Get Everything Done

Hi all,

I would like to share my experiences with Autofocus and propose an alternative.

GREAT about Autofocus:
- Organising your tasks in order of creation date/time is very natural!
- Allowing both huge projects and small tasks on the same list, crossing of huge tasks when some action was taken

NOT SO GREAT:
- Cycling through the pages doesn't work for me, there's always way to many 'urgent' stuff that prevents the cycling and this makes it feel too artificial for me

My solution is DUAL FOCUS:
- Organise your tasks in time, meaning when they were created, make the date of a new day stand out in your list
- You're free to do any task you wish
- Big tasks can be crossed off if some action was taken, add the task again at the end
- You'll automatically always be focussing on the END of the list, the HOT new tasks
- Make sure you also focus on the BEGINNING of the list from time to time and give the first active task SUPER IMPORTANCE. Or decide to dismiss it of course...

So you're eating away at your list from to sides, which is why I named the system DUAL FOCUS. All procrastinated tasks will eventually become the first active task on the list and then you just need to DO IT or DITCH IT.

It's very simple and flexible but has enough structure for me to highlight the urgent as well as the procrastinated tasks automatically making it possible to balance them. I only switched from Autofocus to DUAL FOCUS a week ago. So far I'm really loving it!

What do you guys think?

My usage of AF has become how you described. After I write today's date, the list becomes my closed list for the day. I write down the three most important things I need to get done and highlight with an asterisk (*). Other items get added (and usually closed) during the day... the many small and medium sized tasks.

I also work from the beginning of the book trying to get stuff done. I often
browse the other pages to see if items show up, so I suppose the entire AF list
is one big closed list.

However I also use a digital system for project planning. I planned ten important
projects for the next 3 months then printed this out and added to the AF diary.
This forms a short term (3 month) plan of action as my guiding force.

This sounds a little bit like what I've been trying...starting with the last page first every day. I then return to the last active page. Doesn't your approach produce a LOT of dismissed tasks though? And I would think that it would require more conscious decision-making since each task must be addressed individually? One thing I've noticed about my last-page first approach is it ends up creating more pages, BUT they're shorter. I'm not sure yet if this is going to be a problem. I may end up returning to the original approach.

How about like dividing the AF list into 'current' and 'ongoing' parts, then prioritising between the two as required?

Sort of like two priority 'contexts' instead of physical contexts

Today/tomorrow/yesterday could be 'current', everything past yesterday could be 'ongoing'

Anything that doesn't get touched in a day or two will drop into 'ongoing' by default.

@smileypete:

I guess the current/ongoing distinction could be made but I personally don't see the need to make this disctinction. I guess there isn't always a clear line between the two. As time passes things become more ongoing and less current. But sometimes something you really wanted to do immediately can get left for a few weeks but still feel very current and it's good to be able see how long you left it in a glance.

Another way of looking at DUAL FOCUS is saying it's like GTD (total freedom of what you pick from your list) with:
- some extra structure (visability when a task was created) built in
- the abilty to also add projects and someday/maybe tasks to the list
- no need for a weekly review

With DUAL FOCUS there's no cycling through pages, no closed list approach. In my oppinion this cycling through one page and then to the next can seriously increase procrastinating more important stuff. Marc calles this relative/structured procrastination and sees it as an advantage. I don't believe this to be a good habit. End of the day relative/structured procrastination strengthens your 'procrastionation habit'. No thanks!

From what I've been reading here many people mention getting *more* done, but that what they get done is not the stuff that really matters. Which simply means you're obviously procrastinating the more important stuff...

PS: Aren't time managements systems a bit like religions? Everybody who starts a new system truely believes they are *so* much more productive now than before. But are they? *Everybody* should try this! Everybody should experience the bliss of time management heaven :-)

Makes me wonder what it is, that what really matters.

42 ?

I don't see how this approach helps you focus more on "what really matters." Even if I were using a top-down approach like Steven Covey, who's to say that taking time to just read a magazine in the midst of a crazy, busy, goal-focused time isn't "important"? My experience is the more you try to structure and require, the more likely most people are going to procrastinate more, not less.

Cruisader, are you working on tasks that you've written down today or yesterday? Both? Then how often are you addressing previous pages? Every day? And if you can't do a certain task, you automatically dismiss it? Do you review dismissed tasks?

Cruisader, I wonder if much of the problems that people have with not getting the right things done could be resolved by not following the advice to choose the item that stands out but the ones that fulfil your major goals?

I find myself trying to influence the list by putting lots of items regarding my main goals on the list and limiting the items that are just busy work. In that way I'm progressing on these important things faster, which was my major issue in the beginning. I'm also trying to push myself a bit to work slightly longer than "as long as I feel" on the important stuff - but not to the point that I'm resentful/burnt out. And I'm also deliberately trying to keep my number of active pages down. If it goes over 5 pages in either my home book or my work book, it's time to either start dismissing, not take new stuff on or do a push on the old stuff.

Throughout working with AF over the last 3 months, I have never abandoned my basic tendency to do important stuff now - it doesn't even get entered onto a list. I know my job (and life) well enough to know what's important and what's not. That's the only way for me to maintain a "mind like water" state.

"Marc calles this relative/structured procrastination and sees it as an advantage. I don't believe this to be a good habit. End of the day relative/structured procrastination strengthens your 'procrastionation habit'. No thanks!"

