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So I tried using Andreas's web app -- that helped a lot! I didn't need to deal with so many items on a page, or with the page-flipping when comparing items on different pages. Using the webapp also began to highlight how many compares you have to do, when things are moving quickly (adding new items to the list in little bursts, mixed with re-entries). Even with the web app, that started getting tedious. Tap on my phone, tap tap tap tap tap tap tap take action. Add a few tasks. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap take action. Lots and lots of tapping. I'd get to doing it quickly, which would lead me to stop reading closely, and then skip over a task I really "wanted to do more than X" but had already tapped past it and couldn't figure out how to roll back the last tap. LOL
The thing that I *really* liked about the web app, was the ability to compare JUST TWO ITEMS. It really helped me stay focused, and actually work the system. But it also led me to question whether an exhaustive comparison of all items was really needed.
Looking at only two items at a time reminded me of SMEMA, which has always had a certain appeal for me. Then someone else mentioned SMEMA, too, and this gave me an idea to reduce the number of comparisons, and to move the system into OneNote, which is where I track all my projects.
So today, between meetings, I started collecting a list of tasks in OneNote and called it "FVP". It became my catch-all. But if anything seemed pressing, or simply top-of-mind or "standing out", I would move it to another list I called "SMEMA". I tried to keep this list really short, 2-3 items, but sometimes it got up to 5. If it got to be more than that, I'd just move the oldest ones back to FVP, so I could focus on just 2-3 items. Then I'd keep hammering on those items till I felt like pulling in some more. To do that, I'd look at my FVP list, and grab a few that stood out, or I just felt like doing, and move them over to SMEMA. I'd try to do this quickly, running down the list and asking, "what do I want to do more", or really, just grabbing the first handful of tasks that got my attention, and move them to the SMEMA list. Then I'd turn to the SMEMA list, and keep focusing on it, and hammering away till they were done (or maybe had 1 left). And then I'd repeat.
This is totally ad-hoc and probably not scalable / sustainable, but it worked great today! So I tried it at home this evening with my personal list, and it worked great too.
However, I am guessing it wouldn't last more than a few days, because then the list will get too long again. That always happens with me, with "catch all" systems. But here is how I think I might be able to handle that: if the list gets too long, I can just "dismiss" it, and start over with a new, empty FVP list. Then once a week (or more, if I feel like it), I can scan over the dismissed lists and see if anything still needs doing. I was essentially doing this with my personalized DIT-like method, before FVP came along, and it was working really well.
Also, that kind of dismissal is essentially what I've been doing these last several days, when I switched from paper FVP to webapp FVP then to OneNote FVP/SMEMA. Each time I switched over, and started with a fresh list, it kept me moving, and I got good results both with larger projects and with recurring maintenance trivia. I didn't delete the older lists -- I kept them handy, and would copy over some items from time to time to my new list.
After starting in paper mode, I adapted my Todoist system.
It is now working well and I am getting more of the important stuff done working off a Work listand a Personal list.
I tend to dump non-critical stuff into Todoist's Inbox to incubate.
What I find nice is I can put recurring tasks on the the lsi andcwhen done, the next occurrence goes to the bottom of the list.
I can also see a history of all complteted tasks.
Tonight at work I tried doing Mark's new experimental version of FVP with a paper list and "no question". It was weird at first, but seemed easier to get through. Then it seemed kind of fast actually...
As it stands now, I'm going to keep working with the paper list and the quick scanning method. That feels the most "right" right now, but who knows?
Starting each new scan from the point of the just-completed task makes a big difference.
I practiced a few times by randomizing a list of the numbers 1-20 to get the hang of it and prove to myself it works. That was very helpful.
I use my iPhone reminders app to capture things when I'm away from my paper list. Siri makes that fast and easy.
I have an app called Due for recurring and repetitive tasks that come up weekly, monthly, annually, etc. As they come up I write them on my paper list.
FVP on paper is, so far, very effective. It's easier to write on my list than go to my laptop, switch to Todoist, and type. And it's *much* easier to prioritize.
