Get Everything Done

Hi everyone, just asking if anyone out there has experience using DIT with Your Best Year Year (Jinny Ditzler)...any tips appreciated!

Hi Leon,
I've worked through BYY a few times to develop goals and would have the following recommendations:
- don't use the aspect of roles if it doesn't really work for you, I'd use areas of life such as financial, career, hobbies, physical, fun, relationship, family, friends, community, spiritual, mental etc. - pick areas that resonate with you
- I never found developing a general statement for my life to be that valuable - YMMV
- it's pretty hard to focus on developing 10 goals and working on all of them in a year, some areas are probably working well in your life because you're doing something automatically in those areas. I'd start with 2-3 goals and just sprinkle in a few tasks once in awhile on the others
- just because you may be strong in one area on her wheel of life doesn't mean that's an area you shouldn't working on this year and just because you're low in one area doesn't mean you should be or want to be working on that area

Let us know how you make out once you've sat down with the book, it's very good for a starter book on developing goals and priorities and is very motivating without being rah rah.

To work on your goals with a process like AF, I would personally consciously look at the written goals once a week and put tasks related to them in my AF list. That's the only issue I have with AF - that I think you can put major focus on minor things if you don't do something similar. I've found that something like cleaning the house - because it's in my face - easily gets onto the list and those tasks can overwhelm the list and take up much more of my time than I want them to.

Thanks Jacqueline,

I have used YBYY before with some success. Some of the 'problem' goals were too vague and not measurable enough. I moved away from this approach when I took up GTD, which is very 'bottom up'. The problem for me with this (like AF) is, like you say, small things seem to demand more attention than they merit...everything seems to become important. I'll see how it goes and will try to feedback.

Jacqueline,

Spot on. All of this stuff about "roles" and "balancing" life is just so much new age woo-woo. The most productive people in history have been very unbalanced ... sometimes in more ways than one ;-) While I agree that being monomaniacal can have undesirable consequences, I don't think that focusing on balance is sensible either.

Mike

"While I agree that being monomaniacal can have undesirable consequences, I don't think that focusing on balance is sensible either. "

LOL - What an interesting sentence .... :-)

Leon, I think you can make pretty much ANY goal into something measurable and specific even though the meta goal may not be so.
For instance, say you decide your goal is something as vague as "have more fun". Some could say you can't really measure if you have fun or not - but you could turn this goal into sub-goals that ARE measurable - eg. go out with friends once a week, go gambling once a month, take an adventurous holiday. Do one fun thing every day and you will definitely meet your goal of "have more fun".

Mike, I am torn on this subject as I am happiest when I am just very slightly "unbalanced" - not too much, more feeling passionate about something rather than completely neglecting all other areas of my life in pursuit of one thing - and I've done that on many occasions. When it veers over into more than slightly unbalanced, I can feel my selfish, neurotic side kicking in, and that's not who I want to be.
I guess I don't aspire to being one of the most productive people who ever lived. I want happy kids, good friends, fulfilling work, to learn and grow.

Having said the above, Andrew Carnegie said - and I believe the "secret" in Think and Grow Rich is:

"Here is the prime condition of success - the great secret. Concentrate your energy, thought and capital exclusively upon the business on which you are engaged. Having begun in one line, resolve to fight it out on that line, to lead in it: adopt every improvement, have the best machinery and know the most about it. This is the great secret."

I've read a couple of biographies written about Carnegie, and he was very driven. I believe that if one puts even 25% of the energy in that people like him put in, we will be successful in our endeavours. Why? Because most people don't even put in 5%.

I have, over several years, become a total non-fan of the notion of the "personal mission statement". It's a silly idea that seems predicated on some sort of theological or astrological notions which don't appear to have a lot to do with real life...

Jacqueline,

As usual, you have hit the nail on the head ;-)

It all comes down to what one wants out of life. I also don't aspire to be the absolute best in the history of human kind in any one particular thing. I rather aspire to enjoy my life as much as possible. For ME this means doing many different things, but I don't see "balance" as any part of that.