I think the idea is that Autofocus soon highlights the item being procrastinated on, which buys some time to think *why* and do something about it!

What you're proposing sounds more like a dual To Do list.

Maybe a good compromise for same day stuff is to treat same day items as a separate AF list to be used in tandem with the rest of the list.

"- " // "From what I've been reading here many people mention getting *more* done, but that what they get done is not the stuff that really matters"

Yes INDEED. This is the main trouble I encounterd with AF method. I realize than a lot og people has exactly the same diificulties about appling the method.

Anyway :
The + // is real control of all what i do nowing than EVERYTHING is on a single place.

After trying many option i found a solution close to your cruzador. Here it is
1. I put all my task on AF
2. At the end of the list I put a projetct list
3. At night i just create a check box in front of all task i need or i wish to do tomorrow
4. I put a date of all future item in the marge before the begining of the task

The way i use it is very easy
1. Use mark methode
2. When i work i jus jump on all boxed item, focusing on them carefully. My mind consider in fact that they are an extraction of AF for today's item
3. All items in the future are dated in the marge at the beginning of it.
4. When all is done then i use AF methode I.E reading all pages
5. I use the same methode read twice, highline dismissed and so on...
6. Little add on : read all the list twice a day and in the first pass if something doesnt worth to do it cross it, if i dont know highline it.
7. Just read the all list if i wonder if i wrote before the new item i am seeking for. If its exist in an old page cross it in the old page and reformulate or rewrite it at the end of the list. If you need to do it today just put a check box.
8. For messages and items to wait for put W. in the marge at the beginning of the item and M$ at the end of the item with the date.

Here is what i feel
1. Much better control of my task, no copy, no review, no waiting list, no someday may be list, no GTD except for planing and thinking about project.
2. Real control of what i do
3. Fell mind like water quiet andfocus
4. Dont avoir any task and see instinctivly my priorities
5. no duplicated items there are eliminated litle by little
6. Only one note book for all
7. For the moment it DOES NT SQUEEZE MY MIND INTUITION / RATIONALITY

Hope this will help

"2. At the end of the list I put a project list"

Jupiter,

does that mean you write a list of your projects at the end of your last AF page?
Or does that mean you write a list of tasks for a certain project or even several projects?

"2. At the end of the list I put a project list" . The recto of my note book is for autofocus. The verso is for my project list ie the all list of my project ex.
CLEAN THE GARAGE
BUY A NEW CAR
ORGANIZE MY TRIP TO USA

Jupiter

A number of people are indicating that they are getting a lot done but are not getting the important things done. As AF operates on the basis of intuition as opposed to a rational determination on importance there can indeed be a discrepancy between the two. What I found was that the intial "unimportant" items that my intuition caused to stand out, were in fact items that either had a significant impact upon the way I worked, or alternatively were items where the "non-doing" had an impact, whether by something being untidy or by a guilt factor.

If you have a list of 10 things to do, and they are all done, or you make a decision to dismiss them, the order in which they are done is unimportant. What I have found is that, by eliminating procrastination, AF will invariably result in those items being done more efficiently, more productively, and quicker than by any other method. the relative importance of "stack dishwasher" vs "pay bill" is irrelevant if they are both necessary and both get done.

It should not be the case that important items get missed. There are enough rules within AF to ensure that does not happen. What does happen though is that the order of things may not be what we expect, and therefore does not "feel" right. When "important" items do not stand out, that is the time to ascertain why, rather than just saying AF does not work. The very fact that they are not standing out is proof that AF DOES work - we just need to identify the issue with the items and make a decision accordingly.

For me, some items that did not stand out were easy to review, to identify the reason and to change my approach. For others, identifying the reason was not the issue, but acting on that knowledge was. Consequently I am only now dealing with some of the issues which AF identified early on, but which I was reluctant to act on at an earlier time. Even that is ok - I recognised the issue and chose to defer acting on it. That made some items harder to action but, if they were important they still got actioned.

If you want a system that just enables you do things then DIT is an excellent system. If you want a system that will identify what is genuinely important in your life, and enable you to do things in line with that then AF is the system to use.

At the end of the day it comes down to what you want from a system. AF does have rules - those rules are there for a purpose. Changing those rules has an impact on the effectiveness of the system. There is enough flexibility within the system to enable urgent and important stuff to be done when necessary but if there is a constant need to force the system to a personal rationale then it becomes little more than a To Do list.

As smileypete says above, there is scope to keep a separate list of urgent items or same day items - that is covered within the rules of AF. As Mark says, if something needs doing today then just do it! Whatever system we use to ensure genuine same day items get done same day is to a degree irrelevant as AF allows for us to "just do it". However the closer we get to the point where those same day items can be actioned from within AF the better. That to a large extent will depend on the nature of those items and the timescales in which they arrive - if my home catches fire I will not add "use fire extinguisher" to my list! :-)

Brillant Christine, as usual ! Just to go a lttle further :

Yes indeed AF works. I have been working for 22 years. I had a lot of responsabilities team, business and so on. I've been working with GTD for 2 years. I only use AF since ... march 21st. And you know what ? Never i have encountered ANY SYSTEM or ANY SOFWARE wich make me so efficient and avoid proscratrination.

