Get Everything Done

I was a little glad when I saw Mark has reverted to the original FVP question, as I've been thinking of doing the same. FVP Questionless has been the best TM system I've used in terms of turnover of tasks in a day, and I've never closed so many pages before.

However, I've noticed that while I am doing a high volume of tasks I'm still not getting going on some of the really *important* things I want to get moving on in my life. For me these include exercise and work on a book that I'm writing. I haven't done anything serious about the former in days and the latter in many weeks - in a way I think I've been using the smooth and addictive cycling of myriad busy tasks in FVP as means of procrastinating around the *important* ones.

I think, given the choice, I'd rather have fewer tasks done in a day so long as they are the right and meaningful ones for me. I'm going to use the original "What do I want to do more than..." question for a while to see if this works better for me in this regard. Also, in Mark's blog example of 'A Day With FVP' he stated in advance his markers against which a 'successful' day could be measured. Though I know Mark only did this for illustrative purposes, I really liked the idea of it and think I might do likewise to see if this aids my focus over the course of the day.

I can't seem to compare items with a vague question like "want to do more" or "feel more like doing." Apparently, I have too many conflicting motivations fighting with one another to get through even a short list this way.

Naturally, I thought "standing out" would be the perfect remedy. It worked well enough in AF1 - at least at first. But "standing out" is even vaguer than "feel more like doing," and when there are only two items on a page, they can each stand out for different reasons. Then I'm comparing apples and oranges... or more likely apples and toothbrushes.

I thought the longer list in FVP would remedy the "list too short to stand out" problem. But in the, what, five days? that I've been doing FVP, "standing out" has been disappointing. Certainly it is easy to find things that stand out in a longer list, but usually my resulting selection either makes no sense, or is weak and lazy. This was a surprise to me, because I didn't have that experience with AF1. I sometimes went for the weak or lazy items in AF1 too, but not on every page. I believe that "standing out" can effortlessly identify the best choice from a brief but balanced menu (12 to 15 items for me), but gets overwhelmed and breaks down much beyond that.

So now I'm going back to an idea I've entertained on and off for a while: "standing out" based on a specific agenda, and/or comparing items based on a specific question. (Did I write about this before? It sounds familiar.)

Examples of specific questions, which make comparisons easy:

-"What's the most strenuous [or complicated]?" (because I'm feeling ambitious). This is easy because I've already identified these items: they are the ones that I've repeatedly skipped because they seemed too strenuous (or too complicated) on previous occasions.

-"What's the biggest payoff?" This was easy when I realized that my failure to act on certain low-priority tasks had caused other tasks to be blocked. Unblocking six important tasks is a good payoff for tidying my home office desk! (Er, it will be when I do it.)

-"I have to do Fearsome Task X. Which tasks will help me most with Fearsome Task X?" (Inspired by Nuntym, who once reported using a similar question.)

-"Do I have any pages that I can close out and throw away in less than an hour?" (OK, it's not a comparison... but it is a specific question!)

Examples of agenda (no need to compare items):

-"Prepare for hurricane/Christmas/unannounced audit/surprise party in my honor." I have many tasks that are intended to prepare for some event - good or bad, scheduled or not - that I want to take care of before they become crises. There are other tasks that suddenly become urgent because of an unexpected situation. I can't think of a recent example, but I know it's happened.

-"An unexpected opportunity has arisen." Similarly, if I have a chance to borrow a huge computer monitor for a couple of days, I can scan my list for tasks that would be easier to do on a bigger screen.

-"Things I can do at my sister's house."

-"Things that are helpful to others."

-"Things I can do with a busted hand."

I find it fairly easy to choose the question or agenda beforehand, based on the unique requirements and opportunities of the moment. On vacation this week, I've been focusing mainly on things that I can work on for more than a few hours in a row; things that can be done with family; and things that can be done only in the summer. These are all special opportunities. Or, for a while on Tuesday, I re-selected for things that could be done indoors without electricity. Those were special limitations.

From there, the selection is easy. It's like applying filters to a mental spreadsheet. The list almost seems to sort itself.

If your mind can automatically apply the right filters without your having to precisely define them first, that's great. But my mind can't do it beyond a dozen or so items.

