Get Everything Done

Would you recommend using separate notebooks for home tasks and work tasks, Mark?

A big thanks from me as well for your new and final version. FV seems to have a flavour of DIT in it too (which is always the method I've returned to after trying out AF in all its variations).

I work from home and I still maintain two lists. Otherwise I would let myself be distracted from work items during designated working hours by doing less stressful home items. It gives me the same structure that I would have if I worked away from home, and I need that structure to stay focused on getting business tasks done.

I recently adopted and slightly adjusted a suggestion from somebody who's name I forgot. I've been using AF1 for the past months and almost two weeks ago, I started using separate pages (columns actually) for work and home tasks, but intermingled in the same book. Furthermore I'm writing work tasks in red and home tasks in blue. So I could have 5 'home' pages, a work page, two more home pages and then 2 work pages. When I'm at work, I only process the red pages (or columns) and rarely glance at the blue pages for something that might be urgent. And when I'm at home, I generally leave the red columns alone and only process the blue columns.

The advantage of having the work and home pages intermingled is that you're always aware of both your home and your work tasks, and you have only one book to enter stuff into.

See a picture of my book: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/426952/af1-workhome.jpg

Also... I intend to use the same strategy when I switch to FV tomorrow.

Tijl:

I see in your photo what looks like dates to the left of some items. Just curious if you do the same as I do...add tickler dates for future items. These are ignored until the date comes. At that point, I re-enter at end of list. I do something similar for someday/maybe's. It keeps EVERYTHING on one list without interfering with the AF/SF/FV mechanics.

I draw a column on the left of each page. It's easy to see when any item has been completed, tickled or dotted. Future items are easily ignored while current items stand out.

@Scott: good guess, but actually no.

The dates are written next to the starting point of that day. So for example to the left of the red pen is written '7-3' which for me (as a European) means the 7th of March. About ten tasks below that is written '8-3', i.e. the 8th of March. All tasks written between these two dates were entered on the 7th of March.

The reason I do this is twofold:
1) I have a clear idea how old certain tasks are, which may help in deciding whether the task should be actioned yet. So for example if I notice that there is an unactioned task called 'Vacuum' which is written on a date more than a month ago, I know it is time to vacuum my room :P.
2) It makes it very easy to see how well I'm progressing with my todos. When I start a new column every day or every two days, I know I'm doing well. If it took me two weeks to fill up the four columns on a double page, I know I'm not doing well and I have to pick up the slack.

For some reason it seems natural to combine the lists into one list. So that's what I did. About 300 items for work, and 300 items for personal. I guess I'll see how it works out.

Having returned to the fold, I am finding FV very good, been using it in paper/pen mode this week.

Like others, I am a bit torn about separate lists. Some time ago I used AF/SF in one book, Work and one end, book turned upside-down for Personal at the other end.

Since using Toodledo on my Toshiba notebook and Android smartphone,I'm going to be adapting Toodledo to FV.

I'll try for one list with everything, but use filters to view by Context (Work, Personal, Errand), Location (Home, Home Office, Client Office, Hotel/Lodging, Travel, Anywhere) etc. As suggested in another post, I'll use stars as the dot.

Then I can flip between views and hopefully be less distracted when working the FV list.

As I wrote in another thread: at the transition from AF to FV I also switched to combining everything into one list. Previously I was easily distracted by seeing home-items on the list while at work and vice versa, which is why I kept separate lists (after some trial and error). Being distracted in one list is still somewhat the case with FV when making the preselection, but once the preselection is made I'm not bothered at all by anything between the preselected tasks, so it's much easier to stay in a flow. Plus, once the first task is preselected any following preselection-decisions are made with relevance to that first task, so the focus 'work' easily remains 'work' while preselecting. And all that while still remaining sensitive enough to urgent home-related tasks, such as making a call that has to be made during office hours.

So far, this works very nicely for me, but I'm only on the second day of FV now, so we'll see how it works out after a week or so...

I carry two lists but don't distinguish between personal and work. For me the distinction is stuff that needs to be done during business hours and things that can be done after hours. So I have many personal items on my "work" list - usually calls I need to make.

Like Nicole I've switched to one list with FV and it's working well so far. One list never worked for me in any of the AF/SF variations, so this is a big plus for FV.

Thanks, everyone, for your very helpful input. Although I am in an office part of the week, I do quite a lot of work from home. However, one reason for trying to keep separate home and work lists was to prevent work tasks from taking over my life at home. I have experimented with separate notebooks, colour-coding, divided but on same page etc. etc. as well as electronic lists, filtering and so on. All this tinkering just made it all more complicated, and the simplicity of a single list appealed to me even though I struggled to make it work.

I think the point made by Nicole, who has moved to a single list with FV:

<once the preselection is made I'm not bothered at all by anything between the preselected tasks, so it's much easier to stay in a flow. Plus, once the first task is preselected any following preselection-decisions are made with relevance to that first task, so the focus 'work' easily remains 'work' while preselecting>

has convinced me to experiment working a single list.

I think Linda's latest post highlights the advantage of a single list.

While electronic versions are usually more amenable to sorting and viewing the preselected items only - and I am in the process of converting my FV to Toodledo (Windows, although a mobile beta has just been released for Android)/Ulimate-To-Do (Android) - I wondered if any paper and pen users just rely on the single list and searching for the dots, or if they write each preselected list on another page, card, whiteboard, Post-It, whatever.

It could be written in a second column on each page as well. If manual, I would go for the Post- It note attached to a shelf or my computer screen.

With preselection, one has to take into account context (work, personal, errands, chores) along with locations (home, work office,client office, travel, anywhere) because one cannot to home chores while travelling, for example, but 'Pay supplier's invoice £12,45' can be done anywhere one has online access.

Again, electronic applications score.

@Roger J. I use pen and paper and working from a single list is very quick and easy. (Easier for me than an electronic app.) There's no 'searching for the dots', I just look up the list until I get to a dot. And one of the beauties of FV is that preselection is only done each time a ladder is completed, so if it does take me a few extra seconds to scan my list because it has mixed contexts and locations, that only happens a few times a day. But mixed contexts don't seem to slow me down.