I'm not sure yet how to handle projects. I've got a few that I'll be moving to paper so I'll need to work that out.
Starting today I'm using Mark's questionless sort. So far, so good. Feels right to me.
Bottom line - I'm glad something (not sure what) prompted me to check in on the forum. For me FVP is simple, fast, and effective. So far.
I use Todoist on my notebook computer, Galaxy Note 8 and Galaxy Note 2.
As the last is with me most of the time I can either enter a new task, do a scan, a task or even scribble a note in OneNote with the S Pen.
When I get back to my notebook computer, my Todoist has the updates.
Yes, and I have Todoist on my iPhone. But for me it's quite a bit easier and faster to write and read with paper and pen. I end up spending a lot of time in Todoist looking by priority, then at labels, then at overdue, then at specific projects, etc. My own fault, probably. With paper I write and go. Easy to highlight, bold, star, happy-face, etc. And no squiggly red lines!
<< One problem is that I am not always intentional enough to ask the question. Sometimes, I just scan and dot tasks that stand out. >>
That is the way that I am now doing it myself, see http://markforster.squarespace.com/fv-forum/post/2508019#post2509454
It's far faster than asking the question, and appears to produce just as good results.
<< Thinking of changing to digital... >>
Judging by the experiences reported by those who are using Andreas's app, it takes much longer to scan the list when using digital.
<< because the list has gotten quite messy and with 10 pages total, I do not want to have to re-write. >>
My current advice is not to re-prioritize, but instead to cross out and re-enter any individual tasks that have changed their priority. If you follow this advice, your list should not get messy.
I am going to implement your suggestion of crossing out and re-entering the tasks. (I was resistant to this idea for some reason.)
@Neil. I understand. I have tried digital so many times, but I always return to paper. The aesthetics and the tangible nature of paper are something I am drawn too as well.
I can't really imagine the 'Exciting' question working for me, as many of my important tasks feel like the polar opposite of exciting - but as Mark rightly alludes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
For now, though, I'm interested in trying the algorithm with no question, which I think I'll trial today if I get the chance.
I'm finding that questionless FVP works brilliantly and for me is much faster and more effective than the other ways.
Although I appreciate Andreas's efforts with his app, I think that using anything other than pen/pencil and paper will greatly reduce the speed of the system.
Just thought I'd share.
<< This seems to really solve the main "issue" with FVP, that the list is too long to be scanning, as my today list is much more managable. >>
My own experience with FVP is that provided you are using pen and paper and the "no question" method, FVP is actually as fast as or faster than any other system.
Agreed, it is fast. I think what I'm doing is, once per day, excluding items which are not relevant. This gives me better clarity knowing that everything I'm scanning is truely possible for that day.
<< This gives me better clarity knowing that everything I'm scanning is truely possible for that day. >>
Of course you can use FVP however you like, but it was designed to be a "universal capture" system, not a one-day list, and that is the way I'm using it - to great effect.
>>
I agree! I used to do this with AF and its variants, and it was just as you said. Think I'll return to that now that I've come back to paper and pen.
"want"
"exciting"
"no question"
For the last, surely there must be some question in mind?
From my reply above:
"One variation on the question for rapidly scanning your list is, "What's better?".
Using these questions:
What do I want to do more than X?
What's more exciting than X?
What's more exciting?
More exciting?
What's better?
Better than X?
I have found "What's better?" to be the lightest and fastest of them all. So far it feels as fast to me as question-free.
<< For the last, surely there must be some question in mind? >>
No, there's not. It relies entirely on "standing out" in the old AF1 sense of the task feeling ready to be done, though unlike AF1 it won't necessarily be done immediately.
I'm coming to think that the "No Question" version of FVP is not really like the other FV/FVP versions which use a question. Unlike with them, the algorithm is not really ranking anything in order. It's just a very efficient method of pre-selection. It is probably best thought of as a development of AF1.
