Get Everything Done

I write just to congratulate you for your enthusiasm with personal management tools.

I will be glad to contribute.

I just have one question that I will duplicate to the discussion forum for your convenience:

The method says:

"... If you go to a page and no item stands out for you on your first pass through it, then all the outstanding items on that page are dismissed without re-entering them. Use your highlighter to mark dismissed items. ..."

But, what I don't understand is: what happens if I have items in a page in where no item stands out on my first pass, but they are still important and I plan to do them later (maybe tomorrow or next week)? The method say that I have to dismiss*all* the page, that way I will "loose" all the items by dismissing them, I think?

Can you clarify a little more, please?

Mark:

Thank you for your response.

I has happened, if I understand the System well.
I use a small / medium size notebook and write many items.

In the example of a Page with a long list of books to read:
If today you are not planning to read any of those books, then the system stipulates that you have to *dismiss* all the page.

But, what happens, say, next week when it is time to read your next book? It would no longer be *available* in your list, because it has been dismissed!

As I understand, this can happen frequently even without a large list of book.
For example: I can write things like schedule a meeting, work on the garden, update my web page, post this question, go visit a relative, balance my checkbook, make a full backup, ask for information for a future vacation, review my expenses, finally buy that bicycles (to start doing exercise with my wife), ...

As you can see, in any given day is probable that *none* of those items can be (or not need, or is not practical) done, maybe because they are not urgent or there are other items *in other pages* that need more attention.

On the other hand, what happens with a useful item that is "buried" between a list of relative unimportant ones? For example, an important item that happen to be between the list of books to read (then the useful item) and the list of CDs to buy.

Thank you again for your time,

Spencer

In a variation on the "in any given day is [possible] that *none* of those items can be .. done" -
Every day I have to do X - it takes up most of my day.
What I have been doing is I cheat with the list and keep adding "X" to the first page until I've crossed everything else off the list - which stage I havent reached yet.
Probably not helpful to you, but I thought I'd post it here as it is related to subject here

Also, throwing out an idea re books and CDs-
you could add:-
"Make list of books to read" - but make that list elsewhere so as not to clutter this one - you could always use it as a bookmarker lol !
then when that's done, write:-
"Read first book on list" at the end of the list

That will free up space

Thank again you for your replies.

I like the idea of the "Read first book on list" ;)

I now understand, Mark, that normally and item has *a lot* of opportunities to get "actioned" before it gets dismissed.

But, if your notebook pages are short, it is not difficult that in any given day a particular page does not have any actionable item.

What doesn't quite feel right is: why any given page has to be dismissed because if one *single* day no items on it are actionable?

Maybe, they can be labeled "Dormant" or it is related to the GTD "Some Day" items.

In the example, the fact that "had been multiple occasions on which I could have taken action on the dismissed task" means that the neighbor items (on the same page) were actionable.

But, since the items are stored in no particular order, it is almost aleatory to dismiss any given page only of the basis of its particular combination of items.

If by chance any day no items on that page are actionable, *all* items in that page will be dismissed. What if just the next day some of them would be actionable? They would be "lost" because of the dismissal.

Sincerely,

Spencer

I don't get the dismiss the whole page thing, either.

Spencer and Trevor

A vital aspect of Autofocus is that you keep all of your items reasonably fresh in your mind. Hence if you start finding nothing on pages that is actionable then you are beginning to use your list as a graveyard that you will soon want to stop visiting.

If you do no more than read the first page of one book on your list then you cross that item off, re-enter it on the last page and thus you are free to move on to the next page in you list.

Why not use your desire to move on to the next page as a motivation to at least do one small thing on an unattractive page. That way you are keeping the whole system alive and breathing.

The point here is that you only need to do as much as you want / need / feels right to do on any given task. So add that "read War and Peace" to the latest page. Then the first time you worry it'll get dismissed, simply do some small action on it: either buy a copy, or go find it on your shelf. One step forward. Cross it off, add to new latest page.

Next time you get to it and risk crossing it off, then if the time's still not right to actually read a chunk, then do something little. Find a bookmark to put in it. Read the back cover to remind yourself why you wanted to read it. Bend the spine back a bit, so next time you look, it looks less new and shiny and daunting. It only has to be something little.

And if you keep doing something to help move you towards the actual reading, then it'll always be on a page with other stuff, waiting for the inspired to read it moment, or, in time, end up alone (or with similarly stalled tasks) again. Eventually, you'll either find you're on that page at a time that feels right for sitting down to chapter one, or you'll say to yourself "this clearly isn't exciting me right now. It's off the list until I feel otherwise."

Little and often. Big projects in baby steps. My to-do list has more scary big things on it now, because I dared to put them there. I like that. One of the scariest, 'Tax return' feels really big, even though past experience says it's less painful to do than to worry. Still, deadline is 31st Jan and I hadn't touched it until today . But it's been on my list for 3 days now, and today, I found all my receipts and put them into a folder. I didn't scare myself witless by trying to do any more. So it's off page one, and on a later page, awaiting me being brave enough to put those in date order. One day soon I'll have to do the maths, but in gentle steps, I wont risk dismissing it, or end up sobbing myself to sleep over it!

Gill,

That was some beautiful writing. Thanks.

Since you've expressed the workings of the system so nicely, I am curious if you have many recurring tasks and what your experience with them has been so far.

moises

Nice job Gill! The little (really little sometimes) and often principle is one of the biggest keys to the system. Well said.

Gill,

Your thoughts remind me of "the 72 houres rule" from Bodo Schafer. He says that if you want to get something done you should do something / anything of that task (even if it is just a minor action) within 72 hours. I want to stress the importance of just doing something of a task on a more or less regular basis, ideed to keep it flowing through the system.

That's how to eat an elephant, on bit at a time.

Thank you, Mark, for your explanation. The "The items are not lost. They are still on the page, marked with highlighter ..." part _released_ my feeling about "loosing" items. I think it could be like if dismissing them is like tagging them as "Maybe Some Day".

Thank you, Gill for your great response.

I think the issue is that I now use my To Do list as a graveyard, as Jim pointed, or as a "Some Day" or "It would be nice" because I want to "unload" them from my mind.

Thank you again.

Allow me to think out loud here a moment.

Per the instructions, I work on a page and action individual entries round and round on that page until nothing stands out. Then I go to the next page. At this point, when leaving the original page, I do not need to dismiss the remaining items yet, since the lack of stand-outs didn't occur on t my "first pass" at the page. Only if I come back to the page after cycling through ALL pages, would I dismiss the remaining items, but only if I decided to not do anything on any of them (i.e. the latest first pass on that page).

I do not need to dismiss remaining items just because I'm ready to move onto the next page, right? Only if I loop back to that page later on and find nothing of interest, then I would dismiss the open items.

I feel there is a misconception out there that if you want to leave a page on your first visit to it, you have to dismiss whatever is leftover on the current page, and the directions don't support that idea. Or, if I'm the one with the misconception, then "first pass" needs to be elaborated on in the instructions.

BTW, Gill's comment above really connected the dots for how AF rewards "little and often" by encouraging any little action to be able to move a task forward (in life and on the pages). If I don't want to lose the task to dismissal, just do some small action on it and reenter at the end. I feel this should be called out better in the Beta Instructions as well. It was a big a-ha moment for me that I did not get from the Mark's original email.

Thank you, Brian.-