To me "balance" means that one has to devote equal (or almost equal) energies to all areas of one's life ... and worse, those areas are usually dictated by others. I'm thinking of the religiously oriented writers like Stephen Covey, here. He has all of these "roles" and that comes right out of his bible ... or church hymnal ;-)

One example of how I differ in this: I have a wife who I love more than life itself. HOWEVER, I don't have any Coveyesque "role" such as "husband". Rather, I focus as much energy as my intuition tells me is required to may my wife happy. Basically, I have found that if I am happy and fulfilled then I can do my best to make others happy. Therefore I do what makes me happy and I'm cheerful when she walks in the door and I don't have to consult any list or planner to know that if I make her a good dinner she will be thrilled. I also don't have any list item to tell me to ask her about her day and be a good listener. I also know that she loves to go to a movie now and then so I plan to do that when it pops into my head. She loves to sleep in on Saturday and is very happy that I take her car in for service while she does that. None of this has anything to do with my "planning" to live a balanced life .. it is driven by trying to be happy in the life I live. And, as in the song from "Chicago" goes ... "If you are good to mama, then mama'll be good to you!" LOL ;-)

And hopefully the above will explain my point about trying to be neither monomaniacal nor balanced. I am, perhaps, more multimaniacal ;-)

But Mike, you wouldn't have that role/goal on your list because it sounds like it comes naturally to you. But what about the guy whose wife has just given him that "I'm not happy with the relationship" talk - that guy has to make a conscious effort (assuming he wants to keep her) and probably do some things that don't naturally occur to him to do. Scheduling the picking up flowers, scheduling the movie, planning the special dinner.

Just like I don't have "be a good mom" type goals on my list of goals, because I AM a good mom naturally, yet it's probably my most important role. It's when things aren't working the way you want them to that you apply the focus. For instance, I don't have relationship goals right now, because I simply don't want to bother right now. But next year, I probably will want to make a goal of that and go about it in a conscious and somewhat systematic manner.

Jacqueline,

I agree with you.

Analogously, there are people who do not need AF. They make a simple list and, intuitively and efficiently, work it. As you write, "it comes naturally."

For the rest of us, for whom it doesn't come naturally, goal planning has its role.

For the last few years I have set myself annual goals for the total number of minutes I spend with my son during weeknight evenings. It might sound cold and calculating to some, but it has helped my relationship with my son. I often get home late, tired, and hungry. Unless I make a conscious effort, with appropriate monitoring and documentation, I will get into a habit of spending time with him almost entirely on weekends.

By logging the time I spend with him each night, I stay aware of something that others might do naturally, but takes real effort on my part.

If I hadn't done YBBY, or some other kind of annual plan, I don't think I would have set myself that goal. I do agree with Mike's (and Mark Forster's) larger point that there is no necessary virtue in setting oneself separate annual goals for each "role."

Mark Forster has also made the point, in another thread, that there is no real need to create one's plan in one fell swoop. Rather, he argues, it is preferable to create goals on a more ad hoc basis as a need for them arises.

I don't have strong feelings about this one way or another. I have been doing annual plans for about 4 years now. I can't say that I've accomplished all the goals I've set myself. I do feel, however, that the process has been beneficial and I plan on doing it again this year at the end of May.

Mike, LOL at the "New Age Woo Woo." I've posted before about my agreement that the whole goal per role thing hasn't worked for me. However, I have succeeded in most of my goals this year. I like to have goals for different time periods. I come up with goals for the school year, goals for the new year, and goals for the summer.

The AF list can really help you identify goals that don't work. For example, one of my YBYY goals for this year was to get several years' worth of digital photos tagged and purged. Boy is that ever a fun thing to do for hours on end. LOL I have worked on it a few times on my AF list, but not much. What I ended up doing instead was creating a photobook for my dh's 50th birthday. I ended up tagging every good photo with him in it. Not a goal I had until a couple of weeks before I did it, but I learned that the project approach is a much more practical way for me to tag photos. I learned that not by deep introspective woo-woo, but by noticing what I actually DID.

