Mark Forster's Blog

Italian version of "Do It Tomorrow" now on sale

2010-03-10T08:59:43Z

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.

A couple of options for DWM

2010-02-10T15:37:03Z

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

Is DWM closer to DIT or AF?

2010-02-08T16:43:09Z

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.

Day 7

2010-02-05T21:56:12Z

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)

Day 6

2010-02-04T22:01:49Z

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.

Repetitive nature of work

2010-02-04T15:56:26Z

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.

Day 5

2010-02-03T23:56:05Z

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.

Provisional name for new system

2010-02-03T12:27:31Z

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”.

Day 4 Stats

2010-02-03T00:44:55Z

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)

Day 3 Stats

2010-02-01T18:52:48Z

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.