;)
Monday
Aug162010
Procrastination
Monday, August 16, 2010 at 21:47 Good article by Mark McGuinness on overcoming procrastination - and not just because he quotes me!
Monday, August 16, 2010 at 21:47 Friday
Apr302010
Time management when retired - update
Friday, April 30, 2010 at 16:09 I think it’s time to write an update on how my new system for retirees (and non-retirees) is getting on. I’ve had quite a ride with it because my original idea didn’t work out, but further experimentation has resulted in something which I think is going to work very well.
Basically it is a system which combines the best bits of DIT, the AFs and DWM:
- Like DIT it is based on one day’s work, but it incorporates several improvements to make it more flexible.
- Like AF it dismisses stuff which you aren’t prepared to do, but does so much more directly.
- Like AF4 it works on a “backlog” and a “current” list, but ensures that this is related to one day’s work.
- Like DWM stuff which isn’t done within a certain number of days gets dismissed, but without the endless page turning.
- And best of all it puts the screws on very quickly with the important stuff, while allowing the urgent less important stuff to flow quickly.
If you can imagine DIT with the problem solved of what to do when you don’t finish all today’s tasks, you’ll be pretty close.
Wednesday
Apr212010
Time management when retired
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 8:43 I had a vision of what it would be like when I retired - I would basically just potter around all day doing the things I enjoyed doing. I would take lots of long walks and visit lots of interesting places. I would at last have time to learn a musical instrument, would perfect my French, Spanish and German, and read loads of books.
Some of that’s happened, but the sense of unlimited time available for what I want to do has so far eluded me. In fact I am so busy most of the time I don’t know how I ever fitted full-time, or even part-time, work into my day. I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing - just not what I’d envisaged.
One of the problems is that I don’t seem to be able to switch my mind off inventing time management systems. I’m always getting brilliant ideas, and when I get a brilliant idea I want to try it out. And if I’m trying it out then I want to tell other people about it, and discuss it with them and get them to try it out too. So before I know it, I’m doing almost as much work for nothing as I was previously doing for money.
The above is just a preamble to saying that I have now come up with yet another new time management system. It is however very different in the way it works from the Autofocus and DWM systems which I have introduced over the last sixteen months or so. About all it has in common with them is that it uses one long list.
What it does do however is what the Autofocus systems aimed to do, but never quite achieved, which is to autofocus - to zoom in on the things which really matter while not neglecting the mundane but essential tasks which are part of everyone’s lives. So I’ve actually started to get moving with the walks, the music, the languages, the trips and the books. And I may even be able to find time without too much difficultly for that fund raising project which my church seems keen to get me involved in.
How does it work? It’s too early to go into detail, but it is basically a new way of combining some of the time management principles which I have worked on over the years, plus some new ideas.
More soon.
P.S. I almost forgot to say that I think it will work just as well for those who are not retired!
Tuesday
Apr062010
Qlockwork v. 2
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 at 15:21 A couple of years ago, I blogged about a useful program called Qlockwork, which keeps track automatically of your computer use.
I’ve been notified by the publishers of the program that there is now a Version 2 which can be downloaded on 30-day free trial from their site.
Update on Monday, April 19, 2010 at 16:50 by
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
I’ve since received the following:
Hello Mark,
I noticed your recent post about Qlockwork.
I wanted to say that I’ve worked on a similar application myself, and have just released it. It’s called iFocus and you can check it out at www.ifocusonwork.com
It has some advantages over Qlockwork in that it’s 1. Free and 2. Allows you to set goals for using certain applications and optionally choose to have them enforced.
Perhaps you want to mention it to your readers or use it yourself. Congratulations on getting so many people to follow you. I will read carefully over the description of the Autofocus system and will link to it from my site.
Rareş, from Boston, MA
Wednesday
Mar102010
Italian version of "Do It Tomorrow" now on sale
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 8:59 
The Italian version of “Do It Tomorrow” published by Sangiovanni’s is now on sale (price € 15.95). You can read more details (in Italian) and order by clicking here.