I still use the question, what do I want to more than X and finds that to work. I am also keeping g an adding to my selected items over multiple days, deleting dots only when I hit the bottom of my list.
Loving the process, thanks Mark.
In my opinion digital is not at all inefficient, provided you have an efficient digital system. I know many are very cumbersome in how much effort it is to add, edit, delete, move, scan and so I rejected all sorts that had these flaws.
The simple tools are best. Excel for this purpose is a simple tool. So are OneNote and the iPad based Cloud Outliner. In each case everything is on one page escept for scrolling, ther are no popup windows or menus, no automated anything, just onscreen items to work with directly.
I am still using FVP on a small A7 paper notebook. But I will definitely be doing FVP on one of my digital online list apps in the future. Most likely checkvist.com / m.checkvist.com, though fargo.io / android outliner pro still in the running.
However, FVP on paper is always less "friction" than digital ...
(1) Paper notebook is a 3D stack of paper, but digital list representation via scroll bar, page scrolling vs line scrolling, has more "friction".
(2) Paper dotting, active item marking, crossing, rewrite; need related action (or actions) in digital list, these are usually more "friction". Even with simple digital lists like Excel.
Hence, I am doing FVP on paper first to build up my "FVP willpower muscle memory" before I can afford to tackle using FVP on digital list with its "higher friction". Else I risk back sliding / falling off the bandwagon again.
<< My issue on paper is that you cannot link easily to emails and for other reference materials >>
As a convinced paper user I've never had the slightest problem with this. I think the saving in time by having links to emails and other materials in one's list is largely illusory - in fact I strongly suspect that it slows the whole process down. If you look at either of the two recent lists on my blog of things I've done in a day, you might come to the conclusion that I'm not being held back much by any lack of links.
Nevertheless I am looking forward to hearing what your way round the linking problem is when you are ready to let us in on it.
Nevertheless, that's what I'm doing at the moment.
<< Writing a separate paper list feels like duplicate work with no obvious benefit. >>
You're right. It is. But that's because you have organized your email that way.
I have my email organized in a completely different way so that it's more efficient to use a paper list.
I'm intrigued...
This has got me thinking about why my e-lists need pruning so often. Or quickly become unmanageable. I end up getting tasks at a very detailed level. Each mail in a correspondence with half a dozen participants, for example, becomes a task trigger. This rarely the most efficient or effective way of working.
Having a manual task list which only shows the main tasks does help to keep things manageable.
Regards,
Will
<< I have my email organized in a completely different way so that it's more efficient to use a paper list. >>
Can you elaborate on this? Awhile back, you gave a few examples of how you handle email-based tasks in your paper list, together with using some of NEO's flagging features, if I remember right.
But I would love to have a better understanding of how you do this. I have the same issues with email that Will is describing.
<< But I would love to have a better understanding of how you do this.>>
There's nothing particularly exciting or original about the way I do it. Mainly I just deal with email in NEO and put "Email" as a task on my list. I don't see any point in duplicating what is in NEO on my paper list.
Of course sometimes an important email will be need to be deal with as part of a larger task, in which case I will flag it and/or tag it, and put "Project X" (or whatever) on my list. For instance I might be waiting for seven or eight people to reply to an email suggesting dates for a meeting. I would tag them and when I had all the replies I would put "Convene meeting" on my list.
Recently I have been experimenting with having "Email Backlog" as well as "Email" on my list. "Email" consists of email which has come in today. "Email Backlog" consists of any email which came in earlier than today but hasn't yet been dealt with. The idea is that it prevents the older email being pushed to one side by new email. It seems to work because it spends most of its time empty!
If you have much of a backlog try adding a task "Active Folders/Active mail" (or Unread/Unread).
You can choose these under the Filter tab, Folder and Status. If you haven't discovered this yet it's a slick way to get thru a lot of email quickly. You can add these buttons (as well as Clear and Disable) to the quick access toolbar by right clicking on them.
