Get Everything Done

First of all, I have been using AF for a little while now, and wow! I think I fit the profile of people for whom this is a revelation. Something so simple(?) has helped me to get done in a month or two what I had been languishing over for more months than I wish to count.

Thank you Mr. Forster for your creation and the rest of you who participate on this forum for your testimonials and questions regarding the system.

Two questions:

First: when I have pages that only have a few items left on them, I find there are easy to overlook with all the rest of the entries crossed out. Any tips to make these entries more visible without adding undo complexity to the system (something I enjoying doing in general).

Second: AF has allowed me to tackle some longer projects I have avoided for *years*. One is longer writing project. One day I just sat down and began listing items, which needed to be done. As it turned out, most of that page initially was filled mainly with contingencies. Now it has nothing but contingencies on it. Since most of the items are larger tasks which inevitably get broken down into smaller bite sized tasks, the page is "frozen".

I am still working on a item from that page, which has been forwarded as I have done work on it. But the rest of the items on the page wait for that item to be completed.

So far I have gotten more done on this project than I ever have in the past, but I am not sure how I should handle this page, which is waiting on contingencies. Skip it, until I am finished with the task the rest are waiting on?

In any case, I am making incredible progress on stuff that I couldn't bring myself to even think about months ago.

Thanks a lot.

My suggestion on crossing items out is to use a pink or orange Stabilo highlighter pen to cross out your tasks. Use a fluorescent colour for dismissed items.

You will recognise incomplete tasks because the page has not been coloured in.

Norman,

Another suggestion from the forums is to draw a vertical line to the right of crossed out items. That way, you can easily see the items on a page which have not been crossed out yet. I draw the vertical line right on top of the margin of my notebook (I hope you can see how I do it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/natalinha/3414760977/sizes/o/ ).

Regarding the contingencies, if I understand you, they are all dependent on your other writing task that has been moved forward? In that case, I would guess you would have to dismiss all of them when you come back to that page. Don't despair, you can afterwards decide what to do with them, or come back to them when the time is right. If you cannot do them now, time is surely not right. :)

Hi Norman

Rather than cross out the tasks I just use a tick - as my ticks are all in a line it is easy to see open tasks.

With regard to contingent or waiting for items, e.g "has Fred called back?" I do exactly as Mark suggests.

What I find helpful though for larger projects with a lot of contingent items such as you describe, is to action them by means of my project planning. I then ensure that all of those tasks are detailed in one place within my project management system and ensure that I have a task within AF to "review project x". At that review, or when I finish task 1, I then know exactly which tasks to add back into my list. I guess it is not that different to the dismissal process but it is more structured in that you "know" you want to add them back when the time is appropriate. Of course the normal dismissal process works in the same way (provided of course that you remember to add a "review dismissed items" task) but I find that I want my project management system to provide me with an overview on a project by project basis so this makes more sense to me in that scenario.

I'm another person for whom crossing-out and tick marks didn't work... I have resolved this by drawing boxes next to each item when I enter it and then coloring the box in when I work on the task (thanks again, Mike, for that idea!). The empty boxes really stand out. It's pretty much the same principle as highlighting those tasks - I just don't want to have to have access to more than my notebook and whatever pen is handy at the moment.

I have a picture of my book here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahmichelef/3404249811/

<<If on the other hand the answer is "No, I can't write it yet because I haven't finished the first chapter", then you simply cross the item out and re-enter it at the end of the list.>>

But what if you have a whole page full of these types of tasks, as I typically end up with, waiting for several people to complete their part? For example, "send out quarterly report [waiting for content from Bob]."

I've been trying a few approaches to this, but I'm not feeling quite happy with any of them. Any opinions?

1) Leave the task there until Bob gives me his content. However, there's no good reminder to come back to it and check-in with Bob. Also, as time goes by, the task gets left behind in my notebook, and I'm less likely to check it.
2) Keep moving the task to the end of the list until Bob gives me his content. While I know that re-entering tasks is a key component of Autofocus, it's sometimes frustrating to keep re-entering all of those tasks, I create undue stress on myself with these tasks that I feel like I'm stuck on through no fault of my own, and re-entering all of these doesn't seem to get me any closer to "done."
3) Write a date next to the task. This can signal me on that date to check in with Bob to see if he has his content ready for me yet. If not, I move the task to the end of the list and write a new date next to it a few days from now. (I could just cross off today's date and write in the new check-in date, but the space between lines in my notebook seem to be too narrow for that.) This seems the best approach to me so far, but again the re-entering is sometimes frustrating.