Wednesday
Feb102010
A couple of options for DWM
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 15:37 Here are a couple of options which I have been trying out for DWM, which have the aim of ensuring that you can keep the important stuff moving. You can use both of them at the same time if you wish:
1) The Current Initiative.
This is similar to the Current Initiative in DIT and is designed to be “The thing that you do first every day”. The idea is to select one project to which you want to give special treatment for a while.
The method is to write the selected project in BLOCK CAPS on your list. Every day when you start work on your list, your starting point is that project. You must do some work on it before moving on to any other task. Apart from these rules, you treat it like any other recurring task.
Once you have completed the project or got it sufficiently up and running, you can select a new Current Initiative.
2) Next Pass Mark-Up.
At present when you scan through the list you can either pass by a task or do some work on it. The “Next Pass Mark-Up” adds one further thing you can do, which is to mark the task up for action on the next pass through the list.
You then must take some action on that task on the next pass, unless it is physically impossible to do so.
Unlike the Current Initiative, under which a project remains Current Initiative until another one is chosen, the Next Pass Mark-Up does not remain with the task if it is re-entered.
This is not intended to be a method of prioritising tasks, and therefore tasks can only be given this designation as they are considered for action during a normal pass through the list.
The mark-up should be used very sparingly, otherwise the list may be slowed down and resistance increased.
The recommended method of marking a task for this purpose is to draw a small circle in front of it:
○ Call Bill Smith
This can then be filled in when you start work on the task, so that your current place on the list is marked (like the normal dot):
● Call Bill Smith
And finally the task is crossed out in the normal way when you finish working on it:
● Call Bill Smith
in DWM
DWM Monday
Feb082010
Is DWM closer to DIT or AF?
Monday, February 8, 2010 at 16:43 Please note: This post assumes a knowledge of both the “Do It Tomorrow” (DIT) and the Day-Week-Month (DWM) time management systems. If you don’t have this knowledge please don’t bother to read it!
One thing that’s becoming increasingly clear to me as I work the new DWM system is that it is not just close to DIT, but actually is DIT.
To see this, let’s examine the statistics which I published in my previous post on February 5th:
Feb 6. 0 (36)
Feb 7. 0 (46)
Feb 8. 0 (50)
Feb 9. 0 (40)
Feb 10. 1 (43)
Feb 11. 16 (62)
Feb 12. 25 (42)
Remember that in DIT you enter all tasks by default under tomorrow’s date with the idea that you take action on them tomorrow. There are however two important exceptions to this. One is that you can enter urgent tasks “below the line” so that they are done today instead of tomorrow. The other is that you can allow yourself to get behind by 4 or 5 days. If you get further behind than that you are supposed to audit your commitments.
If you look more closely at the statistics qyoted above you can see that DWM has kept completely to these principles, except that it has moved the entry point one week into the future. February 12 was where tasks for “tomorrow” were added, and February 11th was today’s list. February 10 consisted of one task which had got behind one day. The 17 tasks shown as already completed on February 12 were the equivalent of DIT’s urgent tasks entered “below the line” today.
Feb 6. 0 (36)
Feb 7. 0 (46)
Feb 8. 0 (50)
Feb 9. 0 (40)
Feb 10. 1 (43) = DIT’s “Behind by 1 day”
Feb 11. 16 (62) = DIT’s “Today”
Feb 12. 25 (42) = DIT’s “Tomorrow”
The only real changes to DIT, apart from the method of entry, are:
1) There is now no need to make a distinction between “same day” tasks and “everything else”.
2) The rather nebulous audit procedure in DIT has been changed into an automatic dismissal process.
I’m sure you will be asking “What about DWM’s 1-month entry point?”
Well, all the 1-month entry point is really doing is adding a pre-screening process to DIT. Instead of relying on the audit to weed out unnecessary tasks, there is now a process by which anything can be added to the list but is weeded out automatically if it no action is taken on it within one month. It also means that anything that gets on the 1-week list has had at least some preliminary action taken on it. There will of course come a time when unactioned 1-month entries co-exist on the same page as new 1-week entry tasks, but there is unlikely to be much confusion between them.
Friday
Feb052010
Day 7
Friday, February 5, 2010 at 21:56 I’ve now been working DWM for a complete week and it’s still working extremely well for me. I don’t intend to publish another summary for at least a week unless something happens worth reporting.