<< If you have much of a backlog try adding a task "Active Folders/Active mail" (or Unread/Unread). >>
The way I do it is to add a "backlog" tag to all yesterday's mail which is still "Active" at the beginning of the day, using the Categorize menu item. I have the "backlog" tag marked as "Hot" so the backlog folder shows up under the Hot tab - I prefer to have it in the left panel along with the other Hot folders rather than on the Easy Access bar.
Then I remove the active status of all the emails in the folder so they don't show up in the Active folder, and make them all Unread so that the title of the "backlog" folder shows the total number of emails in it (I have the option set in all my folders for displaying the number of unread emails).
When I've dealt with an email I remove the "backlog" tag from it, it disappears from the folder and the total figure after the folder title adjusts accordingly.
<< I get several emails every day which need more attention...They aren't easy handled as part of my "clear email" task.>>
Why not? It's how I'd handle them.
<< (Also, in all these cases, it's necessary, as part of closing out the implied task, to have easy access back to the email, in order to reply, re-read, etc.) >>
In NEO I'd achieve this by tagging and/or flagging. While I'm still working on the email I'd keep it with Active status.
When you work on your recurring task "email", you try to clear all your new emails in one go:
- if a new email is project-related, you tag the email with a project tag, and enter the project name on your FVP list
- if a new email needs larger action that you can't complete right now, you flag it as "Active" (or, if all your incoming emails are automatically flagged as Active, you just leave it flagged that way) (I believe NEO gives you some options here, how to use the "Active" indicator)
- otherwise, reply or take action on the new email as needed, then delete/deactivate/archive the email
- if you still have any Active emails that arrived today, you try to clear them out
- if any Active emails are still on your list from the previous day, you tag them as Email Backlog and get them off your Active list, which is reserved for emails that arrived today that still need action
When you work on your task "email backlog", which you enter on your list whenever any Active emails from the previous day are still needing to be processed, you try to clear out all the emails tagged with "Email Backlog": take action, finish them off, or delete if no longer needed.
Is that basically correct?
If yes, I would imagine that on some days, if you happen to get a lot of one-off emails that each require a lot of time to complete the associated actions, you might end up with an email backlog that lasts for a few days?
I also imagine you'd aim to keep the email backlog as a "closed list". And if you find yourself adding to it before finishing what's already there, then this would be a sign that you can't keep up with your email, and need to re-evaluate your commitments that are generating so much of it, or maybe come up with better ways to delegate, filter out less relevant emails like reading material, etc.
Is that about right? Please let me know if I got this wrong -- this is probably one of the hardest areas for me right now with using FVP [or AFP as I have been tending to call it, after you noticed it's more like AF than FV! :-) ]
<< When you work on your recurring task "email", you try to clear all your new emails in one go: >>
No, I just work on email for as long as I feel like and then re-enter "Email" as a task at the end of the list. I will do some work on email multiple times during the day.
<< - if a new email is project-related, you tag the email with a project tag, and enter the project name on your FVP list >>
No, this is far too much like hard work and would be an example of how one can bog a system down by over-organizing everything. I *only* tag emails with a project name if I need to take action on several emails as a group (see the example of arranging a meeting date in one of my previous posts to you in this thread). In other words I only do it if I need to. My default policy is no tags, no flags.
<< if a new email needs larger action that you can't complete right now, you flag it as "Active"... otherwise, reply or take action on the new email as needed, then delete/deactivate/archive the email>>
Emails are automatically flagged as Active and the "Active" folder is what I'm working from. Once I've finished with an email I remove the Active designation (which is just a matter of using the backspace key). The email then vanishes from the "Active" folder.
<< if you still have any Active emails that arrived today, you try to clear them out >>
I'm dealing with email multiple times a day but am not particularly aiming to clear them out. I just do what I feel like doing. Most days though I do clear everything. If not, I don't worry about it.
<< if any Active emails are still on your list from the previous day, you tag them as Email Backlog and get them off your Active list, which is reserved for emails that arrived today that still need action >>
Correct.
