Get Everything Done

Hi Mark,

With my volume of work, I am really starting to like AF! I will keep you and all posted, but I think this system may be what I have been looking for in a long time!

Best wishes,
-David

Hi David

Glad to hear you're perservering with it and it's finally clicking for you.

I have a very different work life and environment to you (I work from home - part time gardener and part time artist) so with my more flexible life I found it clicked for me straight away. But with your work I can see that it would take a while to feel comfortable moving from the more structured DIT approach to the more free flowing, intuitive approach of Autofocus.

Good luck and I hope you continue to like it. I've always enjoyed reading your posts so it would have been a shame if you'd not climbed on board the Autofocus train!

Thanks, Hannah! I enjoy your posts as well. I can say that I have had the most productive and stress-free morning using AF! The more I use this, the more I like it!

-David

David

Just to satisfy my curiosity, what caused your change of heart?

In one of your previous posts "AF is very much like GTD" you were less than happy with Autofocus but you are now keen. What changed? The main reason I ask is that what worked for you may work for someone else - plus I'm nosey about stuff like this!

Hi Hannah,

I guess my first reaction was simply due to the shock of such a new system. There are some similarities to GTD, but this is much better! Now that I have been using it fore three days now, I love the flexibility and yet there is also the closed list structure.

Mark...AF is outstanding and so far is handling all of my workload! Sorry for the initial criticism....I AM BACK!!

David

Hi David, Mark and others

Yes, the beneficial similarity to GTD that I like is the sense of capturing everything. However, unlike GTD, the system itself is simple to set up and simple to use.

Although I found reading David Allen's GTD book initially quite fascinating, I tried it for all of about 2 hours or so. I very soon realised that getting the system up and running was going to take over my days and that just didn't seem sensible or feel right!

With DIT I did initially find it increased my productivity immensely but for my way of life I found it too restrictive as I can't always predict how my day will pan out (weather dependent work which can change at a moment's notice - i.e. if it pours with rain). So it was quite dispiriting when I hadn't predicted correctly what I would be able to achieve over a period of a few days and my will do list turned out to be a didn't do list. In the end I just reverted to a rather drifting system of loose lists used as and when I felt the need which was never very satisfactory.

Autofocus though is fantastic for my way of life. By its very nature it is so flexible - if an item can't be done at the time I view it or my day changes unexpectedly I just choose a different item from my pages. Now I've started wizzing through my pages much quicker the routine/daily tasks are getting done and much more regularly than before.

All in all I'm finding the new system great. I just love the way you can throw "anything" at it and the system just lets it get dealt with at just the right time - and for just the right amount of time. I get to choose but in a way that feels so intuitive. Previously the various aspects of my life seemed to be in opposition to each other. Now though it all fits together brilliantly and I'm mixing tasks from all different areas without even thinking about it.

Thanks Mark - it's great.