Here are the stats for the pages I’ve used so far:
Feb 6. 0 (36)
Feb 7. 0 (46)
Feb 8. 0 (50)
Feb 9. 0 (40)
Feb 10. 1 (43)
Feb 11. 16 (62)
Feb 12. 25 (42)
————
Feb 28. 18 (99)
Mar 1. 5 (27)
Mar 2. 5 (33)
Mar 3. 5 (11)
Mar 4. 29 (47)
Mar 5. 6 (18)
Totals: 105 (554)
Thursday
Feb042010
Day 6
Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 22:01 All still going well with DWM. I don’t remember enjoying working any of my previous systems as much as this one.
I’ve now completed all the actions for the first three pages: Feb 6, 7 and 8 and there is only one left on Feb 9, so I don’t think I will have any tasks being dismissed until Wednesday next week at the earliest.
Thursday
Feb042010
Repetitive nature of work
Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 15:56 The new DWM system is throwing up some interesting new perspectives. One that has struck me quite forcibly is the repetitive nature of most of my work. Previous time management systems have tended to disguise the number of times that one re-enters the same task on the list.
But DWM separates out re-entered tasks from new tasks, and rather to my surprise I discovered that the number of new tasks that I’m putting on the list is decidedly in the minority. For example, yesterday I re-entered 43 tasks and only added 11 new tasks.
This reinforces a point I have often made, which is that good systems are all important in being well-organised. If the majority of tasks are repetitious, then making sure that those tasks are being carried out as efficiently as possible will bring about huge time savings.
Wednesday
Feb032010
Day 5
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 23:56 I haven’t been around much today because of some outside engagements, but nevertheless the new DWM system has proved its worth. Everything I needed to get done has got done, and quite a bit more. My pages for Feb 6th and Feb 7th have now got no unactioned tasks on them, so I won’t be in danger of any tasks being dismissed until next Monday.
The real crunch of course will come in eighteen days time when the original 1-month page becomes the 1-week page. Until then it is really impossible to judge the system properly.
In the meantime, I keep feeling more and more that the system is very psychologically powerful. I don’t think that I’ve felt quite so motivated and in control of my time with any of my previous systems.
in DWM
DWM Wednesday
Feb032010
Provisional name for new system
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 12:27 It’s a bit unsatisfactory referring to the new system as DIT2/AF5 so I’ve decided to refer to it from now, until we come up a better, by the provisional name “The Day/Week/Month Time Management System”, for short “DWM”.
in DWM
DWM Wednesday
Feb032010
Day 4 Stats
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 0:44 Day 4 has gone even better than Days 1-3, in spite of my broadband connection failing late this afternoon which is why I’m writing this at 12.45 am. I’m beginning to appreciate the power of this system.
Here are the stats as they are now:
Feb 6. 0 (36)
Feb 7. 1 (46)
Feb 8. 8 (50)
Feb 9. 23 (39)
Feb 28. 25 (99)
Mar 1. 6 (27)
Mar 2. 14 (31)
Totals: 77 (328)
in DWM
DWM Monday
Feb012010
Day 3 Stats
Monday, February 1, 2010 at 18:52 I’ve been working my new system now for three days. So here are the statistics as at the end of Day 3 for each active page that I have now. The first figure is the number of task remaining unactioned on the page. The second figure (in brackets) is the total number on the page.
Feb 6. 2 (36)
Feb 7. 10 (46)
Feb 8. 23 (40)
Feb 28. 27 (99)
Mar 1. 4 (24)
Totals: 66 (244)
Bear in mind that because of the short month, Feb 28 was open to new entries for two days.
in DWM
DWM Monday
Feb012010
Video Interview with Mark Forster
Monday, February 1, 2010 at 12:39 Here is video from December 2008 of me being interviewed by Amanda Malloy of Videofocus. It’s mainly in a “Do It Tomorrow” context, but contains many good points and is in my humble opinion well worth seeing. It lasts just over 30 minutes.
Monday
Feb012010
DIT2? AF5? Who cares what it's called? This is what I'm working on at the moment...