As someone said on this forum i passed the level "How i am happy and enthousiatic about the method " to "How this method can work efficiently and what can i do to make it efficient in my own work"

My experience of AF let me honesly conclude that AF is the best system i have worked with BUT if it makes me more productive i just conclude than many item I done were not getting the important things done. May be because of my intuition, may be because of any tendancy to do what i like but not what must be done.

This is the reason why i made checkboxes in front of all items i must do today or in a very short delay.

For me the BIG ROCK of AF is to keep everything at the same place. Therefore I found impossible to externalize some items in another list like GTD DOES.

As I mentioned before I still use some GTD process. But making my checkboxes or detroying them at night make me focus on what must be done. AF is then like a general list of task just there to remerber me what must be done.

I also notice that VERY OFTEN I DO NOT NEED TO READ MY LIST. My brain GET the information and take the item exactly like a marchandise in a warehouse.

At last i have to mention that i never had a very good memory. I noticed that it has inscreased a lot BUT the fact that everything is written in ONE PLACE make me TRUST THE SYSTEM so My mind is LIKE WATER.

After many years thanks to Mark Forster and David ALLEN I found my way. I am not a doctor or a man of knowhow so i can't explain why does it work. I JUST SEE it works for me on the following condition :
- Put all in one list professional and personnal
- Dont use color tags and so on
- And for the rest see my post above.

and I TRUST THE SYSTEM.

Jupiter,

Sounds like a very good idea to pick items that 'stand out' for action tomorrow, this should help your subconscious to work on them overnight.

When you say

"2. When i work i just jump on all boxed item, focusing on them carefully. My mind consider in fact that they are an extraction of AF for today's item"

Do you do these items in strict order, or cycle through them and do them as they 'stand out' again? Or perhaps set the order the next morning?

Hi Jupiter

It's great that you're finding AF to be working so well. As you say it's ability to reduce procrastination is pretty incredible. It sounds as though you are finding a way to keep the items you believe to be urgent in mind but do be careful that you are not trying to adapt the system. I know you say you are finding that urgent items are not being done but do take some time to think about those items and whether there is a reason for that. It is easy in the early stages to mistake the items that stand out for items that we "like" doing whereas it is in fact the other way around. We find that we "like" doing the items "because" they stand out, rather than them standing out because we like them.

It is very hard to describe the process but try not to assume that because an item has been done easily it is unimportant. If it has stood out our subconscious will have identified an importance. If it hasn't stood out, similarly our subconscious will have identified a resistance and that is something that needs examining.

Good luck .... :-)

Smilepete :
"2. When i work i just jump on all boxed item, focusing on them carefully. My mind consider in fact that they are an extraction of AF for today's item"

> Do you do these items in strict order, or cycle through them and do them as they 'stand out' again? Or perhaps set the order the next morning?

Here is my exact process
1) - After work In the evening or the end of the afternoon (wen i can) i just read my all list as everything is in it it's very easy. The process is exactly the same one pass wihout wanting doing anything. It may happen early in the morning if i did have time to do it the day before. But I prefer at the end of my work after a rest to distress my mind may be after diner or seing tv or lessoning music anything than distress me and make me cool. THis is essential for me.

2) At de 2nt pass this is what happen if an item STAND at me i just think DO I HAVE TO DO IT tomorrrow (or today) YES = Checkbox NO - let it on the list without doing anything. This is a very fast process it takes me les than 2 mn for all my pages. I read pages in THE ORDER 1 to 6 (my last) just on the fly.

3) Then if i am in the mood i take my highliner and do a third pass very quickly this time highlining all items which doesnt stand at me and answer to this questions DO I HAVE HAVE TO DO IT AT ALL then the items themselves say YES or NO=> ALL I HAVE TO DO stand at my what I dont have to do stay stuck on the sheet. If they DONT STAND I highline them or cross them (cross if the answer is NO -highline if the answer is I dont know) I dont decide I let things highlined to INCUBATE.

AT another moment or may be just after I read again all the highlines items and then decides about the highlines items what i decide to do or not. Often highlines items need to be reformulated then if i have to do something about them i cross the highlined and report them at my last page. If the answer is still iDONT KNOW then i let them on the list.

To christine B
I think i dont try to keep things in mind except the guidline of the project i am working on. Yes on the rush i do something on my list following the basing method so I work all the time i want and sudentltly doing things my mind tell me "EH coco... you forget that or have to do that that was on your list some were" then my rational part says " DO you realy need to do it ? " "and my intuition says YES or NO without any further explanation. Then I do that thing or not and when i shall come back on my list i shall cross the item...

About <<We find that we "like" doing the items "because" they stand out, rather than them standing out because we like them.>>

MF said "That's a very perspicacious comment" I agree too !!!

All the best !

Jupiter

So I guess I'm not the only one who uses some kind of hybrid model...

It's interesting to read all the other versions. The main issue seems to be the handling of 'current' tasks.

Has Marc proposed any 'official' alternative(s) yet?

