Mark Forster's BlogBloghttp://www.markforster.net/blog/2010-02-08T17:23:00ZSquarespaceIs DWM closer to DIT or AF?http://www.markforster.net/blog/2010/2/8/is-dwm-closer-to-dit-or-af.htmlMark Forster2010-02-08T16:43:09Z2010-02-08T16:43:09ZPlease 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 7http://www.markforster.net/blog/2010/2/5/day-7.htmlMark Forster2010-02-05T21:56:12Z2010-02-05T21:56:12ZI’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 6http://www.markforster.net/blog/2010/2/4/day-6.htmlMark Forster2010-02-04T22:01:49Z2010-02-04T22:01:49ZAll 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 workhttp://www.markforster.net/blog/2010/2/4/repetitive-nature-of-work.htmlMark Forster2010-02-04T15:56:26Z2010-02-04T15:56:26ZThe 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 5http://www.markforster.net/blog/2010/2/3/day-5.htmlMark Forster2010-02-03T23:56:05Z2010-02-03T23:56:05ZI 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 systemhttp://www.markforster.net/blog/2010/2/3/provisional-name-for-new-system.htmlMark Forster2010-02-03T12:27:31Z2010-02-03T12:27:31ZIt’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 Statshttp://www.markforster.net/blog/2010/2/3/day-4-stats.htmlMark Forster2010-02-03T00:44:55Z2010-02-03T00:44:55ZDay 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 Statshttp://www.markforster.net/blog/2010/2/1/day-3-stats.htmlMark Forster2010-02-01T18:52:48Z2010-02-01T18:52:48ZI’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.

]]>Video Interview with Mark Forsterhttp://www.markforster.net/blog/2010/2/1/video-interview-with-mark-forster.htmlMark Forster2010-02-01T12:39:23Z2010-02-01T12:39:23ZHere 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.

]]>DIT2? AF5? Who cares what it's called? This is what I'm working on at the moment...http://www.markforster.net/blog/2010/2/1/dit2-af5-who-cares-what-its-called-this-is-what-im-working-o.htmlMark Forster2010-02-01T11:17:11Z2010-02-01T11:17:11ZUsually 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. 

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