Jacqueline,

But I don't see that as balancing life according to roles. If the wife has "that talk" with him, then he is now "tasked" ... or perhaps has been assigned a "project". And I have no problem treating that like any other project or task, if that is what it takes. What I don't see is having a "role" ... I don't have no stinkn' roles ;-)

The very idea of roles comes so much from religious tyranny that I'll have nothing at all to do with it. I am not assigned my place in this life ... I choose it. And having chosen it, I assign MYSELF tasks and projects to get me where I WANT to go ... not to make some religious nut job happy because I have fulfilled his expectations about how the universe should work.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it ;-)

Mike, I wasn't thinking so much of a role as a goal. YBYY just borrowed fairly heavily from Covey and he in turn borrowed the quadrant time management grid from an American president (I can't recall who this was - maybe Eisenhower?) I'm not American - and definitely not Mormon! I'm just a plain old atheist who believes in letting other people have their own beliefs as long as they're not hurting anyone. :-) They're just using parts of people's existing life structure to outline in what areas people should focus on to look for goals that are relevant to them.

I have always found the contradiction interesting when considering that Covey had 9 children but was gone from home 75% of their growing up years putting on seminars. And that Wayne Dyer was an alcoholic at one point (I'm really not a fan of his at all, but just bringing up the fact that what the TM gurus say and what they do seems to be so contradictory - which doesn't help the people who think they're failures because they're not like them).

And David Allen is/was a follower of that weirdo John-Roger and spent time in a mental hospital getting heroin kicked and is still a minister of a cult organization:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-10/ff_allen?currentPage=all

But sometimes it's necessary to separate the message from the messenger. I'm not a Stoic, but I've found incredible value in Marcus Aurelius' writings.

The guy who's found out he's going to be fired from the "job" of husband probably has more than a project or a task in front of him. He's got a pretty simple goal of "make my wife happy." (Although probably not simple given that women are not particularly straight-forward.)

Moises has a very good point that goals should be not rigidly adhered to but adhoc as situations come up. I just like to start the year off right and like to reflect on the larger picture over Christmas because it's a large chunk of time, I'm in a positive mood, focused on kids and family and what makes me happy without the career and busyness clouding my mind. Then I review again over my birthday because I always take that week off and I'm in that mindspace where I realize I'm one year older and not immortal and feel compelled to focus on things I don't want to regret not having done while I was able.

moises, I don't think it's calculating at all to make measurable something that you have a problem doing naturally. I have "do fun thing with Marc" on my AF list because I'm good with the spending time together daily, but it's the times I played cards with my parents that I remember being close to them.

Jacqueline,

There is a lot in your post, so I'll address it one point at a time ...

Covey: Yes he borrowed it from Eisenhower, and I'm not sure where he got it from. These things are seldom unique to anyone who did not live in the Mediterranean area 5,000 years ago ;-)

Yeah, I'm just a plain old atheist who prefers to let people live according to their own calculations as well. And I also observe the hypocrisy of David Allen, Stephen Covey, Anthony Robbins, any politician ;-) and I certainly agree that the message is more important than the messenger. That said, if the messenger is not a shining example, I do look more critically at the message. One has to, no? There are reasons why people do and say things and if there is a disconnect, I want to investigate why. That a person cheats on his wife or is in and out of rehab does not mean that their advice to have goals is wrong ... of course not. But it is still wise to tread cautiously.

As to my specific comment about Covey and roles, that really sets off my alarms because at the very core of it is the notion that one does not have choice in life. I simply can't buy the idea that I play a "role" without noting that roles are written for actors who play them without input into the creative process. It is just the wrong terminology which reflects a VERY wrong idea which leads to a VERY VERY wrong mindset, IMO. In order to live to ones highest goals, one has to choose them and know why. Roles tend to control goals ... assigned slots in life tend to prevent us from reaching our potential.

Stoic: I don't identify myself with any movement or group or even philosophy. I see things of value in very opposite philosophies and take what makes sense. Obviously I am more "at home" with some than others, but my application for membership would be rejected by any of them because I'd refuse to follow all of the rules ;-) I think the stoics were on to something, but the hedonists also had a few good ideas. Plato said some useful things and so did Aristotle, but the application of them depends more on circumstance.

Wife: The guy has a goal, and the project is how the goal is attained. I'm pretty straight forward in my usage of the terms project, goal, milestone, task, outcome, etc. Granted, there is some hazy usage about some of them but mostly they can be used clearly enough. One first sets a goal, clarifies it with a specific outcome, that defines a project which is clarified by a plan to carry out activities or tasks measured by certain milestones all of which lead one to the goal. It does not matter if it is making the wife happy or building an aircraft carrier ... only the scope and resources vary.

