Get Everything Done

AF is working for me really well at work, now. I was slightly overwhelmed at the start, mainly I think because I dumped my whole electronic todo list in the system including a few might-be-nice-one-day-ers and some awful jobs I had been procrastinating for so long they made me feel ill to look at them. That is why my early pages are littered with horrid jobs that in the next few passes will be broken down into slightly more palatable tasks. And I feel I have more capacity to tackle them because with AF my everyday workload is getting under control.

I did a quick look at the stats for so far. I wish I had dated jobs as I crossed them off as I had originally intended, as this info would have shown whether the number of tasks I did each day increased ( as was my perception) or stayed the same, but once the momentum got going it just seemed like too much bother!

I started off on day 1 with 86 tasks, consisting of work tasks from my PDA todo list plus a few others that came to me as I went aong nd some moere that came in on the day. on days 2-5 inclusive I added between 30-40 tasks per day. Today, day 6, I added 55 but this was in part because I did a review and also because I had a meeting that lots of actions came out of. So, in total that is 280 tasks. By close of play today I had completed 143 tasks! Wow. interestingly, most of the jobs added on days 2 and 3 are gone, as are about half of the tasks enterd on days 4 and 5. The first day entries are languishing because as I said, they are the tough ones, but even so about half of those are gone too. Interestingly, the tasks at the end of the list are more precise, bite sized tasks and not hulking great elephant like some at the beginning! So I may feel like I am completing more tasks, but individually they are much more manageable.

The home list is not going quite so well, 155 items and only 36 completed. this was because I was coming home exhausted sowas too tired to do stuff in the evening (and it was the first week back at work after a two week break) and I had a busy weekend in terms of kids extra curricular activities which left me little free time then. But I am reasonably confident that when I get my work life balance sorted out again I will make some inroads into this list too.

Hi Carole

Don't forget to break some of those 1st page elephants into bite sized chunks. That'll clear some early items, replace them with more palatable ones, and give you more (auto)focus.

Thanks Christine, yes I think that breaking them down is the key. Some of the items on the first page I know I really *don't* want to do, but I also know i will *have* to tackle them in the very near future as they are pretty critical!

It's amazing how some of those crtical nasties can be progressed in small steps. It's unrealistic to think we can just ignore them and the fact is that anyone starting AF with a backlog *is* going to have some of those things that really *do* have to be done.

I have one major headache task that is still a problem - I started AF with a job that has a deadline but which realistically speaking was impossible for me to achieve. As there are consequences of not achieving it that is an issue! However AF did not make it jump out. I want to panic but "feel" I needn't. My rational mind says that is irresponsible - and reminds me of Mark's "common sense" admonitions. My intuition says "let AF sort it out". As the days have gone by, whilst small things relating to that task have been brought to mind and actioned or relisted, the task overall has not significantly progressed. What I have found however, and what has amazed me, is that I am now finding ideas to resolve the matter that don't involve meeting that deadline. The fact was that I could not meet the deadline, not in any way, any how. Therefore, regardless of how much I did to try to meet that deadline, I could not do it. AF (my intuition) when being free to look at the fact that the real answer was to be found not in "I must do x" but rather "I must find a solution to x despite being unable to meet the deadline" has come up with some very interesting and different solutions. I am not panicking (despite that voice that say "you should panic!") I am interested myself to see how this ultimately pans out. The work does still need to be done, but I am finding ways that will progress it more quickly and can look forward to doing it without all of the associated stress. Just need to resolve that deadline issue ....... :-)

Thanks Christine, I've found something similar. No productivity system can give you more than 24 hours/day (-sleep) to make an impossible deadline. I've been finding AF has really helped me lighten up on what is actually a deadline, making me realise that many are set arbitrarily and cause stress and procrastination. Instead it's helped me to focus on consistently moving forward.