Get Everything Done

My third day on AF and I think it's starting to work. I think the problem was, like others, I had a big backlog of tasks (some of them that really needed broken down into smaller ones) and they all went in on the first few pages, and then as I let my brain run free I added lots of others tasks that came to mind and then at the end came all the urgent bits and bobs (including lots of stuff from poorly organised others with short deadlines!) which were screaming for my attention, rather than the stuff at the start of the notebook, some of which was important and some not, which had been languishing for weeks, or in some cases months, that could well be left for a bit longer with no harm done.

Now I have started to have a lick at some and I have some pages with more items crossed out than not, I see I am progressing thru the pages much more quickly than before. I had not picked up on the fact that I only had to action one item per page before moving on to the next page until I read Mark's blog today! Tasks are being added to the end that are linked to the earlier ones, but much more refined, eg "sort out TM", after a phone call to HR, became "dig out previous letter to TM" and is now "see KL re TM's work progress". I think this system really kicks in once it has been running for a few days and then it starts going like a well oiled machine. Time will tell.

I'm interested that some people have had difficulties with AF for not being a closed list, - what I *really* like about this system is everything that needs done goes on the list, and when it is done, it gets crossed out, so unlike before when I looked at my closed list at the end of a day and felt terrible about how little I had achieved, I now have a record of all the things I have done (crossed out), many of which that were not in the book at the beginning of the day! So I am not having that awful combined feeling of overwhelm and feeling useless at achieving so little - instead I feel in control and proud of how I'm doing!

Another great thing about AF is it actively demonstrates when you are trying to do too much and have too many commitments. There it is in black and white in front of me - pages and pages of my overcommitted, oversubscribed life. Brilliant evidence of why I should say "no" more often!

I haven't highlighted anything so far as I feel its too early in the process. There is a lot of stuff not crossed out on my first two pages but I think they are items that need either refined or projects that need broken down into smaller tasks.

I think I'm starting to get the hang of it too and have had a similar experience to Carole. Interestingly, one thing really stands out after 3 days - I've just noticed that I've dismissed all the work-related reading tasks that are randomly scattered across the pages. I didn't think about why I was dismissing them at the time, I just decided that these tasks were something I could come back to at some point later on. Now I think about it more deeply I can't remember the last time I read more than the odd short article - which is terrible. If I take nothing else away from AF and revert to DIT next week at least I now know that I need to make some more time to keep up to date with my reading.

DIT is terrific but I tend to turn the page on my task diary each day and ignore what's gone before, but the constant movement through the list has made me think more deeply about what I'm doing and why. I've added "Analyze the whole list on Friday afternoon" to my list to see what other things might show up.

Yes it does demonstrate quite clearly what gets done and what doesn't, thereby showing how different tasks are being balanced - a weekly review sounds good. I was thinking also of putting a date next to the task when it was completed, and highlighting it completely in a standout colour once the whole task/project has been completely knocked on the head.

I've started adding a date of completion of each page at the top so I can see how long it takes to finish a page but I like the idea of dating each task.