Or maybe we should just trust the system more? Haleluia ;-)

I have to say that I agree with Mark. Having by most people's standards a pretty significant number of active pages and active tasks, I have tried various tweaks with varying degrees of success. Over the past week, as it was now the "right time" to address a backlog issue (which was urgent and was important but which had not stood out) I have added literally hundreds of items to my lists. Apart from a boredom factor which raised it's head periodically, those tasks have progressed, progressed effectively and progressed within AF. I did work slightly outside the rules to the extent that, as I added several pages of items, with task dependancies, I treated that batch as one large page, but AF handled that scenario without problem. I could just as easily have handled that strictly within the rules by putting the whole task on an index card and working with that approach, but in this scenario adding all of the tasks was what enabled me to control the project and to see progress.

Interestingly my list of "urgent" tasks which I keep to hand has progressed in some areas but not others - but guess what? The world has not ended because some of those tasks have not been addressed. Yes they are important and they will be actioned BUT they were NOT genuinely urgent.

Trusting the system works for me!

@Mark Forster:

I believe Dual Focus can be seen as a *simplification* of Autofocus.

Instead of the cycling per page / through the pages you are free to pick whatever task you want to pick. The one mental note you have to make is to commit yourself to work on the first active task on your list every now and then dicide to either do it or ditch it. So focus not only on the end of the list but also on the beginning and make sure you eat away at your list from that side too. Hence *Dual* Focus.

1) I am very happy Autofocus made me realize the importance of *when* a task was created.
2) I also love the idea that you can cross of a task when you've done some work on it (and then add it at the end again)
3) But I also love to be able to balance the old and the new tasks without having to be forced by a 'cycling' system

Give it a try!

Hi Cruisader

The problem with your solution, from an AutoFocus perspective, is that you are still effectively determining the urgency of the tasks, i.e. rationally. When you say "Instead of the cycling per page / through the pages you are free to pick whatever task you want to pick" that is totally contrary to AF. With AF you do not "pick the task" - you do the "task that stands out". It is a very different process - not a case of picking the task but rather that the task picks you :-)

Hi Cruisader,

Maybe I'm strange, but I like going through the first active page and, when my energy is high, finishing off a whole bunch of items on it, then feeling free to dismiss the remainder on my next pass through.

Speaking as a person who hopped around quite a bit at one point about a month into the system (treating the whole system like one big page), it resulted in a lot more chaos and mess than if I would have stuck with the system as written. I started projects that I shouldn't have started - because I simply didn't have time to take them on right then. I ended up with more pages than I felt comfortable with and too many for the amount of discretionary time I have. Also, I didn't finish things as quickly as I would have liked because I was putting in time on something that I shouldn't have been. Yes, they were important things, but this experience highlighted to me that I have a terrible tendency to want to start new projects, and can be a poor finisher - and I'm tired of being that way.

I think it's important that people really define - and limit - what they will allow to be "HOT" or urgent and needs to be done right now, or even today. I admit that almost anything that comes from my boss I consider to be necessary to be done right away or within the next couple of days - but only because I respect his leadership and judgment and I want to build an atmosphere of trust with him - if he gives me something to do, it will get done and done quickly. This hasn't always been the case in other jobs where I wouldn't have responded to every brain burp from some bozo I was reporting to.

Mark has said in a previous post that he spends much of his time on or around the current page(s), yet he follows the system as he's written it. Wouldn't it be the case that if you were actioning the current page with all the things that were urgent and important, that when you had a breather, you would just go through the list as normal, thereby ending back at the newest page probably within the same day, or after a couple of hours and perhaps multiple times within the day? The only way this wouldn't be possible is if you had too many pages because you've taken too much on. And maybe that's the real issue?

@Christine B:

Why do you think 'the task picking you' is only possible when using AF? I understand there is a difference when you limit yourself to one page instead of the whole list being available. But when the whole list is available you can still have a similar approach. Read through a number of items until one stands out.

@Jaqueline:

I guess my main problem is I don't have many 'breathers'. And they don't feel long enough to do a pass of all the older pages. I have my own (small) music school and it's developping now to become more like a real organisation. Busy times! So there is always a lot of stuff going on *now*. The old stuff can be important too but for me for it works to balance new and old myself instead of being forced by a system.

I tried AF for a few months but had a very hard time making my self go back to the old stuff. Forcing myself to do something minor and quick tasks so I could get to the end as soon as possible seems unnatural and artificial to me. Inefficient.

As stated before by others AF works best when there aren't too many deadlines and urgent things going on. In my system I love the idea that every procrastinated task eventially becomes the first task and will either get done or ditched one day.

Hi Cruisader

When you take the pages as one large list, you are overruling the way in which AF is designed to address tasks and ignoring what your intuition is saying. Yes there will always be a task somewhere in your list that will stand out. In the same way we can always find something to procrastinate on when we don't want to do something (eg any task on the current page) whether that something is on another page or not. Your rational knowledge of what else is in your lists will always be able to justify doing one task or another that you feel is important. OK, so you will get listed tasks done, but you would achieve exactly the same result with a standard To Do list.

What you are missing out by this approach is the dismissal process. If you look at a page and nothing stands out you must dismiss it. That does not mean "gone for ever" but "gone for now, to be reviewed at a later date". You say above " I tried AF for a few months but had a very hard time making my self go back to the old stuff. Forcing myself to do something minor and quick tasks so I could get to the end as soon as possible seems unnatural and artificial to me. Inefficient." Why did you feel a need to force yourself to do "minor and quick" tasks? You are right - that is unnatural and artificial, but that is not what the rules of AF state. With AF there is no forcing of tasks. Why were such tasks not dismissed?

