Get Everything Done

This is a note on how FV is working for me, as someone whose daily life is a mixture of dealing with a lot of routine tasks and also one-off tasks, some large, some small. I apologise in advance that this is a long post, but it might perhaps be useful to someone.

Firstly, many thanks to Mark for the new system, the two words that come to mind are 'powerful' and 'elegant'. It's the Rudolf Nureyev of systems! Thanks also to Avrum for the very helpful and clear screencast on using Evernote.

My specific challenge is that I have a lot of tasks that I have to do on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, and if not the household grinds to a halt. None take very long but they are pretty boring. I also have more interesting but also more difficult tasks and projects that are likely to be 'one-offs'. If I get engrossed in a project, the routine tasks slide, but sometimes I use the routine tasks as a way of avoiding starting to progress a project.....and I am also someone who can find a long list overwhelming.

In Evernote, my Autofocus list was within a single Note. Using Avrum's ideas for FV, I first made each of these tasks an individual Note within a Notebook called 'Mark Forster's System'. Because I entered them in order from the top of the existing list, if I sort by 'Create Date' the oldest Note is always at the top of the list, which is important in FV.

Then I set up Tags for 'Monday', 'Tuesday' and so on and tagged individual Notes accordingly where they are routine tasks that come around weekly. I realised some Notes needed an 'Every Day' tag, and there are some which are 'Every Month' in which case the title of the Note specifies this e.g. 'on the 1st'. I now had a Notebook called 'Mark Forster's System' with a long list of Notes/tasks, many of them tagged with a specific day or date.

Evernote sorts all user-generated Tags alphabetically in a pane to the left of the open Note. I decided to make a Tag called 'Can Do' so that it would appear at the top of this list. Each morning I drag all Notes flagged for that day into that Tag, which gives them an extra Tag - 'Can Do'. There are also lots of tasks that aren't time-dependent - these are mostly my 'projects' - and these Notes are generally flagged as 'Can do' as soon as I enter them as Notes in the 'Mark Forster System' Notebook.

My 'Mark Forster System' Notebook always retains every single Note that I have entered in it, in date order, but when I click on the 'Can do' Tag, a sub-list appears, this remains in the date entered order but is pruned of all the Notes/tasks that I don't need to do until another time.

I'm now ready to start dotting tasks! I created a 'Do' Tag which appears just below 'Can Do' in the list. The Note which sits at the top of the 'Can Do' list (i.e. the oldest) is dragged into the 'Do' tag. Then I scan my 'Can Do' list and decide which other tasks I want to do before I do that task and drag those to 'Do'. Then I work on them from the bottom of the date-sorted 'Do' list (or it can be called a chain or ladder) upwards.

As I either complete a Note/task or decide I have had enough for now I change its Tags. If more remains to be done, I delete 'Do' but 'Can Do' remains. It will still appear in the 'Can Do' list the next time I work through it making a chain and if it is the oldest task it will be the first in my next chain. If it is a task that is completed for now but will come round again next Wednesday, I keep the day Tag but delete both 'Do' and 'Can Do' so it now appears only in the Wednesday list and I can forget about it until then. If it is a non-recurring task that is completed then I tag it 'Wholly Complete'. This clunky term just means it appears at the bottom of the alphabetical Tag list, where I rarely visit!

I've achieved a lot since I started working this system, I particularly like the way that sorting with Evernote Tags means that I am presented with a shorter list of tasks when I start to build each chain, and I only ever have to think about what I could handle today. The fact that the routine weekly or monthly tasks tend to be 'older' in the date-sorted list ensures they get done, however boring. If I'm not getting onto more meaty projects because those routine tasks take up too much of the day, then it should prompt me to consider if I can get the routine stuff off the list altogether by asking if I can "Delegate, Delay, Delete"..... In fact what usually happens with FV is that the top of each chain is one of these short routine tasks, and the answer to 'What do I want to do before I" do that is something non-mundane, i.e. some work on a project. Another positive is that a lot of the routine tasks involve getting up and moving about, which gets me a break from looking at a screen.

The only refinement I think I would consider making to the system as I am using it now, is that of editing individual Notes to change their date positioning. I already jot thoughts and reminders in the body of the Notes for individual projects. Evernote allows Notes to be sorted by 'Updated' date/time as well as by 'Created'. I could type a dot (as a reference back to the paper version!) at the end of the Note title, and then save it, and this would mark the Note with a later 'Updated' time. I tend to have no more than three items in my Do list at present, but modifying Notes in this way would allow me to sort a longer chain of tasks into other than original date order when I am working the chain - with the proviso that the top of the chain always has to remain the oldest Note on the 'Can do' list.

