Get Everything Done

I have been reading the book "The Art of Procrastination" by the author John Perry. If you search the forum his name will come up, connecting him to "structured procrastination." Mark Forster is familiar. In the second chapter of the book about perfectionism and procrastination, there is a paragraph on "task triage", sorting according to urgency, as in emergency rooms.

"They need to decide which victims are hopeless, which may survive if they get immediate treatment, and which can be made comfortable and treated later. The decisions I’m talking about really aren’t that similar, but I like the sound of task triage. Maybe we can think of turning down tasks as letting them die. Some can reasonably be left until later. But for many tasks, it will work out best if you get started on them, planning to do an adequate job—perhaps even a bit better than adequate—but nothing perfect."

This sounds like the principle behind Autofocus and its variants.

http://markforster.squarespace.com/fv-forum/post/1755866#post1757736

Here Mark Forster connects structured procrastination to FV.

http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2008/10/5/the-hidden-power-of-procrastination.html

Here Mark Forster reacts to the article on "Structured Procrastination." He recalls a method that he used which sounds like Simple scanning.

http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2399876#post2400170

Here Mark Forster calls the article a "genius article."

"The price we pay for the things we succeed in doing is the things we leave undone."

Mark Forster quotes this at the beginning of the blog post "The Hidden Power of Procrastination". The link is above.

He admits that the method he was using of a long list (which sounds just like Simple Scanning) meant that a lot of things didn't get done, and items stayed on the list for weeks.

I have searched John Perry, and I don't this quotation anywhere. I googled and the only place it comes up in the blog post above. So it must be Mark Forster's saying.

I might not understand it fully.

I am not sure whether the quotation is saying there is profit in having a list with undone things on it. Or does it mean that there is profit in deciding not to do it.

If the item remains for weeks on the list, there is no decision about it, or is there?. (Is it procrastination?) If it is put in a Someday/Maybe list, that is a decision. If it is removed from the list, that is also a decision.

It occurs to me that once a long list reaches the optimum length, when items are added, then to keep it at the same length, an equal number of items need to be deleted. They can be rewritten, or rephrased, or broken down into steps, but then the list will continue to grow.

The easiest way to maintain the list is to be willing to cross out items, and decide not to do it, and remove it from the list.

On the other hand:

Barbara Sher, who has been referred to here, wrote a book for people she called "scanners" who like to start things, explore, and experiment, but leave them unfinished without mastering.
https://www.amazon.com/Refuse-Choose-Interests-Passions-Hobbies/dp/1594866260

So is the long list a list of items to complete, or an expression of the ideas that come from our brain power, an evidence of our creativity, like Da Vinci's notebook - never put into action, or Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, or Michelangelo's unfinished sculptures?

Avrum,

I do have the book "Refuse to Choose". I do see some similarities with Autofocus, in that she recommends spending 5 minutes on something you enjoy, and whether you finished or not, you drop it, and come back at another time. The intellectual, artistic, musical pursuits; hobbies - they don't necessary have an endpoint. The pleasure is in the pursuit of the activity itself, not in completion or accomplishment. Some items that get entered in a long list could be points to research for the pleasure of knowing, but not doing anything about it, for the sake of knowledge without having practical application.

So having "go to the art museum" might be on the list for weeks, but the thought gives pleasure, so it remains.

I had the book "I Could do Anything if Only Knew What It was", but recently donated it. I tried to re-read but the language is vague. I was not sure if sheis using psychological concepts and methods, without the terminology. I would have understood the terminology more.

I have Wishcraft. It's been a long time since I read it, though.

There is an article in the New York Times about Schubert's failures, entitled: "Schubert’s Operas Were Failures. Is Their Music Worth Saving?
In Paris, “L’Autre Voyage” assembles the composer’s arias and art songs to create a jukebox show, perhaps the greatest opera Schubert never wrote."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/15/arts/music/schubert-operas.html

From the article: "It’s surprising that opera eluded Schubert, who by most counts started about 20 stage works, completed fewer than a dozen and saw the premieres of just two."

Yet Schubert, who died at 31, managed to complete the composition of over 600 songs. Perhaps if he had lived a long life, he would had the time to become a successful opera composer, or finish his unfinished stage works - or finish his "Unfinished Symphony."

Perhaps being productive is not a race where all the runners reach the finish line, but more like pitching on a baseball team. You might pitch a perfect game, a no-hitter, lead the league in strikeouts. But to do that you have pitch many games, and perhaps lose as many as you win, or have the coach remove you before the game is over, or hit a few batters, or have the crowd boo you, or sit in the dugout during the games you don't pitch, or pitch in the bullpen and hope you get to play, but not get called by the coach to relieve the pitcher.

Schubert is usually listed as one of the greatest composers of all time, and was amazingly prolific, but even he managed to produce failures and leave compositions unfinished. It seems that quantity goes along with quality, and we will conceive great ideas that we will never start, and start great projects that we will never finish, and finish others that will turn out to be failures.
And hopefully we will still accomplish much good in the world.

I realize that a good way to start working on my list, before I start doing any items, is to go through and look for things I will not do, and delete them entirely from the list.

I found another reference to "structured procrastination."


<< Treating each page as a unit allows you to get the benefit of “structured procrastination”, which is based on the fact that procrastination is relative. In other words any task becomes easy if it is a choice between doing it or another harder task. >>

http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2009/1/6/autofocus-system-instructions.html

The above quote is from the Autofocus instructions.

And here is another reference to "structured procrastination."

<< Anyone who has followed the discussions on my website will recognize that the FV algorithm is loosely based on two powerful methods of making a decision, “structured procrastination” and Colley’s rule. I don’t intend to go into either of these now as an understanding of them is not relevant to the finished algorithm, but anyone who wants to know more about them can google them. >>

<< In addition, doing the list in reverse order, with the least wanted task last, uses structured procrastination to get the tasks done. >>

http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2017/4/24/systematic-next-hour.html

The above two references are from the instructions to the Final Version FV.