Now here is where I differ quite a bit ... ad hoc and goals are pretty much opposite notions. Goals, by their very nature are planned ... which is the opposite concept of ad hoc. Whatever you do ad hoc is not necessarily bad, but it is absolutely not a "goal". Goals require measurable outcomes and a plan with milestones. It might be simple and more informal like: "I'll go to the ball game next Saturday". A goal like that is very informal and the various parts of the "project" are pretty obvious and require very little thinking. But it has all of the bits as well. You know the outcome (you'll be watching the game and eating dogs and drinking beer), you know the milestones (you know when you need to get there and when you need to leave and when you have to order tickets), you know the tasks (get dressed in the togs of your favorite team; get into the car; drive there; etc.). Projects and goals are not identified by size or complexity but by their purpose.

I think you believe that as well. When you agree that goals are ad hoc but you like to reflect on the "big picture", you are in something of a contradiction. You obviously do plan and you do believe that goals do require plans. You also do respond to life's challenges ad hoc, as do we all. BUT, the ad hoc is what derails our goals and plans. If we let the ad hoc control us then we do not reach our goals. All writers in this area say that, one way or another. Mark's system is very much bottom up (which is likely to be weighted toward the ad hoc) and yet I have no doubt that he is a big planner. I think it is useful to distinguish and to realize that while it is necessary to respond to life's ad hoc demands, we have to keep those things at bay so we get to LIVE our lives.

Calculating: Well, yes it IS calculating ... but what is wrong with that? There is some kind of infection in this culture that is biased against thinking. If we "calculate" we are somehow not being "authentic". Crap! Utter crap! I'm listening to someone play the Bruch Scottish Fantasy right now ... it is sublime. The violinist is exquisite and "authentic". Does anyone seriously think that she did not spend countless hours over many years "calculating" ... playing scales, studying theory, practicing endlessly? Crazy nuts. It takes tons of calculating hard work to get to be "natural" and "authentic" in any endeavor. There is damn little in life that just comes naturally ... mostly just eating and procreating. And, going by the plight of our fictitious guy ... even the latter benefits by just a bit of thought ;-)

A.N. Whitehead was an interesting character - mathematician, philosopher, theologian - here's one of his excerpts on specialization


The dangers arising from this aspect of professionalism are great, particularly in our democratic societies. The directive force of reason is weakened. The leading intellects lack balance. They see this set of circumstances, or that set; but not both sets together. The task of co-ordination is left to those who lack either the force or the character to succeed in some definite career. In short, the specialised functions of the community are performed better and more progressively, but the generalised direction lacks vision. The progressiveness in detail only adds to the danger produced by the feebleness of co-ordination.

We are left with no expansion of wisdom and with greater need of it. Wisdom is the fruit of a balanced development. It is this balanced growth of individuality which it should be the aim of education to secure. The most useful discoveries for the immediate future would concern the furtherance of this aim without detriment to the necessary intellectual professionalism.

— A. N. Whitehead

I have no specific life goals etc that I use to decide tasks, but I do use tags.

I enter tasks as they appear to need entering. When I review the page, I tag the untagged. The tags include family, each member of the family, house, garden, relaxation etc I don't specifically do anything because of the tags (though I might want to look at garden tasks if I'm going to do some work in the garden because the weather is nice), but it does, I think, improve my subconscious perception of the balances in what I am actually doing. And if someone or something is not getting enough time, I WILL deliberately look for extra things to add.

Mike, why do you see roles as being assigned? I understand why people didn't like the choose a goal for each of your roles thing from YBYY. But roles IMO still allow for choice. I am a sister, for example, but I don't "play" that role with one of my brothers by choice. I think of roles as merely descriptive, not prescriptive. Someone telling me what my goals should be within those roles is prescriptive, however, I am under no obligation to take on those goals. I see the notion not as coercive, but as communicative. Without using this term, how can we talk about balancing one's life? Or setting goals? These authors have to use some kind of framework for communicating their ideas to those who want to hear them.

As for hypocrisy, I haven't found a perfect person yet. If the ideas have any merit, I'm willing to entertain them. If I found out, for example, that Mark Forster was way behind on meeting deadlines and paying bills and that he was a cold, angry father (none of which I believe are true btw), I wouldn't stop using AutoFocus. In my experience, the principles behind it are true, even if the one espousing them isn't completely true to it. It's true, I may be more suspect, especially if the author isn't forthcoming with their own failings.