I should also mention that FV is working for me when I have a fixed appointment. Yesterday I had a hair appointment so my question in creating my chain was 'What do I want to do before I' - "Go to get my hair cut'. I ensured I made some small amount of progress on my 'oldest' task just before I went, I think that otherwise I might have fallen into the trap of writing it off altogether for that day with the excuse that the day was interrupted.

Another way that I think I could create 'brackets' for the length of each chain is to set out to complete a chain by lunchtime, or the evening meal. This might 'force' selection of time-critical tasks when I build a chain, in which case the item above a time-critical task would probably be something pleasant, as a reward! My reason for seeking to bracket the timescale within which to complete a chain is that I want to approach each day as a new day and a new chain, or series of chains. It feels demoralising to start off with an unfinished chain, rather than a fresh 'Can do' list to select from.

Again, apologies for the length of the post and I hope that I haven't put anyone off trying Evernote, it's really not as complicated as I probably make it sound once you are using it. I could certainly work this system on paper, but I do like the extra dimensions offered by tagging posts so that it is possible to pre-sift task lists. I also like watching the number of projects in 'Wholly completed' increase - in fact perhaps I should revert to calling it 'Completed' so it sits next to 'Can Do' in my list :)

I forgot to mention that I am eagerly anticipating the fuller description of FV in the projected book. I am wondering how FV will handle specific issues like the potential for dismissal/quarantining of tasks and whether it will incorporate a mechanism to help users determine when they are trying to bite off more than they can chew - not generating the answer to the question "How should I" but the question "Should I even be trying to..."

Another aspect I hope will be covered is the backlog that so many new users start out with. I have a backlog myself at the moment, due to an illness, I'm not quite ready as yet to toss it into FV and see what the system makes of it, that will be something I will try when I feel I have more stamina. But I strongly suspect FV will eat it for breakfast!

My response is a bit a case of the pot calling the kettle black, if one can still use that phrase.

I started with Mark's systems evolution the day he announced AF, late December 2008, I think.

Since then I have dabbled with the various developments of Mark's, never tried anything else. I've always wanted to go electronic because of the sheer convenience of always having the list with me, the more so since I got my first proper smartphone last year.

These forays have never really been successful, I was trying to tweak too much and in the end I went quiet for several months last year on using whatever version was seemingly the best for me. i was even sceptical when I returned to the forum and read about the upcoming FV.

It's good to read a post like Spangles, someone who's had a real go. However, I wonder if too many electronic tweaks results in too much 'overhead', a common complaint about GTD in its native and other incarnations.

I am finding FV a revelation, and am m0re enthusiastic than in the heady days of AF.0

I have realised that trying to get the flow and the right balance of psychological readiness wonderful. So I'm trying to focus on FV in my Evernote without too many tags - last night in the Entebbe airport lounge, I streamlined my tags.

This is because I want to preserve some of the manual/paper benefits of FV and get enough benefits from using Evernote for FV.

I think it was Alan Baljeu who highlighted his own desire to keep the FV chain short. I seem to have drifted into this as well, 3 - 5 tasks only in the current chain, otherwise the list begins to resemble the FV itself.

Once again, Mark, thanks for a great system, and also congratulations on the new grandchild, i look forward to my two coming to us later this week for a few days, exhausting, but so fulfilling.

@Mark - thank you, I will try that!

I can see the pitfalls of overcomplicating a system, but to me there is an advantage in having a list that only presents relevant options and which appears different from day to day (although the absolute order remains unchanged). It prevents me 'greying out' options as I scan a list which has become overfamiliar. I noticed that sometimes happened to me with a paper Autofocus list. On one occasion I even rewrote the list, transposing some of the entries, so that I had to look at it with fresh eyes. I had to do that just to 'see' what I should actually dismiss.

I'm ashamed to say that another pitfall is reading my own handwriting.....ashamed because I draw and paint competently but can't seem to write neatly! Because I've used a keyboard more than I have pen and paper, at least since my mid-teens, it seems natural to use it for most purposes. Software has to be the servant, not the master though - it has to enable the principles to be adhered to and it's important not to adopt enhancements just because the software has that capability. I think the test is how quickly one can get from opening Evernote (or any similar software in fact) to starting to do the real work of moving up a chain of tasks. I would say anything more than 5 mins counts as procrastination.....