<< When you work on your task "email backlog", which you enter on your list whenever any Active emails from the previous day are still needing to be processed, you try to clear out all the emails tagged with "Email Backlog": take action, finish them off, or delete if no longer needed. >>
I'm dealing with the email backlog multiple times a day but am not particularly aiming to clear it out. I just do what I feel like doing. The only email I ever delete is spam.
<< Is that basically correct? >>
Yes, except that you've managed to make it sound much harder work than it actually is!
<< If yes, I would imagine that on some days, if you happen to get a lot of one-off emails that each require a lot of time to complete the associated actions, you might end up with an email backlog that lasts for a few days? >>
Yes, for instance I was away for three days in Paris over the weekend and it took me a couple of days to clear the backlog after I got back.
<< I also imagine you'd aim to keep the email backlog as a "closed list". And if you find yourself adding to it before finishing what's already there, then this would be a sign that you can't keep up with your email, and need to re-evaluate your commitments that are generating so much of it >>
Yes, if I really was falling behind and it wasn't just a temporary spike (like last weekend).
<<, or maybe come up with better ways to delegate, filter out less relevant emails like reading material, etc. >>
With serious reading matter I'd probably send the file to Evernote, which is better equipped for such stuff, and deal with it as a separate task. This would normally be stuff which would take more than one read to get through.
There are a few newsletters and suchlike which I already filter out of my email. They are sent direct into a separate Outlook folder for each newsletter, and I can scan quickly down them each now and then to see if there's anything of interest. I get NEO to mark them as "Unread" but not as "Active". These are the only Outlook folders I have, apart from the obvious Inbox, Sent Mail, etc.
<< Is that about right? >>
Yes, except that I get the feeling that you want to over-organize it. I have made this system as simple as I possibly can, and my default rule is "No flags, no tags." These things are available for when I need them, but only when I need them.
I committed to using FVP for 30 days with no changes, tweaks, etc. So far it's by far the best time/task management system i've used. And I've used them all.
I find it flexible, adaptive to my mood and workload, and nothing has slipped through the cracks yet.
Thanks,
brett
Are you using FVP as it was released, with the original question, or the no-question way?
So I am currently trying a different approach, based on the way Mark describes his email handling, above. I'm trying to treat my emails in basically the same way, and also treat my OneNote stuff the same way. It's not really working very well yet, but I'll keep at it and see if I can get it to work.
This led me to try basing my whole system around this repeated-standing-out-and-grouping model. But it got really complicated, how to interleave these groups of things, with new incoming items.
In retrospect, I was totally overthinking the problem.
So now I've made two changes, and they are working OK for now, still needs some getting used to, but I am liking it, and I am able to get that "grouping into a short easy list" feeling:
(1) I just spin off a separate list as needed, going through the AFP list and pulling out whatever I need. This can bring immediate clarity to the list, and helps "weed" the list too. I've just been writing ad-hoc lists on the left-hand page of the notebook, or sometimes using a sheet in the back of the notebook. In my Moleskine, the pages in back are tear-off sheets, so I can just rip it out if needed and go work that separate list for a bit.
(2) Rather than treating OneNote as my main list, I just treat it like another inbox. I capture all kinds of notes, emails, voice memos, screen shots, web clippings, etc., in OneNote, into a QuickNotes page. I keep the main list in my Moleskine notebook, and I keep a "Quicknotes" task on there.
The system you describe sounds like FV (1.select a short list; 2. do it; repeat from 1...) rather than FVP (1. select a short list; 2. do the first; 3. select 0 or more tasks below to add to the short list; repeat from 2...). Am I misunderstanding?
Whichever, the main thing is that it's working!
Cheers,
Will
You are right! Sorry about that. I guess I was proceeding by intuition after having previously read the instructions for FV, FVP, and questionless FVP.
So now having re-read the instructions, I realize that what I'm really doing is a questionless form of FV but doing the preselected list in the reverse order of what Mark instructs.
Well, at least, as you said, it's working for me!
Sorry for inadvertently hijacking the FVP thread....