Get Everything Done

It seems like the key to FV is that there no option (other than delete or context-forced delay) to dotting the first (i.e. oldest) item on the list as the first step in the preselection. This forces you finally to deal with the task you have been procrastinating on for the longest time, after handling a few more desirable tasks.

exactly, I also feel this is one of the key rules.

Softens resistance in a new way, by keeping challenge in line with willingness. A journey from want to do to have to do/should do. Lots of room for experimentnal variations and play also!

One of the fascinating things I've discovered in working the process this morning is that the frequent rescanning of the list as I progress through it, desensitizes me to the anxiety I felt about certain things on the list.

Instead of the list being a collection of potentially "Big scary things that will steal your soul and reduce your life to a miserable, meaningless slog". It becomes a process of "OK this is just the next thing to do". I've tried it with simple tasks, lightweight projects, and some really big projects. The key does seem to be the forcing function of moving through the list top down.

It doesn't seem to matter if the thing on the list is a carefully crafted next action step or a project or just something dumped onto the list in haste.

For example, I look at the somewhat amorphous thing I put down on the list and when I want to work on it or it becomes the top of the list... I simply start factoring it into pieces and adding those to the end of the list. If they are urgent enough that I feel I want to work on them I dot them and do them and cross them off. If not I know that a subsequent scan will bring them to my attention. When I feel "done for now" I cross off the item I was working on and add it to the bottom of the list.

So actionable things on the list get done and projects get the review or thinking needed to move them along. I'm actually quite pleased with the results.

Tom L. Very good (any funny) summary of the strenght of this system

On the General Forum, nuttym created a Time Management System to Exercise One's Will.
FV is such a time management system with a human face. The Preselect of Oldest Task is the part that compels me to exercise my will. The subsequent selections are the human face that softens the blow.

I like that it doesn't matter where or when you write down the task, it gets equal attention during selection. You can even write future tasks. They stay "under the benchmark" until the time is right -- no more flipping between list and tickler file for tasks in the near future. It's also easy to reboot.

The "want to do before" question is brilliant. I keep saying my daily voice practice is less important than other things, and by the end of the day, it's not done. Now, "I want to do it before getting side-tracked." I know everything before it is less important at this moment, and it's easy to evaluate the stuff at the end.

It's also nice to have only one benchmark in mind at a time.