How aobut instead of "send out report/waiting for Bob" the item is "check with Bob re report (then send out)" And possible have this as a calendar reminder? I don't put any 'check with/follow up with' items on my AF list, they're all calendar reminders.

Hi Paul

I think with tasks such as these it is important to ensure that you have some idea as to when you expect a response. With something like a phone call, just adding "Fred called back?" is normally sufficient to act as a suitable reminder. However if you need a report by a certain date, then it is important that the other party knows the expected timescale. If you have a lot of this type of item where you do not anticipate a response for several weeks, then it makes sense to put it into your calendar system and bring it into your lists nearer the time. Keep in mind however, that you do not need to action the task each time you look at it. If it jumps out then send a follow up - if not wait until your next pass of the page.

Thanks everyone.

Regarding project management, I think Christine is probably correct. A few of the things i am working on are somewhat complex in structure (cloned contingencies, etc.). So, I will probably fire up old Tinderbox to track the shape of the project with some flexibility.

But I will use AF to evaluate tasks along the way, while getting done more than I thought I could. Many people have remarked on my increase in effectiveness. I am afraid I have set a bad precedent to live up to now on the job.

Thanks again.

Sarah,

You are quite welcome ;-)

Norman: I agree with Christine on this one ... I put my project planning elsewhere ... usually in OneNote now, and then take tasks from there and put them on my AF list ... OR ... I might just put "work on deck" and then either know what comes next or go to that project plan and check it out. It just depends on ...hell, I don't know what it depends on ;-)

Paul: I do the things contingent on others (waiting for, in GtD parlance) differently than others here. I simply keep a tickler list (in the back of my AF notebook). I used to have two lists (tickler and waiting for, but that seemed like overkill). I have true tickler items on my tickler list and for things where I am "Waiting for Bob", I'll assign a somewhat arbitrary date and then go chase him down on that date when i see it on my tickler list.

I see both sides of the argument ... in reality, there is no date for getting something from Bob so I should just see it periodically and keep checking ... so it should go on the AF list. OTOH, I personally don't want to be bothered by tripping over the "Waiting for Bob" entry over and over. I just see it on the tickler and think: "O.K. Bob still has two days before I get on his case."

As to seeing worked on items ... there are three ways that seem to be popular:

- Filled in boxes or circles
- Vertical lines
- Colored highlighters

If you want to just use the "official" cross off method, I would suggest using a broader tipped pen that makes a really thick and dark line ... or at least just a bit darker than the text you wrote the task in. It will stand out better. And, it also helps to try to draw a straight line. You don't have to go so far as to use a ruler, but if you draw as straight a line as possible, and try to center it vertically, then there will be a pattern that is much easier to spot. When scanning, it is all about patterns.

<<When scanning, it is all about patterns. >>

Great comment Mike - That's exactly it. That's why I find a suffix so much less distracting than a prefix if I really feel I "have" to tag an item in any way. When scanning I start at the beginning of the line (duh!) so the Suffix is not "in the way". If I want to scan "for" those tagged items I am looking at the end of the line so they are easily identifiable.

I disagree slightly with Mark's answer on contingent items. I think you're in danger of taking the interpretation of 'as long as you feel like' too far if you can cross an item off after doing basically nothing on it. That doesn't really give you the benefit of 'little and often' to such an extent either.

My approach on items where I'm waiting on someone else is generally to consider the timescales involved and put a calendar reminder to check when I think appropriate. (This *does* count as doing something on the task in my book). Or for the 'write chapter 2' example, if it stood out but I thought it was waiting for chapter 1, I would set my timer for a 5 minute brainstorm on chapter 2 - after which I might decide it wasn't waiting on chapter 1, or that I would need to do more research, or whatever. But either way I think it's important to do *something*. This could be very little, but I think it's very important that that little doesn't include *nothing*.

The other thing to bear in mind is that you'll probably only want to deal with one or two items at a time in this way, so pretty soon they'll become much more evenly spread throughout your list.

And finally, don't be afraid to dismiss them if they really aren't standing out. Dismissing is actually one of the most powerful aspects of the system, but sometimes it takes a little 'biting the bullet' when you first come to do it.

I don't keep any waiting on type tasks in my AF list. Instead I have a task called "Check on Waiting On Items." I have a physical folder with these items and an email folder that I am prompted to check whenever this task stands out. For things that are very time-sensitive, I would just give myself a calendar reminder.

As for the other types of contingent tasks, I added more of these kinds of tasks to my list at first than I do now. I prefer to have "Work on Project X" in my list now instead of adding multiple steps as separate tasks for this very reason of having to wait on contingencies.