And my question/agenda/priority can't always be the same, or I'll end up picking the same kinds of tasks every time.

Of course I don't need to do every selection this way. Every selection doesn't have to be perfect. "Standing out" and "what do I want more" aren't disastrous. Even if they are, I can reselect once I've established some momentum and direction. But I'm more comfortable when I'm paying attention to whatever is special about the moment.

Mark:

I would like to clarify that when I said "my mind can't do it beyond a dozen or so items," I was not referring to the number of dotted tasks. I was referring to the length of the entire list, which is now around 65.

Also, regarding your question:

<<If you want to do things that you can work on for more than a few hours in a row, things that can be done with family, and things that can be done only in the summer, then I don't understand why you then need another question to specify things further. Don't you already know what you want?>>

I explained what I wanted. For my vacation, I want: lengthy tasks, family visits, and summer-only activities. That was my example of selecting things that "stood out" based on my agenda for the week. It was intended as a complete example. If I gave the impression that I was still looking for a question to address this, I apologize.

I want (or am required to do) a lot of other things in my life, too. But most of them can and should wait until my vacation is over. Then I'll go back to looking for tasks that fit other criteria.

Nuntym asked what we do if our mind interprets the intentionally vague question in a way that isn't helpful. My suggestion was to temporarily focus the question (or establish agenda for "stand out') to make sure it can't be misinterpreted. It sounds as though you see this as more fatiguing than "What do I want to do more than..." because you find that deciding on a question/agenda is difficult. If so, then you don't need to do it. Sometimes I can't make that decision either, and then I don't.

But my day feels more meaningful when I'm able to establish a "mission." So if I wake up one morning wanting to work on the basement, and there's no compelling reason not to, the decision is already made. I dot the basement tasks and get to them. This is easy and not fatiguing. It would be more fatiguing to look through my list with a vague feeling that I'd like to work in the basement, but maybe I should do paperwork instead, or go to the store, or rearrange the furniture.

Admittedly, what I'm describing does not engage the "sorting" part of the FVP algorithm right away. It did not occur to me that this might be a contentious or confusing, but now I see that I overlooked it entirely.

I start by dotting the tasks that fit my criteria so that I can tune out the vast majority of distracting tasks that didn't make the cut. Only then do I use the algorithm (more dots) to "sort" the dotted tasks, if they need sorting. Fortunately, within this better-focused group of tasks, tasks are more apt to "stand out" for the right reasons.

Interesting discussion. I've been meaning to write in because I have actually gone back to the random method recently because I was having difficulty with FVP. I just felt too much resistance to the whole list, like FV before it. I think it was "decision fatigue", which meant I was doing it wrong. However, once I started back with the random method, I felt an immediate release because random is so effective against procrastination. But here's the interesting thing: every so often, even when I used the random method before, there were some pressing things I had to get done before I started randomizing my list. My temptation had been to wait until it comes up randomly, but then why not just do it? This, I think, is FVP. So now... I just work randomly through the list. Sometimes, but rarely, there's something I really need to get to first, before the randomly selected task. I'll dot it and work on it, then go back to the random task. I don't even prescan the list. I suppose I could go full on FVP after picking a random task, but I find a kind of mind-numbing resistance (procrastination) creeping in. So I reverse it. Straight random is my default method, unless I really need to work on a different task. So my formula is this: Random task, x, unless there is something I absolutely have to work on before x. I don't even ask the question - if nothing stands out by itself, its straight random.

@seraphim

Yes I have done that myself on a few occasions e.g, when I dont have an internet connection. On these occasions I just used 20 as my number.

However since then I created a massive list of numbers from random.org and copied it into evernote. I then use this if I have no internet connection. I have one number per line and I just delete them one at a time as I go.

The only difference between my old system and the way I work it now is that now there has to be a really good reason before I'll do something different than the random task, especially if I randomly hit on a task that I'm resisting. "Standing out" or "wanting to do something more than x" are too soft for me. More like "uh oh. I better get this done first." I might add, as I had mentioned before, that the random method feels very liberating. With no resistance, I don't worry about what I'm going to do next any more. Hard to explain, but if anyone reaches that point, whatever system they're using, its golden. I would say that reaching that state of liberation is probably the goal of time management for me. When I'm in that state, productivity takes care of itself.