Get Everything Done

As an entrepreneur/therapist, my day is my own. Which is great, because it allows me to surf the net during the day, until my clients arrive at night. Ur, er... not good, not good! To change this pattern, I'm looking for suggestions on how folks went from doing whatever strikes their fancy, to incorporating AF as a daily habit. I mean, do you hit your lists right after your brush your teeth? Curious.

Hi Avrum,

I get up and begin a set of habits. Yes, brushing teeth ;-) but exercise, meditation, making lunch for my wife ... stuff like that. At the end of it is my "planning" session wherein I scan the entire AF list for "gotchas" and make up a card of must dos for the day. I also check my calendar to see if there is anything there.

Now that I have my day somewhat laid out in my mind, I "block" time for the big things. This morning it was spreading herbicide and fertilizer on the lawn. That came in at just under two hours including a shower to get the chemicals off of me. I have another block coming up to fix the dryer (cats keep pulling the vent hose off the back and I need a better solution to the problem than "Hey you turd, get out from behind that dryer before I decide to make a new pair of gloves!" ;-)

When I am not in one of my "time blocks" I do 20 minute sessions of various things ... one of which is my AF list. Pretty much everything is on my AF list, but it is not the central operational control of my life. That is were I am doing it differently than most others, I guess. I DO the AF list when it is time for me to do so rather than DOing the things on the list all day ... if that makes sense. Yet the things that are blocked are on my AF list and I see them first thing in the morning.

Anyway, that's how I do it. I have habits for lots of things and one habit is to work the AF list for 20 minutes here and there ... at no special time ... just when ever I have more than 20 minutes of unblocked time.

I agree with Mike and would add that you can make your AF list very rewarding by including lots of leisure tasks (e.g, read book X, watch TV show X, etc.) and by doing the more routine tasks before working on your AF list, thus making your list a reward. For example, I don't have time blocks for working on AF until after my school day is done. If you're a therapist, you'll also know that disciplining yourself to think positively about your list will build the habit (e.g., "I'm really looking forward to it," "I'm eager to get some old projects completed," "I have complete control in choosing tasks and how long to work them," etc.). Best wishes!

Read the instruction about AF on this site. Not to be curt or flippant, but read Mike's posts on the Gantt chart thread.

It ain't that complicated.

Hi Avrum,

I try and do one task every morning in my home book before I leave for work. I try and make sure it's on my current active page, but I have been known to do something that's on another page because it's sometimes hard to pick tasks that you can do at 6 a.m.. Other than that, I would also read my list in the morning and kind of prepare myself for the day ahead. See if anything comes up that's urgent, write a few tasks down that pop into your head, that kind of thing.

If I were you - since you've found that you are in a habit of kind of drifting through the day, I would check out one of the timer techniques discussed on here (I like David Seah's), pomodoro, or just a regular timer. Do 15 minutes of surfing for every 45 minutes of work - or take an hour and "work/surf/work/surf" for 15 minutes each cycle just to build up your tolerance. I would especially do this if I had a surfing problem, which I don't now, but have had before on weekends and stuff, so I know how that can suck your time away. I had this timer on this morning:

http://www.markforster.net/forum/post/747508

and OMG, did it work well in a freaky way.

It sounds like you're not a "time block" person like Mike (neither am I), but I find that making effective use of *transition* periods is key to success in establishing any kind of habit.

So, as soon as you come into your office in the morning, open your book to your active page and put it right beside you where it's in plain sight. Then tell yourself that you can't go get a coffee (or whatever you really want to do) until you start or do one thing on that list. Same thing when you get home from work. Just tell yourself you only have to do ONE measly thing as soon as you get home. If your energy is high, you'll probably keep going, if it isn't, you'll relax and take the rest of the night off guilt-free, which could be just what you should be doing (if you weren't surfing during the day :-).

Avrum,

My home is not my workplace. Nonetheless, I use AF at home and at work. I have had web-surfing binges pre-AF. Straight, out-of-the-box, AF worked well to eliminate it.

If I worked from home, I would set personal office hours (this is from Mark Forster). If your clients don't show up till the evening, you need to establish a schedule for yourself. For example, 1:00 - 5:00 PM. During those hours, you know that you are "at work." During that time you use your Work AF list.

Just because you are at work doesn't mean you can't surf the web. As you are working on a Work task, you have an strong urge to learn more about the platypus. You write, "Google 'platypus'" at the end of your work AF list. Now, you have an even stronger motivation to do at least one item on each AF page until you get to the last page where you can, at last, feast on platypus info to your heart's content.

That's why Mark calls it "structured procrastination." All work and no play makes Avrum a boring, unhappy boy (my apologies if you are female). With AF it's OK to procrastinate because it is productive procrastination. After surfing the platypus sites, I learn that I really want to learn more about spiny anteaters. I mark my AF platypus task done and enter a new task for spiny anteaters. I now decide what to do next.

More often than not, the sight of all those other things that are real important leads me to stop surfing and start working.

I do not use timers. I allow myself to work as long or as little as I want, just like the AF rules state. Plain, vanilla AF is a pretty good procrastination buster all by itself.

Avrum,

I follow a simple routine everyday when I arrive at work. Before AF it looked like this...

- urgent email
- review/update/sync calendar
- to-do list
- email
- Outlook to-do items
- email follow-up items

The rest of the day would be back & forth from email to to-do list in no particular order.

Now it looks like this...

- urgent email
- review/update/sync calendar
- AF

Everything goes into AF and as long as I stick with the rules the right things get done at the right time.

Hi Avrum

I have always tried to follow some sort of "office hours" rule as I am home based but find AF so easy to follow that most evenings I now find myself "procrastinating" from watching TV to go back to my lists :-)

Actually, the best thing for me in developing AF has been this forum. At the start of the day, when I might feel too bleary eyed to even see the task that is jumping out, I check out the forum. Reading the comments and answering a few gets me quickly into AF mode and I am off and running ......

From Moises:

"Just because you are at work doesn't mean you can't surf the web. As you are working on a Work task, you have an strong urge to learn more about the platypus. You write, "Google 'platypus'" at the end of your work AF list. Now, you have an even stronger motivation to do at least one item on each AF page until you get to the last page where you can, at last, feast on platypus info to your heart's content."

Many thanks, this really helped me to think how I can do this at home (I do have a surf/playing games 'problem'!)

"I check out the forum. Reading the comments and answering a few gets me quickly into AF mode and I am off and running ...... "

Helpful, thanks.

And thanks to everyone else for posting.