Didn't Mark suggest that a good way to find direction is to look at what you have actually done over a period of time, analyse what that tells you and think about how you build on that?

Absolutely no chance of finding the post now: it sank into The Morass weeks ago.

ChristineB: help??

Hi Mel,

A problem can develop when using metaphor when thinking. "Roles" are part of the "life as performing in a play" metaphor. If we realize that it is only a metaphor and that the metaphor can have restrictions on reasoning, we can abandon the metaphor and look it the situation directly.

Life is not a "play". We do not "act" in it ... we live it. If we were "actors" then we would indeed have "roles" and, as we know, the "roles" in the "play" are written be others, not chosen by the actors. So my refusing to characterize the choices I make in my life as "roles", I am forced to consider why I am choosing them and what constraints those choices put on others I make. For example: I am married but do not have a "role" as a husband. "Husband" is a relationship term and implies things about a choice I have made and the obligations which flow from that choice, and my reasons for it. That is a whole lot richer information set than is contained in the term "role". The value in having the richer information set is that it is useful in helping make decisions.

How can we talk? Well, we can choose different terminology, for one thing. Or, we could chose a different metaphor, or scrap metaphors and talk explicitly about what we mean.

As to "balance", obviously we need to "balance", but balance takes on a special meaning that I object to. As used by these writers it means "balancing roles". If I reject the idea of "roles" I obviously reject the idea of balancing them. What I balance is the goals and activities I choose so as to get the most benefit from my time.

Framework for communication ... yes. But the choice of framework can make or break an idea. Socialism has a framework within which to discuss economics, as does Capitalism, for example. How you respond to an economic proposition will depend on which framework you have chosen, so it pays to choose wisely. ;-)

Hypocrisy ... of course. It is the idea that needs evaluating, not the person. Many great ideas came from complete nut jobs. That's just the way it is. What I look for is how close the nuttiness of a person comes to the theory they are espousing. For example, Covey has a warped sense of how we function in life so it is not surprising that he came up with "roles" and "role balancing" and all of that crapola. However, his "rocks" idea (that was him, no?) and his quadrant system were good ... even though not original.

As to Mark being a nut job, I don't read him that way ;-) He seems far too focused on the idea itself, not so much on marketing it. It is pretty obvious that he is pretty much as he seems.

Against my better judgement, I tried a search. And lo!

http://www.markforster.net/forum/post/688379#post689318

Hi Will

Glad you found the post! I do have ideas re the FAQ's - honest!!

It was interesting looking back on the thread you referenced above to my last post in it earlier this month where I commented that AF had not actioned my backlogs in the way I had anticipated - well it has certainly attacked them with a vengeance since ...... have made massive inroads into my backlogs over the last few days!

Now, about those FAQ's ........ hmmmmm....

Jacqueline,

Re: ANW. Well, he had baggage of his own. ;-) But the point he makes there is reasonable, though not anywhere near what I was talking about.

There are always extremes to be avoided. Someone said that a specialist is someone who learns more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing ... and conversely an generalist is someone who learns less and less about more and more until he knows nothing about everything. Words to live by.

In the days of old there was a thing called a "Classical Education". One read the Great Books and learned classical languages and studied philosophy. This made one very broad, well informed, and possessed of the framework with which to understand the context for human action. It was a good thing. It brought happiness and contentment. It brought poverty.

In the modern era specialization is required of our economic system. One must graduate with a degree that enables one to DO some THING. Ironically some have found a way to (dare I say it?) "balance" both objectives. But it is not easy, so we live in a world of specialists governed and managed by generalists. The problem is that the generalists do not have a deep understanding of of the world, only a superficial one. And they do not have sufficient understanding of the vocabulary of the specialists to deeply understand what they are saying either. In the end we have ineffective public policy and ineffective management struggling to make sense of technical material they can't hope to understand.

I'm sure ANW was getting at that kind of problem. Alas, the solution is not so easy. Hey, I've got an idea ... maybe if we had buildings we could send children to each day where they could be taught both man's experience and wisdom as well as his technical understanding then ... naw, that would never work. ;-)

Amazing you could find it Will - and I still disagree with Mark in re-reading it, but that's ok too - it's probably just semantics anyway.