Get Everything Done

Hi All

I was trying several of Mark's systems and right now I am using one of the Autofocus systems with an OK level of success, thinking about trying Final Version and got a few questions for those who tried it for some time already.

Is there anybody who tried using FV for both work and home stuff?
I've got an interesting job with a need to do lots of stuff there, I've got some private projects (say, running a own web-site) and some home maintenance stuff as well. Most of the time I am ok with mixing these things a little (e.g. doing an errand or replying to urgent private email at work OR doing a work phone call to another time zone from home in the evening). Still most of my office hours are to be dedicated to work projects and most of my private time is to go for my private stuff.

How do you manage such a mix of tasks?
Do you have a single FV list and it somehow automagically prioritizes work stuff for work hours?
Do you have two FV lists?
Do you have two FV lists with the pseudo-tasks "look at another list in case there's something urgent"?

One mixed list. If the first task on the list is for the wrong context I just skip it, and make a chain starting with the first task for the right context. That's enough focus to mainly select tasks for the right context when making the preselection. It gets a bit tricky when switching contexts before finishing a chain, but I solve that by using colored tags for the preselection instead of dots, so the preselection is easily scrapped.

Everything in one list in a notebook. I have a long list.

I use intendations. One for work, one for home and one for other contexts. I works well in my notebook. In electronic format I used to have 3 spaces for each intendation step.

When I preselect items I write to the end of the list a new item . So my list has item families like ’Home: 114, 175, 289, 299’, ’Work: 98, 323, 324, 325, 367’. And then I do them in the reverse order as FV rules define. I may also do a preselection (=gather together) item families for other contexts like ’Downtown: 22, 322, 368’, ’Mark; 325, 367’. I have also for example project related item families. One item can belong to several preselections. For example items 325 and 367 both need to be done and need to be discussed with the boss.

I generate item numbers simply by counting rows. Items are added in groups of 5 to make the counting easier. I have 20 items on each page.

There are at least three benefits from this habit of adding a list of preselected items as an item to the end of the list.

The first is that when I go from home to work I can leave my home list ’open’ and continue at work from my work list or start a new one. In fact I have several ’active’ item families on my list.

The second is that I don’t need to look for the next preselected item. In a long list with many many pages that is sometimes difficult. I have also noticed that if I have a time box and I try to make the items to fit into it it's easier to decide which items to drop if I can see the items 'together'.

The third is that some tasks are easier to do when a possibility arises. For example if the boss calls it is easy to see from the item family which items I want to discuss with him.

Interesting ideas, guys!
I was thinking about using some symbols for identifying the context (in a paper notebook), but indentation is even simpler (at least for just a couple of contexts).

plNystrom, do I get it correctly, that each and every task in your task list you actually start by writing a number?

I meant pkNystrom, sorry for the typo

Item numbers; I need them because my list is long and scattered on too many pages. I don’t want to clutter my pages, so no, I don’t write item numbers to items automatically.

I write items in groups of five. In other words, an empty row + 5 items, an empty row + five items etc.

Actually the ’empty’ row is only empty of items. It has a number.

My current page has on the first line number 620 and the first item on the next line is thus 621 and the next item line is 622 etc.. On the next ’empty’ line there is 625 and thus the next item number will be 626.

When I make a preselection and need to know item numbers, I count them in my head and add to the list of items. The only thing I add to the item row is a dot to show that it has been selected to a preselection.

In the first phase I used different symbols for different contexts. The problem was it wasn’ t visual and clear enough. It works well in the beginning but when the number of pages grows and the number of items grows and the number of symbols in use also grows then there were problems.

Nowadays I use intendation as the first step to separate different contexts. For many items this is the only thing needed. But not for all items.

As a second step I use symbols at home and at work short texts (person names, project names, etc) at the end of the row. I tried using them in the beginning of the item but that did not work for me.

Anyway, I have not found any bigger problems in keeping the work and home related items on the same list. Not after I started intending different contexts in a different way.

I use two separate notebooks, one written in black pen (home) and one in blue (work). That way I can quickly tell which one I'm looking at with the cover open or closed, so I don't write in the wrong one.

This is where electronic lists shine.

For example, using Toodledo (the website, as well as the iPhone app).

I have a Pro account, which is only $15 a year ($30 if you want to have up to 10 GB of file storage), you can sort the list automatically by three instead of two variables. This isn't necessary for the system I'll describe: you'd just leave off the last sort.

But first a word on "Start Dates".

Following a suggestion from Michael Linenberber in his book, "Master Your Workday Now", I stopped using Due Dates in electronic task managers. Instead I write the Due Date within the task itself like, "DUE Nov 14: Submit Johnson report to Ted".

So that takes care of Due Dates.

But every task gets assigned a Start Date. By default, I have Toodledo set up so the Start Date = Today. But I'll change that often to a later date if I can't or don't want to work on the task yet.