You also say "In my system I love the idea that every procrastinated task eventually becomes the first task and will either get done or ditched one day." That is exactly what happens in AF. However, by keeping to the AF rules you do not have the opportunity to continue that procrastination for an infinite period of time, unlike in a standard To Do list. When an item is in danger of being dismissed we cannot move on without making a decision. Do it or dismiss it. We do not have the "procrastinate on it and find something else to do instead" option any more - the choice is simple - do or dismiss. THIS is when AF comes into it's own - if we are not prepared to dismiss it we MUST look at why we do not want to do it and there WILL be a reason. That reason may not always be obvious but procrastinating on the item just means that we will never identify the real issue - just put it off, again, and again, and again, - which is what most of us have tended to do for years, hence the reason why no system has ever worked perfectly for us before.

AF can only work if you let it - if you continually force yourself to do items that do not stand out rather than dismiss them then AF will never work as anything other than a convenient To Do list to keep all of your tasks in one place.

Out of curiosity, in the few months when you were not using "Dual Focus", how many tasks did you dismiss?

Cruisader, how many active pages did you have when you switched to Dual Focus? I'm curious to know as well how many you have after using it for a couple of months. Mine grew - a lot - when I did what you're doing. It went down really quickly and easily (like in one weekend) when I went back to following the rules:

http://www.markforster.net/forum/post/698091#post702357

http://www.markforster.net/forum/post/683261

Of course, now I have the "problem" of only having 4 active pages in my book (the perfect place for me), but I'm only an hour or so away from hitting current stuff.

I also benefited from a better understanding of myself and some of the issues I want resolved. So I would suggest to you that you keep on doing what you are doing and see how it pans out. What you learn about yourself will be invaluable to you.

Some people learn by someone telling them not to touch the electric fence and some people just have to get the shock to learn. I'm one of the shocker types.

YMMV, but I think you'll need an additional tweak beyond what you're doing now not to end up in a bit of a mess with a huge backlog.

Hi Cruisader,

Choosing "any item that stands out, from any page" doesn't work for me. I have about 800 open tasks, more than 40 open pages. I can't hold them all in my head at the same time. How should I choose? Your approach would have me flipping pages, getting anxious that the "thing to do now" is on some other page. AF has me taking action NOW, moving SOMETHING forward.

AF itself, following the standard rules, is helping me get through all this, and making sure the important stuff gets done.

Choosing "just anything" is basically just having one open list.

Also, how does the "Dual Focus" approach do "dismissing"? I've found dismissal to be a key part of the system -- again, helping to focus on what's really important. But Dual Focus doesn't seem to incorporate this.

Hi Seraphim

Someone else with lots of items and active pages - I'm not the only one!!!!!

Hi Seraphim
HOLY COW!!!! 800 open tasks on more than 40 open pages!!!!!
Then you state to Cruisader " Also, how does the "Dual Focus" approach do "dismissing"? I've found dismissal to be a key part of the system -- again, helping to focus on what's really important. But Dual Focus doesn't seem to incorporate this.

How many tasks would you have without dismissal?
learning as I go

Just curious.... isn't jupiter's approach almost identical to having an index card attached but just incorporating it into the AF list? (the index card method, mentioned early on, to track "do today" type items.)
-gordon

" 800 open tasks on more than 40 open pages!!!!! " INCREDIBLE
2 days ago i finished my weekly review and i saw that i had 27 projets !65 actives projects.
I realised too than since AF i was unable to have THE BIG PICTURE of each one, what i had before with omnifocus avec context mode in GTD doesnt suits with me.
So i had a big chock realy thinking to keep AF or not mainly because i saw that i done many minors tasks instead of major one...

The trouble is that as MF said every improvement i tried even those abone are not efficient.

I just conclude than AF works with itself it doesnt like color, task, checkboxes, dates, projects ... It just accept for working well tasks one after the other or notes or thinking about things without anything else.

So i thougy i made a mistake somewhere. Willing to give it a real chance i just took a new note book and started again reporting active things with Mark method
AAAA
BBBB
-------
CCCC
DDDD
------ Where the ---- are the actives pages of my old note book

And took the manual and read carefully in english the instruction word by word really determinated to follow them little by little but really without changing anything.

The result for the moment is much better. I shall tell you how things evoluate for me. BUT I conclude than it is very difficult to follow 2 methods GTD or DIT and AF. AF is a very selfich system it doesnt accept anything except itself !!!!

Anyway as i am quiet determinate i saw also that it was difficult during the day to follow my big roks i found a little tip very simple i just report on a post it the main subject i have to work on today it take me 2 mn.

The secont tip i just discovered with is silly of me is " dont use the system for things wich need to be done at a specific time of day this might include preparng meal , music pratice , shutting on shop" so for all dated system i want to start or end dates or appointements or deadlines i cross it on af and reported it in my diary. Its much better now because i am not distracted with things that i cant do . And when i have documents to be use in the future i just put them in my tickler.

Hi Jupiter

It sounds as though rereading the instructions has identified a few areas where there were difficulties and you are absolutely right about the fact that AF does not respond well to being mixed with other systems.

I currently have 56 active pages and 613 active items but AF is continuing to handle them. The reason for such a high number is that I added several hundred items on one backlog project in order to clear it. Not something I would recommend until you are very very familiar with how AF works - it would not have worked for me at an earlier stage.

