Get Everything Done

I've hovered around these boards for years, but I think I might finally be interested in trying out a serious effort on implementing one of Mark's time management systems. The problem is that there are so many, and except for the recent posting on the "best system" and the recently published book, it's not clear to me how to make a choice between them all. How do I choose?

My impression is that Mark implicitly recommends FVP and long list systems now as a matter of course as his preferred systems. However, there's the ever present qualification of "finding what works best for you." It's not clear to me, however, why a long list system might be better than a no-list system, and thus, why I might choose the 5/2 system over the FVP system. Can anyone provide some insight here?

Are no-list systems just "outdated" by Mark's standards at this point? What does the long list system with the "stand out" mechanisms have above, or do worse, than a no-list system? It seems like maybe the no-list system is doing the same thing as far as driving action by trusting intuition?

Hi Aaron,

Funny you should ask this today, as this morning I decided to take a break from my long list and do the 3T no-list method today.

I tend to do this when I have larger projects and tight deadlines since I spend less time reviewing a list and more time doing focused work with a no-list method. Most likely I will go back to my long list in a few days or use the long list to feed a focused daily "no" list.

True no-lists, as I understand it, means not feeding it with a to do list. I start my 3T lists this way, but sooner or later need to go back to my long list; if I don't things slip through the cracks.

Thank you Mark and vegheadjones for the clarification! I think the picture is coming clearer.

I decided to apply the SoPP questioning exercises to choosing a time management system, just as an experiment with both. I feel like I'm actually quite good at the questioning side of things (it's sort of my job), so this felt pretty natural.

In the end, it became clear that I am heavily, strongly favoring the 5/2 system on pretty much every metric that I could design. For me, I think the critical weakness of the long list system for me is that during the day to day it has a tendency to divorce me from my "why" and I end up distracted easily by things that I care about doing, but that prevent me from moving on my other things. Instead, having to constantly ask myself "what? why?" in some form or another I think has the potential to more continuously connect me with my goals and my commitments in a way that a long list probably won't ever be able to do, and forces me to answer a question actively, rather than being able to "passively" consume a long list, which is all too easy to do, and rather ineffectively at that. Also, even something as efficient as FVP just feels like a drag, scanning lists, which is probably one of my least liked things to do. In a word, I think I've come to the conclusion, "I know what I need to do, I just need to do it." Scanning seems to get in the way.

I'm going to give this experiment some time to mature and see what comes out of it, and whether it works well for me or not.

Okay, a little question has come up in my experiment with 5/2. It has become clear to me that Mark does not consider some lists as kosher when doing these systems, but also that ther are some lists that are desirable, but that are not considered todo lists and are thus not in conflict with a "no list" strategy. The SoPP book explicitly mentions specific reminders, but I wonder where the line is drawn here?

Say there are some things that I know should get done, but that are often not in my head during the day because I am easily distracted by beefier tasks or things that are more front heavy. If I maintained a monthly or weekly reminder list of these things that always get forgotten, and then review them at some point, that seems awfully close to being a to do list, just not a complete one.

For the most part, I already have a very clear picture of all the big and important things that I want to do, and having to work off of a long list for those items seems like a drag since that is all already set in my head. But I know that I am pretty bad at forgetting some other things, and I end up just deciding to do something like YouTube for a while or pick up something else, when I would have just done the task had I remembered that I needed to do it.

I guess the question is, how do you manage those tasks in a no list system that always seem to be in your head at the wrong time to action them, and thus never end up in your system and thus never done even though they remain a priority?

Is the above just a matter of working through those issues as they come up enough to turn those items and elements into to a routine so that you do not forget them?

