Get Everything Done

Am I getting this right? if I have written out 4 pages of items and I start one on page 1 but do not complete it I cross it out and put it at the bottom of page 4?

I believe that is correct. Quick Start point 4 tells us that once we've worked on an item for as long as we feel like, if it's not yet completed, we are to re-enter it at the end of the list.

This is one of my points of confusion after first reading (though I expect it's partly a result of me over-analysing Mark's explanation and common sense would prevail in practice!) - I'm not entirely sure where your focus of attention usually is - the 'last page' you're still adding items to, or the older full pages you're cycling through.

The early part of the instructions says your focus is on the first/oldest list, then you proceed when you've done everything that stands out.

The last part of the instructions says that you don't go back to the first active page until you've finished the last page.

Given that new items keep getting added to the last page, does this mean I keep focus on the new and recent items until I fill the last page and then look back to previous pages, or does the last page (and hence new items), remains 'hidden' from focus until you're ready to get to it? I imagine in real life there's some jumping around between the older 'active' page and the last page with new items, doing urgent items immediately (but still recording them?) and going back to older items on previous active pages?

Maybe the question is: When do you start looking back at older pages, in relation to the partially complete page you're still writing? Or, is there a restart point (say start of each day), when you start from page one again?

That ended up a bit rambling, but I just want to understand where the hard lines are for moving from one page to another.

I think for me the key has been to literally chuck everything into the system rather than analyse it. That has meant that the lists have grown quite quickly, but also that i have done things quite quickly too. I am on my 4th page and have now reviewed the earlier pages several times. Some items I have had to split into smaller items and some have been worked on and relisted. My first list has 13 items left out of an initial 32. Some I am not yet ready to do which I feel ok about. Some of those things were trivial, i.e.empty dishwasher, some were small but essential i.e.call garage (as my car broke down on Saturday) and some were work oriented i.e. scan insurance documents and email to x (2 tasks there).

I think the confusion is related to the fact that undone items are ok - Mark says that a page may take a few days to clear. I am confident that the items I have left will be completed in the next few days. The fact that they are still there after a few passes does not mean that the system is rejecting them - I think Mark is saying that we will instinctively know when an item is being "rejected by the system" by the way we feel about it.

It can be hard to try out an intuitive system when most of what we are taught is based on structure and what convention says should be the way to do things, that conflict between our rational minds and our intuition or sub-conscious.

I really appreciate your précis Christine - it seems spot-on to me. It is often difficult to 'think outside the box' or even 'be outside the box' but how damn liberating it is when we allow this to happen!

Thanks Shelley!

It really is liberating isn't it? Mark has identified an amazing way of escaping from the box!

Thanks Mark/Christine,

Have read it again, and it makes more sense if I visualise it as a quicker process than I originally thought, scanning through the pages several times a day, but then that doesn't sound much like a closed list (there's a maximum number of items per page) if I don't do a task because I know there's something else on a later page I feel more drawn to.

It's *new* items that get generated during the day which I'm concerned about.

If I do make more of an effort to do everything that stands out on a page at a time before continuing, then doesn't that mean that new items that may be 3,4,5 pages ahead at the end of the list, risk getting neglected? I think I'm struggling to break the DIT discipline of urgent/same day/tomorrow and think I'm going to get stuck on early items?

To summarise, if I re-write my daily tasks at the end of the list (say, page 6) then start each day(?) from page 1, if I'm drawn to things on the first few pages, then where does *new* stuff that needs to be done today, go? I know there's the common sense angle, but I'm just trying to make sure I'm not missing a major element of the system.

That bothered me too at first - I wasn't sure when I "was allowed" to move on from doing items on Page 1 to Page 2. I just found that there came a point where, although I knew items on Page 1 would need to be done (and that probably some of those would be done today), it felt ok to move on to Page 2. When I got back to Page 1, after doing numerous items on Page 2 (and by then Page 3) I was easily able to address more Page 1 items without worrying that I would miss something on Page 3.

Keep in mind the fact that the more items are cleared the shorter the page will be, so that where the first actioning of Page 1 may take a couple of hours, subsequent reviews may be a lot quicker. Certainly the scanning of the remaining items is quicker although as Mark says the amount of time spent on any item is up to us.

Well, I have put as item 2 on my list - read Mark's blog and post any comments. I'm doing it now and I'm trusting the system in that I think it's now time to stop reading the blog. I'm going to trust that I'll know when it's time to stop working on any particular item and see if that goes well. I am imagining that I'll never get round to certain disliked but essential tasks - ironing etc. I'll see how it goes.

@Sandy: the household chore I dislike most is ironing... but because I felt this system allowed me to iron just one handkerchief, crossing the chore off and adding it to the end of the list, I could at least start ironing that one handkerchief... and ending with a lot of ironing done.

Stuart G:

You don't start every day at Page 1, you continue where you left off the previous day, so you will catch up with recently added items!