Get Everything Done

I thought I'd share this small tip. When starting a new preselection, I mark the root item not with a dot, but with a small triangle (could be anything you like: a star, ...). That way, as I'm working backwards through the preselected items, it's easy to see when I've reached the top of the list.

This is useful for me, because after some time working on the list, I don't always remember what the root item was. For others, it may be overkill ;)

Love it, especially the star! It fits perfectly with the way the I feel like completing the last dot in a chain is something like a prize. I have already experienced doing some really high-resistance tasks with FV simply because they were the last one in the chain.

Nice, simple addition.

Isn't it clear when you've reached the "root" item at the top of the list, because all other tasks prior to this item are crossed off?

Jeff N:

Not in my case. I started from an existing AF1 list. This means that the initial items are spread very thinly over several pages (something like 3 remaining items per page), with some completely finished pages in between. As I use AF since 3 years now, my root items started on page 138. So especially if the preselected chain is somewhat long (in number of items or in time spent on it), I don't always see if I reached the top of the chain or if there is still another item 7 pages earlier...

How did you mark completed pages before? X at the top of the page? Tear off a corner? When you reach the first non-torn corner, you're on the last page.

Having said that, I like the psychology of treating that first task as something special.

I keep a number of paperclips in my notebook - one on the first page, one on the open page, and one on the page I'm currently working (I "lose" that more than I "lose" my first page). It's been working pretty well for me.