Thanks Mark! This clarifies your thinking on no list methods a lot. How would you handle a task like, pick up milk when you finish work? You care about getting it done, but there is no way that you will remember it naturally at any point in time until it is too late to go pick up milk. Moreover, it is not something that needs to get done on a specific day, or time, inherently, it is just something that should be done as soon as possible. It isn't something that would end up on a 5/2 list because you wouldn't be thinking about it at all during the day. For me there is stuff like this which is the very definition of forgettable but important task that I know I will not remember during the day because I am deep in thought on other things. It may not be shopping related, but it could be something like needing to get a gift for someone or writing a letter to someone, which may need to happen within a given month or week, but not at any specific time or day.

I really like the simplicity of a no list structure, and I definitely have always done my best work under those conditions, But I am concerned that over time these sorts of things will end up not done because they are things that matter to me, but are not inherently triggering in my head so I do not tend to think about them, even if they are important. How would you deal with such things? Just take a "do it now" sort of attitude?

Interesting, that makes sense. Of course, I do not keep a mobile phone nor do I use alarms much at all, as they generally just serve as distractions during the day that I want to avoid, and not having a phone on me is one of the best ways I have found of pruning my commitments and avoiding too many interruptions, but I think I get the principle.

http://thedemolitionproject.com/2015/02/12/to-tie-a-knot-in-ones-handkerchief/

The specific case of "get the milk after work but I don't use phone or calendar reminders" taps into something called "prospective memory" which I wrote about on my blog a while back. [Link below]

Anyway -- one way I'd do it would be similar to when you want to remember to carry something to the office the next day and you don't want to forget it: I'd leave a physical reminder of it blocking the front door on my way out so that I'd trip over it.

Similarly with your milk reminder: I'd take a reusable shopping bag from the trunk of my car and put it in the driver's seat when I got to work. Then when I go to the car later, there the bag is, reminding me of the task.

Such a physical reminder will work but it is kludgy. Sometimes I'll think of something in the night I want to do the next day, so I'll take some random object from my nightstand and place it on the floor. When I wake up the next day, I'll see it and go. "Why is that there?" and then my associative memory should (!) trace back and remind me of the original thought.

Link: "Remembering to Remember": The Basics of Prospective Memory:
http://michaelebrown.me/blog/2019/8/27/remembering-to-remember

Seraphim:

You wanted to know how things are going. Well, here's a quick report on how things are going. I've been doing the 5/2, 5T, PTMS system for a bit now and it has proven effective and also resistant to change (a good thing). There are a few things that are definitely in its favor over other systems that I've used in the past.

1. My wife has latched onto it and finds it attractive. While everyone has their own approach to things, being able to unify on a shared visible system has a carry over effect:

2. My kids will be able to easily work with the system and are already beginning to pick up some of these habits.

3. It provides slightly more drawing power and instant feedback for routine development versus using no list at all, and much better than long lists.

I spent a good deal of time pondering whether I would be better off with just using no list at all, as I'm actually pretty confident in my systems thinking and ability to craft optimizations to routines, but I eventually reasoned myself into keeping with it because using the "what am I resisting?" question with PTMS has a tendency to create a better motivation for forward action than using no list at all, even if the actions would be the same in either system, and the sequencing effort of 5/2 has resulted in some instant feedback moments that I wouldn't have had with no list at all, which increases awareness. Finally, being able to bring the whole family on board makes for a big teaching opportunity and is something that I could not do if I didn't have an externalized system to discuss.

Moreover, unlike many other systems, the overhead of using the system is so little that it really doesn't matter if it's only a neutral impact, because the cost of using it is low enough for it to be easier to keep using it than to discard it. Other, more involved systems are not like this, and they have a much higher burden of contribution before they start to be useful, and thus, I think they are not as usable in as many situations as PTMS is and therefore don't scale for me as well as PTMS does.

Of course, all of this is only possible because I have already built up lots and lots of ways to make sure that I stay on top of my work.

