just not later. There are a few which are processing same-day information, but not many. Housework is something I hate and so have made into day-specific tasks. So I'm going to write all these tasks into autofocus in the order they appear on my weekly list (so Monday's tasks first) and then see what happens. Hopefully I will 'release' them without getting into last minute panics.

And although I'm entering electronically, I am printing out the list for the read-through, which I find reinforces the 'closed list' feel.

This method may be deceptively simple, but I absolutely love the idea of using real paper and pens! Many years ago I realized that I would never give up holding a 'real' book in my hands to read it...guess I just fell in love with touching paper too many years ago. But...I am a bonafide tech geek, so I am cringing at the thought that I might have nothing printed out, posted, and 'official' to look at. hmmmmmmmm

I find this experiment very interesting. I've found myself "cheating" on my closed lists in DIT. "Oh, I forgot to include this, can't I just slip it above the line?" This new system eliminates cheaters like me.

I also like the idea of marking off and re-entering repetitive tasks. If you just mark a date in the list for a new day, you can easily see the day you skipped your exercises. I have addressed this in my "page length" comments below.

I am another person who rebels against paper. I have so many "gadgets" to carry already.

I have looked at all the programs that I use to keep track of tasks. My Palm software with DayNotez; EverNote; AirSet.com; and Google Notebook.

I have settled on Google Notebook for the following reasons:
1) It is "in the cloud" so I have it with me whenever I'm logged in (which is always, at work and at home...) I can use my Palm to fill in with tasks for commutes, meetings, and errands.
2) It has the capability to both 'strike through' and to highlight. So it is best suited for these lists.

The problem will be choosing when a "page" is done. I have some proposals:
1) Just like we tie our train tracks and wagon wheel spacings to Roman chariot widths, we could insist on 25-36 lines as a hold over from lined paper.
2) I like the idea of timed pages. So you could start anew with a page for a day. I think this would help gauge when you are trying to do too much as you get more and more "pages" to drag through. It also makes for a convenient journal of what you accomplished that day.
3) More free form and use the size of the screen as a guide. Keep the list to the size on the screen where you can see it at one glance. When you need to add items to the next "page" they would not be visible. You action everything you can see and then move to the next visible page.

I'm liking option 2, but I'm willing to try another way if we come up with a better idea. But I'd sure like to avoid lugging a notebook with actual paper around. As a software developer and Web 2.0 addict - I am rarely 10 paces from the Internet.

These are my opening thoughts - so for today, I'm off to the races!

Oh, one more thing I like - I like the ability to just DUMP everything into the list and not pre-filter. My mind gets tied up in knots trying to remember this and that. I often wake up in the morning thinking of things that need to be on a list someplace. Now I just pile it on with impunity. We'll see how it works under load.

Mark, thanks for letting us work through this system so interactively.

I agree with Anne Bennett that trying to separate out work and home could be tricky especially if your work is mostly home-based. If your work location is elsewhere I think you would need to take your home list with you to add to as tasks occur to you, still keeping them separate.

I never really got to grips with DIT but I love AF already! Despite being a techie I love the speed, simplicity and portability of a notebook so I rushed out this morning and bought a clean, shiny new one which I duly filled with 29 tasks. To that list I have already done some adding and taking away (doing, not deleting!). I feel distinctly energised by this process.

As a mum, one of my main (very) repetitive tasks is getting other (smaller) people to do things! I'm not sure how this system will cope with that. Perhaps I should go and get a couple more notebooks for the kids and attempt to teach them how to do this...

Very interesting approach. So far I have used a system partly based on paper (daily closed lists), partly on MS Excel (master todo list with priorities and deadlines). I'll give this new system a try right now.
I just wonder about two issues:
* How to organise projects?
* How to ensure that tasks with hard deadlines are actually done latest by that day?

Hi Mark, I must admit I have some initial resistance to Autofocus (could be due to potential change of systems of course). But to me it essentially looks like a to-do list and my initial thought is that urgent items may 'muscle out' non-urgent items.

I'm also not sure about the 'uptake' time of scanning an A4 page regularly and the time taken to select an item to work on.

Then there is the need to carry around and maintain a diary and a notebook when with DIT my tasks go directly into the page of the Task Diary.

What are your thoughts?

Sorry I forgot to mention...my other concern at present is that there seems to be no end to the day (similar to my perceived issue with GTD next actions lists)- if I have got 20 tasks on a 34 lined piece of paper and do I know when I can call it a day both physically and psychologically?

Ok - then to be fair. I'll start with 33 lines per page. I want to stay as close to the plan without having to resort to paper. I can give up a TON for that one little concession. :)

Thanks Mark.

