Get Everything Done

I was fascinated, stimulated and discouraged by the stats that were being posted in the thread 'Share Your Stats', started by Lynn, and I was disappointed to see the thread derailed by off-topic posts - even though those posts came from some of the forum's stars! So can we try again in this thread, and keep posts here to the point? Just numbers and discussion of those numbers. (Sorry if I sound grumpy in my first contribution to the forum!)

Necessary background (so much for conciseness!):
- I'm self-employed and work at home, and I try to work in office hours of 9 to 5, Monday to Friday.
- I keep AF lists on my smartphone. A "page" is defined by the date on which an item is entered. I have no problem with this. (If anyone wants a lengthy discussion of this, *please* start a new thread!)

* I started AF on 26 February with a list for non-work activity - call it AF/general.

* I started a separate AF/work list on 3 March, just for non-scheduled work activity - I retain a calendar for the scheduled stuff.

* I also keep an AF/urgent list for things that have no due date but are time-sensitive - such as replying to a friend's email, or for reading related to current projects.

Since I occasionally redefine or reposition tasks, or generally mess up, numbers are approximate:

* AF/general: 44 items went into the first page. 8 days later the page was closed, with 43 tasks done and 1 dismissed.
- 50 items went into the 2nd page (dated 27 Feb). I'm still on it. In the 12 days of working on that page, 43 tasks have been done (and, of course, none dismissed).
- the 18 later pages have 184 tasks spread over them.

* AF/work: 37 tasks went into day 1 - and after 15 days, I'm still on it. 32 tasks have been done, 10 remain - as I said, numbers are approximate!
- another 43 tasks are spread over the remaining 14 pages.

You can see why I cling to my calendar schedule - I sometime despair of working through all my AF pages.

This may seem like very low productivity, but bear in mind:

* Most of my money-earning work is on the calendar.
* There are many repetitive daily non-work activities (exercise, writing a short story,...) that also go on the calendar.
* I'm getting faster. I'm getting better at knocking tasks off the page by chipping at them with quick actions. Maybe I'm gaming the system, but I think the actions are constructive.

I feel freer thanks to AF and - you might find it hard to believe - more productive, and I'm sticking with the system.

Chris C - you *do* sound kinda grumpy :-) - but I understand your frustration. It's especially hard for someone new to the site, and all these people seem to kind of know each other and their situations. I think it's a natural phenomenon though to go off topic in a forum like this. (You even did it to yourself in your post above.) Someone says something and it twigs something else - where do you comment on it where it will be seen other than on that page?
Ahhh - forums would be great if it weren't for all the people...
Having said that, I updated my stats on the original stats post - pretty succinctly if I do say so myself!

Also wanted to say that sometimes I think people will go off-tangent when it seems that the solutions for the person asking the question get answered. If they haven't been, they can do what I do and start a new post - like you did, I've done this lots of times, maybe just rephrasing my question so it's clearer what my difficulty is. Or do like I did in updating my stats on the original post - bring it back on-line within that post. Shorter postings without lots of comments are easier to read and respond to, so that's probably a better solution.
And cut us some slack, lots of us (I'm just a newb at this) - haven't been big posters before (too busy doing stuff) but are moved by AF enough that we want to share our experiences.

When I first started out I mixed work and personal in one list... I ended up separating them w/in one book, working from the front and the back. So, since that switch on 14 February, we have...

Personal pages:
11 closed, 0 dismissed, 4 active. Active pages are ~78% complete. New page opened roughly every 2-3 days. Average time from opening to closing (including reviewing dismissed tasks): 7-10 days. I usually do NOT succeed in “touching” every personal page every day, and there are a number of repeated tasks on there (laundry appears at least once on every page, packing bags and making lunches to take to school/work are done and re-added every day).

Work pages:
7 closed, 1 dismissed (6 items), 3 active. Active pages are ~77% complete. New page opened roughly every 2-3 days. Average time from opening to closing (including reviewing dismissed entries): 7-10 days. I succeed in “touching” every work page at least once per workday, more often 2 or three times.