Get Everything Done

A word of warning: This is how *I* link goals and my AF list. I share it here in the hope others might find useful ideas in it. I use tweak to AF3 that I call „Ping-Pong-AF“, which is described in length at http://www.markforster.net/forum/post/988459 , but I think the basic principle I am going to describe should be adaptable to any AF version.

The problem are goals with deadlines. Especially if the deadlines are tight or the amount of work huge. In my life, this refers mostly to novels – I have contracts for them, the contracts contain regulations like „the manuscript shall be delivered until 15th january 2011“, and given the size of a novel, staying „on track“ is crucial. Should I fall behind without noticing, I might come to a point from which on it’s impossible to catch up. (And because I know this, I tend to work endlessly on such goals when I don’t know where I’m standing: Out of fear to miss. So, for me, a proper handling of goals with deadlines is not only necessary in order to attain them, but quite as well in order not to neglect the rest of my life!)

Other goals are very well handled by AF: You put them on the list and leave it to the process. You will think about them, do some first steps, learn about them, about possibilities and obstacles, and so on. But goals with deadlines need additional treatment.

As I explained in http://www.markforster.net/forum/post/992066 , I break large goals down to monthly and weekly milestones. The basic idea is that if you have a year to finish a novel, you should have half a novel after half a year and a twelfth part after a month (in reality, it’s more complicated, because you have second and third drafts, rewriting and lecturing processes, so: you don’t have a year, but rather four months for the first draft). That means, I do mathematics until I am able to write goals for any given week into my calendar: „Chapter 4 until end of week“, for example. Or „Novel 12.000 words until saturday“.

You usually don’t have one goal, you have many. At least I have. I had to promise my wife to clean the garage this week - so this is another deadline. And so on.

But be careful: Use this method only for *real* deadlines. When I have promised to somebody to do something until a certain date, THEN and ONLY then it’s a deadline. If I think for myself, „well, it would be nice to have the garage cleaned this week“, it is NOT a deadline.

Why the distinction? Because if you would allow promises to yourself to be deadlines, prioritization would come back through the rear door. And as Mark Forster has pointed out so insightfully (and I as well as a lot of other members of this forum have confirmed this from own experience), any prioritization *weakens* the AF core process.

OK – now I have my weekly calendar with a list of goals to attain this week.

What did NOT work for me was having calendar and AF list side by side. I use to concentrate on the AF list and forget about the calendar.

What to do? As usual, I took something Mark Forster had suggested and tweaked it until it fit.

Remember what he advises about tasks in the calendar („reminder tasks“): They should not be there in order to be *executed* on a given day, but to be inserted into the AF list on that day and left to the usual AF processing. For example, if you plan to invite your whole family to a restaurant at your birthday, which happens to be in september, it would be useless to put „make reservation with restaurant“ on your list in january: you better put it in your calendar to become an actual task from august on or so.

Now, this is meant for tasks that shall *start* at a given date.

But it works quite as well for tasks that has to be *finished* until a given date!

What I do with my milestones is: I simply put them on my AF list (at the first day of the week, usually), I add the deadline and in order to enhance the visibility of this tasks, I draw a square around the deadline.

So, I have tasks like:
„novel 12.000 words [until Saturday]“
„clean garage [until Saturday]“
„complete email interview with X magazine [in january]“
„return tax form [<28.]“
„write about linking goals and AF in AF forum [today]“
(imagine [] being a square around the text)

I have experimented a lot with different ways to accentuate milestone tasks, and up to now this has proven to be (at least for me) the best way to accentuate them without them becoming too flashy. I’d say my subconscious is „thankful for the hint“. Of course, the process of scanning the page, waiting for a task to „stand out“ feels slightly different and comes up with different results – but after all, that’s what is intended. I don’t forget my goals, but I do not cling to them, either – I have the feeling of balance.

I handle this milestone tasks just as every task on the list: I work on them when they stand out and as long as I feel like doing so, I carry them forward – along with the deadline, of course! – and I found it useful to black out the „deadline squares“ once I strike out the task. Some quick scribbles to fill the square with color, that’s enough to signal: No longer important.

Recently, I found it useful to add another sign: I put a T on the page that contains the first valid milestone task. (T is from the German word „Termin“, which means deadline, but you may as well think of it as TIME-RELATED... or choose another symbol.) So, when I am in Reverse Mode, I take care I scan back at least until this page in order not to miss a milestone task: The T simply signals that there are no more milestone tasks on earlier pages.

And that’s it. It’s simple and efficient, but as usual, details count, and it should be judged by experience, not by reading about it.

If somebody should give it a try, I’d be interested to hear about his or her experiences.

I would be interested to hear more about your connection of goals and tasks.

Wolfgang

Sorry, obviously you answered my question in the post. I asked this question to a previous post which I couldn't find currently - maybe it was lost during the upload. Sorry and thank you for answering the question before I have asked it :-)

Wolfgang

Correcting your links so they work:
"I use tweak to AF3 that I call „Ping-Pong-AF“, which is described in length at http://www.markforster.net/forum/post/988459 "


"As I explained in http://www.markforster.net/forum/post/992066 , I break large goals down to monthly and weekly milestones."

Thank you. Obviously, I believed too much in this "Hyperlinks will be created automatically"... ;-)

Just to share it in case somebody is trying something similar (still working with an adapted AF3, as I have settled for): I've added a small rule that has proven to be helpful to deal with periods when a lot of urgent items come up.

The original tweak rule says that after every task from the end of the list, I have to jump back into the body of the list (to the moving bookmark) and EITHER do something about at least (but not limited to) one task OR dismiss a page. After that, I'm allowed to the end of the list.

The added rule:
Instead of jumping back to the moving bookmark, I am allowed to attack other tasks from the end - but ONLY tasks with a deadline!

Or in other words: I am allowed to do 1 task from the end of the list and afterwards as many deadlined tasks as I feel like. After that, I have to jump back to the moving bookmark for at least 1 task or 1 dimissed page.

This way, in case there are a lot of small but urgent tasks, they can get handled immediately without the need to defer the rules (which always creates a feeling of "emergency").