(Marking off "check back with Autofocus forum")

Like Jon who started this post my first reaction was how can this work but I decided to just do what you said and can confirm that for me so far is absolutely works. Like Anne Bennet I had work and home items but did as you suggested and "bunged" everything into the system. I did find that things "jumped out" - and not the items I would have expected and so far I have 3 lists List 1 (32 items) has 16 completed, List 2 (34 items) has 14 completed and List 3 (34 items) has 7 items completed. I am just about to start list 4. What has been interesting to note is that, while completing items my mind has been sharply focusing on "the system" (without my telling it to!) with the result that I can add new thoughts/tasks to it that would have been forgotten, and have found that I am naturally doing some of the tasks even before going back to re-pass through the list. As a MAJOR procrastinator that is astounding.

i was going to wait awhile before sharing my "electronic" thoughts but see that there are already a number of comments. As there are various systems being promoted I will start a separate post for OneNote as that may help others who are particularly interested in that medium.

Mark, I had just discovered DIT a few months ago and love it! So I was excited to read about AF on your website and signed up for beta testing. But I have to admit that my first reaction to AF is ...uh, oh. This so reminds me of the Franklin Planner system...carrying endless todos forward, so that just rewriting your todos becomes a task in itself. And for the few things I accomplish, I am simply overwhelmed by what is still out there. I don't know that I could sift through 9 or 15 pages jammed with tasks with impunity.

I will try it but my internal resistance is high. I think what I'm afraid of losing is that feeling of satisfaction at the end of the day - "ah! look at what I got done" - and that feeling of organization at the beginning of the day, where I know what's on my plate. I'll have no clue when I'm done either. Just stopping at a time on the clock seems so arbitrary.

On the positive side, you are dead right that hard tasks become easy when one is faced with a harder task. As a procrastinator, I can be so productive when there's something horrid on my list that I want to avoid. ;-) I can see how creating that tradeoff on each page of the journal may jog many tasks along. I am also very interested in the idea of balance between rational and intuitive prioritizing. I can easily fill all my time with rational tasks and priorities, yet I find there is more to achieve (enjoy) and more satisfaction in the intuitive, less rigid items. Those are often the ones I push aside for a "perfect" time, which of course never comes.

OK, all soul searching aside, I'm in. I won't promise more than a good try, but I am going to divide my tasks between work and non-work. Otherwise, I can see being jammed up on a page distilled to non-work items ... while I don't want to reject these, I will be increasingly anxious spending any time on them while work items sit unattended.

Here's to structured chaos!

Hi Jean

That was my initial reaction but do just try it ........

Mark that is so encouraging - I can't tell you how amazed I am by the fact that this works as it does. It is almost spooky (can't think of another word for it!!). I couldn't grasp how you were describing how "the system" made decisions in your pre-launch writings but now I get it!!

I'm not getting it. That item that jumps out at me. I'm an Outlook girl. I can print the Personal Folders summary page which gives 50 tasks. I separated them into two groups of 25 each. Maybe it's my perfectionism but no one item screams "do this first". There are times when I'm away from the computer that I choose from the first three or five items on my Treo's task list, do the one or ones that can be done at that moment, singly or as a group. I suppose this is a larger version of that, and as the list gets whittled down it becomes easier to choose. But I don't know what will stop me from NEVER doing certain things, just adding them to the end to work their way through the system again. With paper lists in the past, I have been accustomed to doing items out of order and might re-write and consolidate, but never gave myself permission to skip to the next page. I am going to try, though, because I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this.

Hi Tammy

I too like Outlook (and coincidentally have a Treo) but find that the type of lists you describe do to me exactly as they do to you. There almost seems to be something too clinical for me about Outlook's list (which is why I use OneNote so extensively as it allows me to be more creative and add colour by way of highlights etc to lists). As a major procrastinator I am motivated by "seeing" progress. An Outlook list does not give me personally the visual stimulus I "need" to "see" my progress. I really would recommend trying Mark's system exactly as he describes - I can't explain why but for me it just worked as he said.

Good luck!

I'm encouraged so far; I've gotten seven items knocked off this morning already. I'm still working on identifying the "pull" project, trying to differentiate between the "want to do this" feeling and the "should do this" feeling. I'm worried that I will gravitate towards doing only those tasks that make me feel good, rather than the ones that really need to be done. Although, truth be said, one of the tasks I tackled this morning was one of the ones that needed to get done but I wasn't looking forward to, so maybe I have my own answer... LOL

First day, although it wasn't exactly a working day (my actual vacation only ends on wednesday morning :-)), but this was the first day in this vacation that I have accomplished lots of things that had to be done already at the beginning of it.

So my first impression is good, is even excellent.

What I like about this system, is that it combines the simplicity of DIT but some 'features' of GTD that I kind of missed in DIT. What I liked in the GTD approach was the 'braindump', which also is an important element of AF. And another thing I like was the someday/maybe list, although I did not know very well how to handle it.
But by being able to 'dismiss' and highlight items, I put them on a 'someday-maybe' list, and the fact that it is not on a separate list but is part of the system will make it more likely I'll review them from time to time... I think ;-)...

Another thing: I KNOW that paper and pencil works best for me, but I also do like to play with electronic devises.... But I already figured out I can use my Toodledo-list for actions that are repeating on a non-daily base, and for things that have to be done on a future date. So in the morning (r the previous evening) I can check Toodledo and add the actions for that day to my paper list.