As for keeping track of projects, AF gets the tasks done but I monitor project progress through my project management system. Tasks get added to AF from my routines, new things that arise or from my diary or project management system. In the same way that I can look back through my diary and see what appointments and meetings I have had, I can look back through my project management system and see what progress I have made on my projects.

Hi all,

Thanks for all the input!

The problem I have with AF is this:

Let's consider the following 2 situations:
1) On page 1, not so much new stuff at the moment
2) On page 1, lots of new important and urgent stuff just got added

Situation 2 will conciously or subcounsliously make tasks on the earlier pages 'stand out' *less* than in situation 1. The result being that more tasks will get dismissed. Since situation 2 can turn into situation 1 within a week or so it seems too random to me when tasks get dismissed.

Most of these tasks have been on there for many weeks so why should a weekly fluctuation in 'current' pressure influence them being dismissed or not??

I tried AF from 5th Jan until 27th March. During the time that I tried Autofocus I could hardly ever get myself to go back to the old pages. I was always on the newest page. At the end of it I was kind of even reverting to daily to do lists.

I only switched from AF to Dual Focus less than two weeks ago. So it's a bit early to compare results (I personally believe a good evaluation time to be at least two months). But results so far seem promising. I'm finding it actually easier to do old stuff because I don't *have* to go through all the older pages. I can *choose* when I go back depending on 'current' workload and vibe I'm in. Because I'm going back more I'm also dismissing more old stuff.

The only rule I have is to make the first active task on the list super important and every once in a while find the time to make myself either do it or ditch it .

It feels like such a relief to not have to cylce through the pages anymore!

Maybe this relief will prove to be shortlived? The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I'll keep you posted! Lots of great posts on this forum, time management is such an interesting topic! If this doesn't work out I might give AF a second shot....

My time-management CV:

May 2007 - June 2008: GTD (hardly ever could get my self to do a weekly review)

July 2008 - December 2008: DIT (some of my days are completely planned out, others are all open, found it hard to maintain)

Jan 2009 - March 2009: AF (found it hard to go back to the old pages)

April 2009 - present: DUAL FOCUS (early days, loving it so far!)

Hi Cruisader

When you say "During the time that I tried Autofocus I could hardly ever get myself to go back to the old pages. I was always on the newest page." that highlights where you had a problem. You were not "doing" AF and that is why it wasn't working. the system is set so that it will enable things to be done but will make you evaluate whether those older items should be on your list at that time. By staying at the end of the list continually you were just using a To Do list as you say.

It really is impossible to assess AF without doing it - and doing it according to the rules. the rules may seem simple and may seem unnecessary but they are there for a reason and ignoring them destroys the effectiveness of the system.

I really have to agree ... there are several threads about combining AF with this or that or the other because AF will not work. Yet when all of the information is out it seems that those who find that AF will not work are not talking about AF at all ... they are talking about AF minus some of the key steps ... those that MAKE it work.

While it is not a rule in AF, it seems to be true of those who are happy with AF that they manage to cycle through every page on the list "frequently" ... meaning every day or so. Some get through the pages several times a day, some a couple of times a week, but those who are successful DO get through the pages "frequently".

I can envision that some work in an environment where they have little discretionary time and are putting non discretionary things at the end of the list and then working on them thinking that they are doing AF. If that is true then AF, for them, is nothing more than a TO DO list. Worse, it is not really a TO DO list but more of an activity log.

I agree with you Mike. When I went away from the AF list for yearend, I didn't enter any of the tasks I was working on in that week into the list at all. All that I entered on the list were things that came up which were non-yearend related which I had no intention of doing right then so that I could work on them when I was finished with the period of no discretionary time. I'm confident that if I had to work through another year-end in this environment, AF could handle it (or I could let AF handle it) because I would have anticipated what would come up.

Having said that however, I wish that I had put the activities in my AF list so that I had a record of what last minute requests came up. But since I'm not going to be here in another year, it's probably a moot point.. ;-)

I think most issues with AF would be resolved if people would just not get beyond a certain number of active pages or # of days to clear a page. That's the only way to cycle through regularly. Some people can handle it, most of us can't - including me.

Hi all,

I *DID* follow the AF rules! For me it worked out that I didn't go back to the old pages *at all* for weeks on end. As I was *always* on the last or one before last page!

@Marc:
Indeed this looks a lot like what I do now. So agreed AF in gerenal producing the *right* behaviour. The difference is that now when I've handled some new stuff I may sometimes look through the earlier stuff and decide to do one or two. With AF that would have meant going through 15 active pages and doing *something* on each of them (maybe dismissing one or two pages). It took very long for me to get round to my first cycle and because of that I must admit (after a few months!!) I lost faith in the system. I realized I was *only* doing new stuff. The system seemed too rigid for me.

The contradiction I was trying to explain:
I imagine AF should be good at getting you to also do old procrastinated stuff. Yet for me it didn't do that. Disappointed by how long I hadn't done *any* older stuff I lost faith in the system. I was also overwelmed by how long I would have to do *only* old stuff without being able to switch between old and new.