Monday, February 1, 2010 at 11:17 Usually when I release a new time management system I have tested it quite thoroughly myself. This is important because often any drawbacks only become apparent quite a while down the line.
But in the case of the new DIT2/AF5 system, I think it might be more helpful to have other people working on it with me at the same time so that we can share our experiences of it together.
So what I am going to do now is to share the basic outline of what I’m doing now, so others can run with it and see what they can make of it. I’m not going to go into much detail because I think that would destroy the purpose of the exercise - the detail should appear from our experience of working the system.
This is what it consists of:
1. You need a page-a-day diary with plenty of lines. Also some form of bookmarking for today’s date and the two entry pages (see below) - though turned down page corners are probably quite sufficient.
2. All new tasks are entered on the page which is one calendar month from today’s date. Example: Today’s date is February 1st. New tasks are entered on the page for March 1st. Tomorrow I will enter new tasks on March 2nd and so on.
3. All re-entered tasks are entered on the page which is one week from today. So any task I re-enter today (Monday February 1st) goes on the page for for next Monday (February 8th). Tomorrow (Tuesday) they will go on the page for next Tuesday 9th and so on.
4. Nothing is ever entered on any page, other than the pages currently one month and one week from today’s date.
5. All active pages are treated as if they were one long list and you continue to circulate round them doing the tasks that stand out.
6. All tasks which are on pages earlier than today’s date have expired. They are dead, done for, dismissed, deceased.
The thinking behind this is that you can put anything you like into the system. If you do nothing about it, it will remain there for a month and then expire. If at any time you commit yourself to a task by taking some action on it, you are put under increased pressure to get it finished by being given only seven calendar days to do some more work on it. Of course many tasks are done in one go, so can be deleted without being re-entered.
That’s all you need to get started.
Sunday
Jan312010
Looking for a new name
Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 7:44 The new system I’m working on was provisionally called DIT2. But that doesn’t really apply any longer since the latest changes I have made make it far less like “Do It Tomorrow”. In fact about the only similarity now is that they both use a page-a-day diary to write tasks in.
It doesn’t bear much resemblance to Autofocus either, so calling it AF5 isn’t going to work either.
Hmm…
Saturday
Jan302010
DIT2 Progress Report
Saturday, January 30, 2010 at 17:45 I’ve had to make some major changes to my ideas for DIT2, which is going to mean that it will take longer than expected to publish it. The earliest is likely to be sometime in the first half of March.
It’s still based on a page-a-day diary, so if anyone has already invested in one in anticipation the money won’t be wasted!
There are some interesting new concepts which I have now included:
a. You can put tasks into the list without actually committing yourself to doing them. Once you have committed yourself to doing a task, it is then treated in a different way.
b. The little and often approach is encouraged, and the system is so constructed as to encourage you to keep going.
c. There is automatic purging of tasks which you haven’t committed yourself to doing.
d. The system can cope easily when you have days you can’t work on it. You don’t have to forecast these - you respond after the event.
e. You can do any task in the system next without breaking the rules.
Thursday
Jan282010
Take care of the pre-conditions
Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 13:45 While working on my list early yesterday, I came to a task “Buy notebook”. I passed by it saying to myself:
“I haven’t got the car out yet, so I’ll do it later.”
By the time I got to the end of the list I had passed by several other errands for the exactly the same reason. Then on the next pass round the list when I came to the same task again, I still hadn’t got the car out. So I passed the task by again. (Perhaps I should explain that my car is garaged a short walk away from my house).
I suddenly realised that most of these tasks had been hanging around for several days simply because I had only finally got the car out when it was time for evening meetings - by which time it was too late to do any of the tasks.
Looking through my list I could see that many other tasks had similar pre-conditions which weren’t getting addressed.
Anyway, I put “Get car out” on today’s list, and the result is that a whole stream of tasks got done which had been hanging around. I also spent a bit of time identifying other pre-conditions which were holding things up and made sure they were dealt with too.
If you’ve got some tasks which are “sticking”, have a look at what you’re saying to yourself when you pass by them. “I’ll do it later because…”
Then tackle the “because”!
