Get Everything Done

I have a number of projects at home where I use the little and often approach with great success. However, I do have some projects where I have felt they haven't moved fast enough when I work on them little and often. Or perhaps it's that in using AF, I am not working on them often enough because for some reason they aren't standing out. I seem to lose track of the time it's taking to resolve them too.

For example, I had "find hardwood flooring nailer - non-pneumatic & <$250" on my list for over 2 months. Every time I came to that page and it stood out, I would check another store, online, kijiji/craigslist, or the local buy and sell. I've felt like not getting these things done has held up projects for too long.

So my modification when really wanting closure on some items - especially those where other projects depend on them being complete, has been to not cross them off when I've made an attempt to close them off, but to leave them on the list. When I see 1 or 2 uncompleted items on my first 3-4 active pages, I am extremely motivated to close them off and have managed to come up with creative solutions to finish them off or to really go the extra mile to get them resolved.

I don't do this a lot, just when I see that something isn't going to move as smoothly as I thought and needs an extra push.

I'm happy to say that my flooring nailer was delivered today - Made in Canada too. :-)

Hi Jacquline,

This is a nice and novel approach to getting some projects moving. Another approach that I have been using is through the Time Machine software. If I identify a project such as you have described that I feel that I am not making sufficient progress, I schedule a time block during the day. During that specific time block, I work ONLY on that project and nothing else. This includes email, phone calls, visits (a please do not disturb sign on my office door).

At any rate, your method sounds intriguing and is an approach I may try.

-David