Wow. After one day I have cleared my filing backlog which had been hanging around since November. I don't know why this system prompted me to do it when it has been repeatedly put on my 'will do' list, which for this item always became a 'will don't'. It is wonderful to see an empty filing tray again. This has never been an essential, 'do now' item, but it's been a nasty, messy niggle for a long time.

I've got the idea about locations now - I work at home and at church, but all my work at church is active and on my feet, so it doesn't refer to the list, whereas home is where I do all my preparation, writing etc, so it's sensible to have one notebook (or computer). So having domestic and work tasks mixed up together is no problem, as that's how my life is.

What's encouraging for me is that DIT worked brilliantly for me when I worked in industry where the problem was basically one of capacity - squeezing the maximum work out of the day. Over the past three years I've gone back to university and then into the church and DIT never seemed to work for academic/creative work, to my puzzlement. I used to try to force myself to do stuff using the lists, but it just didn't work.

I think, judging by today, that this will work far better - I understand how it uses the balance between rational and emotional brain to select work.

I have set up Outlook to remind me to put the bins out on Mondays!

Using a spreadsheet is working well, I think because I've set it up to behave just like a notebook with set page lengths.

OK it is almost midnight and I have used the system all day (off and on) and I must say so far so good! I found that there was an almost mystical way in which I knew exactly which task to take on. Things that I would have assumed would not make the grade called out to me and I did them. In part I think because I knew that I could stop at any time if I chose to, though in almost every case I decided to finish the task.

I completed an enormous amount of tasks today and feel great as a result. It has felt to me like a wonderful balance of the inner feminine (intuition) working side my side with the masculine (action).

Let's see how it holds up after a week. I am on the lookout for any sense that it might be working so well because it is NEW and I needed a new way to approach time management.

Christine, I don't need the visual reinforcement, but, for me, 25+ items seems too many from which to choose. I did try to do it today but did not make much progress. Mostly I fought the urge to re-order and re-write the lists, which would have served no purpose at all. I am in the middle of several crises so it is a poor time to evaluate my reactions. But my feeling is that five would be a good number, do them in order of expediency, when you are at a spot where the top five can not be done for whatever reason (time or location), rewrite those at the end. By the way, on my Treo I use MobileClock, set to alarm hourly throughout the work day and when exiting the alarm it brings up the task list - a good time to look at those top five tasks or in this case the first three screens which will usually be 25-30 tasks, depending on how many wrap to a second line.

Wow!

What really strikes me is this is the way I have managed some parts of my life for years. Specifically this is how I manage my email inbox. If it strikes me I read it. If it doesn't I leave it until I have more time or I just delete it. If it is left unread for 3 months or more, it gets deleted without reading because I either already know its contents and can't be bothered or it is so out of date as to be useless. Actually I am trying to make it 1 month, but I don't usually pay that close of attention.

Oh, and as another side note - If I want to use it as a memory jog, I may mark it unread, but then I flag it so I know I read it once already and don't just delete because it is old. I usually use this trick only for dated material though, such as an event I want to remember to go to, so it has a deletion date too.

Now with this system I will try to apply this already proven system to other parts of my life. I look forward to furthering this stategy.

Thanks,

Tom.

Why is reentry such an essential part of the system? I guess I'm missing something here. If I haven't finished something, why cross it off and reenter it? I'd rather be spending my time doing things rather than recopying the same unfinished or repetitive tasks over and over again.

Hard Deadlines:

Mark, you wrote: "Ensuring tasks with hard deadlines are done is a matter of trusting the system. Since the system aims to put the rational and intuitive parts of your mind in balance, factors like urgency are part of what your mind considers when working the system."

Assuming I have 7 pages of tasks and there is one task on page 6 which needs to be finished today by all means, if I start at page 1 I might have reached page 4 by the end of the day (after circulating on each of the first three pages until no items stands out for me) and didn't work on the task with the hard deadline. The solution I'm currently working with is to write the hard deadline to the left of the check-off box and highlight it with a text marker. So I can easily scan for tasks due today.

Rule 7: Dismissing items on a page when no item "stands out"

While I understand the intention of this rule (to get rid of items which are just "sitting around") I have two problems with it:

1. A systematic problem: The more items I check off on a page the higher the likelihood for the remaining items to be dismissed regardless of their importance/urgency compared to items on other pages. Since the positioning of items on certain pages is purely determined by their time of entry I see a systematic problem.

2. Practically (I think this will make my thoughts clearer and less academic): Lets assume I have checked off all but one of the items on a certain page. This item is a very important one and can not be dismissed. My scan shows me that this item can not be acted on, e.g. because I'm at the wrong place (e.g. at home but I need files which are in my office) or because I have to wait for some information I already requested. According to rule 7 I would have to dismiss the item and are not allowed to reenter it. If the same item would be on another page with other outstanding items it would "survive".

Does this mean I'm allowed (actually I would do it anyway) to skip the circulation process and jump to the item on page 6 due today?