Mark:

Actually, your comments on "being on top of your work" is what triggered a little further clarity for me. When things aren't in order and when I don't have a high degree of clarity, then I really struggle. Having a long list of things that I could do immediately puts me into that space of "disorder." Whereas simply having a system that says, "you'd better stay on top of your life," makes a huge difference. I did some thinking going back to the times when I've been most productive, and it was never with a list, but always on the basis of exceptional clarity and a clear drive and understanding of what needed to be done "right now" and when I wasn't sitting around just "wandering" but had a really pro-active attitude towards getting in control of things. A list was actually a distraction in those situations, and I ended up discarding them in favor of just "solving the problem."

I have a maximum burst (short duration) speed of 150 - 160 WPM in my typing speed. This is the rate at which I can complete a paragraph of text. My average burst speeds are probably in the 120 - 140 range. My long duration speeds, where I type multiple paragraphs for over a minute or two at a time would be in the 110 - 130 range.

I haven't written any article on this yet, but there are some good tutorials out there, and there are some good sites for practicing. The biggest thing is recognizing the subtle aspects of motion efficiency. Once you get past 100 WPM, you start to need to make very clear efficiency improvements on a number of fronts to be able to scale beyond that, and it only gets more important as you get faster.

So, I'm very particular and attentive to the most minute elements, and I introspect on those elements and iterate on experiments for speed testing. I approach this a lot like a "sports science" or martial arts practitioner looking for that extra 5 - 10 pounds of punching force would do it. You need to integrate relaxation, breathing, scanning, posture, fingering, pressure sensitivity, hardware choice, and the like. They all make increment contributions to your success.

There are definitely some keyboards that make it easier to go fast than other keyboards. Most people improperly breath while typing which leads to a bad muscular load and bad posture. Many people have too much motion in their typing because they don't know how to hold their arms properly and they tend to waste their motions. Others don't know how to regain neutral position on the keyboard fast enough to allow them to sustain a more accurate typing position, because if you are not in the neutral position while typing, you introduce accuracy issues.

Focusing on efficient execution of accurate typing is among the best work for getting fast. The more accuracy you focus on the better, especially as you begin to increase the speed. One reason for this is that you are much more efficiently programming the brain's neural pathways when you are 100% accurate then when you are less accurate.

I've done some group coaching and advice for typing performance to a group of productivity driven people before as a part of a class/group that I was a part of, but the skill of skills development is a big thing here. Many people are poor at body awareness, and kinesthetic awareness and proprioception are critical skills to increase if you want to type faster.

But a lot of this takes a lot of time to feel and learn and finally get good. It takes a ton of patience, and you will get slow, ever diminishing returns on your time investment the faster you get. At this point, with my current rate of practice, it would probably take me a whole year to raise my WPM by another 5 or 10 WPM, working on it pretty hard. To get another 20WPM on where I am now would take a *lot* more effort and probably another two years, I'd bet.

Mark:

You have mentioned this a few times...

<<[5/2] suits people who are right on top of their work and very pro-active>>

By itself that makes plenty of sense. On the other hand, I am at a little bit of a loss imagining the productive alternative to being "right on top of your work and very pro-active". What would that even look like? I'm not sure I quite can see what this would look like and how a long list system would support this productive mode of working.

I can see, for instance, a mode of working where you are using a long list in order to "catch up" because you're behind on work, but I don't know if I would consider that "ideal productive space" as the idea of being perpetually "behind" doesn't seem like a good headspace.

Assuming that you already have dynamic lists or specific project plans that take the memory burden away from remembering everything you have to do to interact with a person or a project, what is the alternative state of productivity that you would be supported in living with a long list system that keeps you productive and happy but not "right on top of your work"?

Just to be clear, this isn't a criticism, just a fundamental curiosity that suddenly came to me as I was thinking about this more.

Mark:

Interesting as always. Thanks! If I understand you correctly, you're saying that the long list enables you to have a more explicit and "intentional" means of coming to grips with certain projects that aren't going anywhere and that need to be discarded? In this way, it provides a more explicit mechanism for enabling the pruning of commitments and ensuring that you keep your work under control?

Mark:

Nice work on the typing! And your exposition on long lists and no-list lists makes a lot of sense. Thanks!