Get Everything Done

While we wait with bated breath for the arrival of AF v2, I'd just like to comment on what I think has been the best tip I've derived from reading Mark's 'Do It Tomorrow'.

This is the advice that, when an alarm goes off to mark the scheduled end of an activity, you do it immediately and wherever you are in the activity - for example, if you're writing, do it in mid-sentence if that's where you are. ("Taking breaks", pp 164 on.)

The result is to leave you with some mental impetus to get you going again when you resume.

And knowing you'll end the break equally sharply makes you more willing to actually begin it.

And of course you get the refreshing effect of a change of activity. As Mark says, when you return to an activity after a break, you find your mind has moved on with it a little.

For years, whenever an alarm has gone off, I've started working out whether I should continue with what I was doing, or stop now. I invariably used to hit the snooze button. The result was that my day was filled with alarms going off but being snoozed and ignored. Often I did this unconsciously and would be unaware whether an alarm had gone off in the past minute or not. There should be a law against snooze buttons.

I now use - try to use - the 'stop-mid-sentence' rule alongside pomodoro slicing - 25 minutes work, 5 minutes non-work. The pomodoro technique would be my second choice of life-changing productivity tip.

But it's hard to stay disciplined. Even while writing this I goofed off and started bingeing on surfing instead of obeying those alarms ...

Hi Chris - I have a slightly different variation of that problem. I have a task to check email for example, and I'm itching for some procrastination time to hit the send/receive button way before I can get to it on the AF list. Many similar tasks of that sort that invite you to leave what you're doing and while away some time. I have many of those tasks as a recurring list which is maintained off-list from the main AF list.

So, here's something I am trying. Check email, then set a reminder to check it again at a suitable future interval, for example, an hour from now. That helps relieve the craving, knowing that I have an upcoming reminder that will make me stop working on my AF list and do that task. I also work offline in my Outlook, so I don't have email pushed into my inbox distracting me from work.

I think that tasks such as those could be set as reminders. Once the craving is satiated for the day, one could cross the task off the list as done when you pass through it.

Chris Cooper wrote:

'But it's hard to stay disciplined. Even while writing this I goofed off and started bingeing on surfing instead of obeying those alarms ...'

I use the 'count up' function on a kitchen timer instead of alarms.
After work/break I write eg 25/33 which means 25 mins work and 8 mins break, then restart the timer.

If going well over on work or break, the reason for doing so is recorded. At the end of the day it's then easy to see where the problem areas are, and come up with a way to deal with them.

Smiley Pete -- Interesting idea, thanks for sharing!