Maybe I should of hung in there a bit longer and made myself complete a pass through the old pages? Who knows? It were very busy times when I lost my faith in AF (investigating merging with another small music school besides the regular growing pains of a small business becoming larger). It just seemed too weird for me to keep it up at that moment in time. Maybe the timing wasn't ideal...

Like I said for now I'm going to stick with my new system since I'm really liking it!! If it doesn't work out I think I will give AF another shot...

I believe time-management systems can be organised as follows:

More freedom
- GTD (total freedom on a daily basis, weekly review (yuck!) needed for structure)
- DAUL FOCUS (total freedom, constant awareness of how current a task is gives some structure to the list, some discipline necessary to focus on first active task in the list every now and then)
- AF (total freedom within a page, page cycling very structured)
- DIT (strict daily structure)
More structure

I guess your personality determines which one works best for you!

Hi Cruisader

I have to admit to being confused as to why you are not getting back to the first pages if you are following the rules. With over 50 active pages and at one point over 700 items, I was still cycling through the lists - not daily but within a sufficient period of time to action items at all stages.

How many items do you generally add in any given day, and how many do you complete? Some days I add few if any items - the most in a day was 141 - but I would say the average is around 20 to 30. The average cleared in a day is around 30 to 40.

From your comments it appears that your perception is that the "new" items are the important items. In my own experience an item does not "lose" importance for being a few days old. I wonder if perhaps the types of items you are putting on your lists are actually more of the "must do today" type and therefore the issue is not the system but the fact that you do not have much discretionery time (if these items genuinely "must" be done today). Please don't think I'm being critical - I'm trying to understand why you are finding this to be the case for you.

Can you say how many active pages and active items you have, and how many items have been dismissed?

Cruisader, you said you had 15 active pages - I'm not sure how many open items were on those pages, but I think that, if you had been following the system, there couldn't have been more than 1-5 items per page. Probably only 1-2 that really were vital to be done and the rest could possibly have been dismissed.

In my personal experience of having 22 active pages at one point and feeling frustrated at not being able to cycle through "properly", I dug in one weekend, worked on the old stuff that was truly important, dismissed what wasn't and brought it down to 5 active pages and then during the following week, took it down to 3 active pages. That's about as current as I think it's possible to get.

I can't tell you how freeing it felt to have that old stuff all cleared (even if I had decided not to do it) and to feel finally able to put some other things on my list that I'd wanted to do and enjoyed for a long time but hadn't put on my list due to the length of it.

Looking at your process from a purely mathematical perspective:

If you're adding new tasks at the rate of say 15/day, completing 10 of those and going back and doing / dismissing 1 task every 2 days, your list will have to grow at the rate of about 5/day - which means you'll eventually end up with about 150 additional "old" tasks every month. Which could amount to up to 30 additional old, active pages, possibly far more. I would go insane with that amount of backlog!

I think that one of the main principles behind all of Mark's systems is to be completely up-to-date and current with everything in your work and your life, and to take on no more than you can in order to achieve that state. A system that deliberately *creates* backlogs rather than resolving them seems to violate that - IMHO.

Hi all,

OK let me see if I can give you some statistics. I use Excel for both systems and made a backup of my system when I switched from AF to Dual Focus so it shouldn't be too hard...

When swithing from AF to Dual Focus on 27th March
- Total number of tasks: 478
- Completed: 222 tasks
- Dismissed: 18 tasks
- Active: 238 tasks
- Total days using AF: 82 days
- AF page length: 30 tasks

Hence:
Average tasks done per day: 2.7
Average tasks added per day: 5.8
Average tasks dismissed per day: 0.22

It has to be said that I also added approximately 100 items at once from an old GTD system to start with. These tasks can be said to be very 'old' and not many of them have gotten done since I added them. I know Marc advises against this but I was curious how the system would handle it...

It also has to be said that there have been a few periods where I was in 'daily to do list mode' because so much urgent stuff was going on. Not even entering things in this system. But most of the time I was using AF.

@ Christine B:
I teach music and run my own small music school (hiring 4 freelancers). Some days I'm teaching all day so then I have little discretionary time. Other days however I have all day! You are correct that a lot of the items that get done are 'must do this week' items.

I had 15 active pages. To me it just seemed overwelming to do a pass through 15 pages before being able to get back to the newest page.

@Jaqueline:
I can imagine how a weekend of doing important of 'old stuff' can be really liberating, great idea! However I also like doing an old important task every now and then. This is what I really like about my current system. It's not all or nothing.

@Mark Forster:
Besides adding 'urgent must do' items I also added maybe/someday items. These items tend to not get done. So I guess you could say during AF days I was adding too much. Of course the GTD import to start with didn't help. For me going back when the pressure slightly slackened off (by then I had 15 pages...) was becoming too big a thing in my head...


About my current DUAL FOCUS system :

I am aware that there is the danger of developing a longer and longer list. This is why I intend to keep monitoring the length of the list. I do a simple clean-up of my list (like I said, it's in Excel) every week where I delete the dismissed and completed tasks. So that way I get a sense of whether my list is growing, shrinking or staying the same. This determines whether I should dismiss more items, more focus on the beginning of the list.

I am beginning to feel the power of knowing where an item is on the list. It is natural to spend a lot of time around the end of the list. The beginning of the list are items that I have been procrastinating for a long time and/or should be dismissed. You could say the end of the list has the more urgent stuff. The beginning the more important. But important can also mean it's important to decide to just *not* do it.