So with the previous task as an example, if I wanted to get started on it just after Remembrance Day, I'd set the Start Date within Toodledo for November 12th and write it as above.

Bear with me for a moment while I say one more thing about how Toodledo handles Start Dates.

If you don't enable the Due Date field, Toodledo will repeat tasks by Start Date instead (or Completion Date if you choose that option within the task). This is very helpful, and lets you schedule bills and what have you that recur. Exercise sessions possibly. Home maintenance tasks. Whichever.

Now try to visualize this for a moment.

The list is sorted first by Start Date. Next, by Context (one could be called "Home" and the other called "Work"). And finally by Alphabetical, although that last one is very much optional and only possible with a Pro or ProPlus account.

In lieu of the third sort being by Alphabetical, you could easily make it by Priority. Or by Starred. Either/or.

Now I don't bother using Priority (although I have that field enabled in the iPhone app because, doing that enables the Hotlist" task count badge feature, where the number of tasks on your "Hotlist" is visible as a badge on the iPhone's icon; it shouldn't be necessary to have to enable this field to use this feature in the app, but it is and whatever).

Instead of Priority, I find it quicker and easier just to use Star. You can use Star as you wish. I use it to designate higher priority items I intend to do in a given day. Anything else is gravy.

I prefer Star to Priority because I don't have to open the task up to change it. Just tap it and it's starred or unstarred.

Moving forward.

You can view all your tasks on one list. Anything with a Start Date of today appears up top, and there's a divider separating it from the remainder of your tasks. Then another divider for tasks starting within the next seven days, and further dividers for the beginning of each subsequent month. This is handy.

So all the tasks you plan on working on today, or can work on today, are above this divider. But if you get them done and feel like working on tomorrow's tasks early you easily can -- without changing views

You truly have the one long list, but easily and well segmented.

Because you've sorted it by Work context and Home context, say, as your second sort, then within every given today (Start Date = Today) there's some segmentation between them.

Further, you can just go to the "Context" section within either the Toodledo website or app and view either Context on its own -- but the list itself sorted exactly as above. And you can switch to "All Contexts" view when you want

I have an additional refinement in that in addition to the iPhone app, I customized a Google Chrome extension to pop-up the main Toodledo website with my task list in an iFrame -- not the mobile version, the full version. Further, the extension has a badge that lists my Hotlist task count just like my iPhone app icon does. So that's nice.

Totally optional, but still nice.

At the beginning of the day, the one bit of maintenance I do is -- for all tasks that don't repeat by Start Date (which I designate as follows in this example "RBD: Pay credit card bill"), I change all overdue Start Dates to equal today. That and Star/Unstar anything I want for the day.

But that amount of maintenance is really tiny, and with a saved search by Start Date = Today on the Toodledo website, and multi-edit, takes just a fraction of time.

Speaking of saves searches, I have all sorts of useful ones I've made. Tasks with the dollar sign in them, for example. And so forth.

But ... I can actually manage my entire system in the All Tasks view, one list, and that's it, sorted by Start Date, then Context (I use Folders, but you can use Context) and then Alphabetical (but could easily be Star or Priority if you prefer).

Simplest, and best, task-management system I've ever used, and I've used tons.

P.S. Toodledo makes turning emails into tasks easy. Forward it to Toodledo and using a special, but easy, syntax to designate Start Date, Context, Star, etc with the subject line becoming the task name and the body of the email becoming the task note ... and even the attachments getting attached to the task within Toodledo if you're a ProPlus subscriber like I am).

Summary of my last post:

One long list sorted by start date; then within each start date, sorted by context; then within each context, sorted by alphabetical, with stars visually designating high-priority tasks to be worked on today: alternatively, the last sort can simply be by starred.

When I tried AF I just used one book for work and home. When you add an item to a new page write W or H at the very top of the page with a circle around it , depending on which category this new item belongs to. From that point onwards, that page is only ever used for tasks of that category.

When selecting tasks or building chains (in FV) just skip over the pages you're not currently interested in, ie, at work skip pages with H at the top. This keeps things very simple and maximises the use you get from a single book by avoiding artificial boundaries (I once tried left side is W and right side is H, but that wasted around 1/3 of a book for me).

Chris

I use a single notebook and write in the far right margin the context in which it will be done. I have limited it to three. "H" for home, "W" for work, and "E" for errand. It is easy enough to scan down the right column for the proper context.

I use two different colors for home and work and add them in "blocks" to my list (see photo: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/426952/homework.jpg) So whenever one block fills up, I go to the next block. I have usually about 4 times as many home tasks as work tasks, so that's why there's only two red blocks on the spread in the picture vs 6 blue ones.

When I make chains, sometimes I combine tasks from both contexts, at other times only from one. It depends on what I want to get done.

One thing I'm still struggling with is when I switch contexts but haven't finished a chain. Maybe I should try Nicole's suggestion of just scrapping the chain in that case. I use sticky flags for preselection, so that shouldn't be any problem.

Thanks for sharing, very useful!