Get Everything Done

I felt something similar when the system first came out - I felt i could also delay completing the chain, meanwhile more urgent tasks or more important tasks would come up. However, I haven't felt that problem for a long time. The solution? I just stuck to the system. Once I had my chain selected, unless a building was on fire, I would just do some work on the next item on the chain, even if it's just a little bit. Soon enough I'd get to the root task and then create a new chain. What I found incredible about this is that it honestly feels like I have someone else working on my tasks with me. I would start working on a task on my list and realize that it's already half done. I felt like asking "who did this?" What a great feeling. That feeling of having this second person working with me has in fact doubled my productivity. But back to the original point, my suggestion is to trust the system as best you can. I doubt any system will completely eliminate the need for at least a bit of willpower and concentration.

Hope this helps.

I've been there as well. My solution is to keep the chain very short (3 to 5 items) and work it as per the rules. This has several effects :
- the shorter the chain, the fewer the chances that an urgency comes up and move me away from the root task
- I have much more than 5 things to do in a day, so it pushes me to do little and often, which builds momentum as Alan said above.
- feeling of achievement when a chain is finished : encouraging !

Two difficulties though :
1- selecting only up to 5 items is hard when more than that are urgent. I try to start with short actions on the first chain, so that I feel urgent stuff is done quickly.
2- working on the root task when I know I still have urgent stuff to do later (which will be in next chain. Here again the short chain helps : I will get to the root task during the morning, so I know I still have plenty of time for urgent-today stuff, so I can spare 15-30 minutes on this dreaded root task !

hope this helps...

I aim to work from the bottom up. However, I have several repeating tasks so they are usually at the bottom so I work on them first, but because I am working on them often it means they are easy to complete. For example I have tidy the kitchen, if I tidy it today in 2 days time it should be a quick job to tidy anything that has been left out. I can then move on to the older tasks.

However, sometimes I feel that items are stuck at the top, or I am bored with the ones at the bottom and then I tend to alternate between top and bottom.

I know this goes against rules, but it follows Mark's comments in one of his books (can't remember which one probably DIT) that it doesn't matter what order you use to complete your list the aim is to complete it. So I feel if I've got myself 'stuck' on a chain it is better to proactively do another task than procrastinate around the bottom.