My system may seem like a 'simple to do list'. I now have every everything on one page in Excel, different pages(sheets) are no longer needed. Keeping the tasks in order of creation (I also make sure the date of every new day is clearly visible!) is *VITAL* information. Seeing clearly how long a task has been sitting there gives me a *feeling* about the task that I have never experienced in other systems. DUAL FOCUS gives you *constant* feedback on which items you are putting off. This I think is extremely valuable.

Like I said: it's still early days but I'm still really loving it.

I just counted how many active tasks I currently have and I'm happy to report that since starting Dual Focus (27th March) I have gone from 238 to 224 active tasks.

(round of applause ;-)

@Mark Forster:
I'm really happy trying AF got me on to this!! You said you tried something similar 10 years ago. I am very curious to hear what your experiences were like?

Cheers,
Cruisader

Hi Cruisader

It's interesting that you switched when you had 15 Active pages. For whatever reason 15 seems to be a critical point - that was the point at which I (and a number of others judging by the posts!) starting to panic and feel that the daily cycling was no longer possible. Like you I have days when I can't even look at my lists and others where I have a full day so I understand that scenario.

The key for me was to (a) ensure I knew what was in my lists and (b) have something to remind me of my deadlines or current must do's. (a) is easy enough and I have finally settled on a weekly MindMap for my urgent tasks, which I do not use as a list but just sits in front of me as a reminder. If I don't action the tasks "on list" then I will "just do them".

Strangely, now that I have over 50 active pages, it is somehow less pressurised than those 15 were.

The addition of your 100+ GTD items will have had an impact. I eventually had to dismiss a lot of that type of item, whilst identifying that certain backlogs needed to be resolved and adding those at a later date. As a general rule, the addition of backlog items is best done in batches but to be honest I still find that certain "types" will either all be done or all dismissed, regardless of how or when they are added. They can always be readded from a review of your "dismissed items" at a later date if required.

Keep us posted as to how things work out for you :-)

@Christine B:

How can you handle 50+ active pages?? That seems totally out of control to me!! What makes you able to handle it now?


@Mark Forster:

I wasn't very impressed by my average of 2.7 tasks a day either...

There are a number of reasons for this low average:

(1) It's an average over all the days, so weekends away etc are also in there

(2) I estimate from the 81 days I was in 'daily todo list mode' for about a total of 3 weeks, not entering stuff on the AF list but just making a separate list for the day (of some AF items still got done but no new ones entered)

(3) This is my 'main' list for stuff I can do with my laptop or phone (about 75% of the tasks), I also have separate lists for: (A) Only possible to do in town, (B) Only possible to do at home, (C) Only possible to do at work. I haven't taken these into account in my calculation of the average

(4) I tend to do quite a lot of stuff as it comes up. Often triggered by an email or phone call. If it needs to be done anyway and it needs doing soon why not do it immediately after reading the email, the email is still in my head and it saves re-reading. Sometimes however it's better to let it wait so I do similar tasks in one batch...

I would imagine on an average 'discretionary' (when I'm not teaching) day I would cross off aproximately 10-15 items off my list(s). This is signifficantly lower than your 20-30. Besides reason (4) I imagine you do use the 'little and often' concept more than I do.

I very much like the idea of little and often concept and I think i will try to apply it a bit more. But I think there is also a danger that I have read some people here have with it. It can also be a source of procrastination. Tricking yourself you did something useful (2 min action) on a big project so now you don't have to work on it for a week or so.

I understand what you say about the dumping of large ammounts of 'old tasks' at once for a beginner in AF.

You say you were doing something very much like my Dual Focus system 10 years ago and say you were endlessly reshuffling the easy stuff. In my system there is no reshuffling except maybe due to 'little and often rewriting'. Is this what you mean? Or did you allow yourself to change the order of tasks?

The fact that reshuffling does *NOT* happen in my system is the key to its power. It is always clear how long a task has been sitting there!

Were you rewriting your list in a new order? Just curious...

Hi Cruisader

Managing that number of pages is really not difficult. I have reviewed my pages sufficiently that I know what is lurking in there, and there are no urgent or time sensitive items left in my early pages. Within those pages there are a number of items which I will dismiss but as those pages have always ended up with an item standing out on previous passes I have been unable to dismiss them as yet.

I think the fact that I do put virtually everything into AF gives me that confidence - it is unlikely that things will get missed once they are on my lists - I am finding more and more that the items I am forgetting are those I forget to put on my list in the first place so I do need to tighten that area up!

Most of the time now I am working at the end of my lists, and only returning to those early pages periodically. The bulk of the open items are in those later pages and I have a cleared percentage of over 80%.

Reading your reply above I think that you may have had problems because, when you were in "to do list mode", working from a variety of unrelated lists, and not putting a good percentage of your tasks onto the lists, you have not actually been using AF in the way it is written and that will be why it did not work for you. If your system is working for you then that is great but AF works amazingly well (even with 50+ page) when worked as per the rules.

I think the arithmetic problem that Cruisader is pointing out is simply that if on average you take on more "stand out" points than you can action in a given period of time, then you never get to a second pass of the list.

This seems like a valid point and a trigger for a self audit on the number of commitments and, trickily, how we respond subconsciously to a task that calls us to action.