Get Everything Done

Yesterday was day 1 of doing DWM.

This morning I changed my system to Alan Baljeu's.

I used my old AF notebook.

I am using DWM for Monday-Friday only. So, one week will mean 5 days, and one month will mean 20 days (it's like every month is a non-leap year February).

I wrote the number 1-5 on the first page.

They designate the first five expiration dates. I mark each of those dates expired each morning.

Re-entered items I write on the page(s) marked "6". New items go on 21.

(Actually, I just cycle though 1-20. So, page 21 corresponds to page 1 for next "month.")

The lines on my planner/diary were too narrow. I have a lot of experience with my extant AF notebook, so I know the line and paper size work well.

I chose to give myself 2 pages per day. If I need more space, I can write on the backs of those pages. With this new system, I really do "little and often" much better, which means my velocity through items is much fast, which means the volume of checked-off items is much higher than in previous incarnations of AF and DIT.

A shout-out to Mike for pointing out that Alan's implementation allows me to put my system aside while I take my mid-February vacation (holiday) and then return to it without missing a beat.

I am using a stick note (plastic "tape flag") to mark the first active page, the one-week-from-today page and the one-month-from-today page.

To the right of each entry, I mark the date entered and the date completed.

On the top of each expired page, I write the date expired.

I do not rip out or discard expired pages. As in AF, I have a record of both completed and dismissed items.

I just want to point out 2 things:

1. "My system" is not different from Mark's. It's just explained with different words, referencing page numbers instead of dates. Same difference.
2. I'm not advocating for this change. [But do it if you like.] I wrote it to get people over the mental hurdle of thinking tasks written on next week Wednesday are somehow connected to next Wednesday, when they really aren't, other than "get to it before then"

I work in a similar way. I use a notebook and cycle through 28 days (4 weeks) instead of one month. It allows me to follow recurring tasks, like vacuum every Thursday, teach every Monday and Wednesday, and so on, without searching for them in the notebook. It cuts significantly on reading through tasks as well if I know what some of them might be on a given day.

Two pages of the notebook (front and back with two columns) give me room for 132 task, plenty enough. All tasks are entered in the first column according to Mark's rules either a week from now or 28 days from now, except for appointments that get entered on the day they are scheduled (like in a real agenda) from the top of column 2 and in different ink so they are visible at a glance.

It works perfectly so far. I know that it has only been three days but that is two days more than on any other system. I just can't stand reading through any list of to-do tasks longer than ten, open or closed if they linger in any form.

With this system today's list is gone once the day is gone. So I better read through the list do I like it or not. The list is going to be gone even if it's messier than I like it to be, so I can suffer that long. The tasks maybe spread on 28 pages but that's always the limit. Not 29 or 30 o31. It's one book, no other agendas necessary.

Overall, I love it. I started it myself several time like this in the agenda and it never worked, because I kept looking on undone tasks on the older pages. I guess I need a closure, so I will be throwing the old pages away.

For me it's the same as AF-1. You just use dated pages instead of standard ones.

Eugene:

I wouldn't agree. With AF1 you are with the page until you decide not to do what's left on the page. There is no urgency. The page can linger forever. And for me that's too long even if the page was created today. I tried to mark dates of task entry. Nothing worked.

I like the concept of time boundaries, although DIT was too rigid for my needs and type of work. DWM seems to apply to my needs and addressing my resistance issues as well.

I new what I wanted, I didn't seem to create it fro myself. And I think that finally Mark solved my problem. I was with AF from day one but just lurking not doing it because it didn't work for me but I did not want to be negative.

Alan - forgive me, but I cannot find your original entry re "your system" - please can you tell me where it is? I am late to this, but after a search still couldnt find it. Apologies

I am finding, like Mark, that the calendar aspect of his new system helps me overall better than a simple long list. It may be purely pyschological, and obviously not all see it the same way, but for me....I am sticking with the calendar approach as described by Mark.

-David

Florida Mark, try the big thread second page.

@Mark,

I did DWM the entire day yesterday. I like it a lot. I just was not fond of my particular brand of stationery. It was ruled too narrowly.

@Alan,

I agree with you. I just figured that I had already become habituated to the materials I used with AF4. In AF4, I was dating every page. In AF4, I found a notebook that I could work with comfortably. You simply (!!!!) took DWM and expressed it differently. That enabled me to recognize that I did not have to find more suitable (and more expensive) stationery.

@All
I am only on my second day. So, I haven't experienced the crunch of knowing that there are items expiring today, unless I start working them. But, I am, nonethelss, constantly aware that next Tuesday's list is going to expire. So, I am in a constant state of awareness that I need to get as much of it done as I can.

As I said in a different thread, this is the first AF version that I have found (excepting AF3), that allows me to get my recurrent tasks done comfortably. AF3 did allow me to work my recurrent tasks, but AF3 had the problem that it permitted some items to get very old and stale. DWM keeps everything fresh, while allowing a large degree of flexibility.

With all of the AFs, I would inevitably cheat. That is, I would do things off-list. With DIT, I liked the fact that I had to write everything down before I did it. So, I really didn't consider it cheating then. I find DWM to be more like DIT in that respect. I am adhering much more firmly to the discipline of doing things ONLY that I've written down first.

I certainly know that there is a high feeling that often accompanies the start of using a new system. And I have felt that high these past two days. There are no flaws in DWM that are obvious to me at this point in my experimentation.

1. Lots of pages.
I think that's all the similarities :-)

Day 3 Update

In my mind, I am doing DWM as written. I had to adjust it to fit my needs. I don't work weekends, so I didn't write in the weekend dates. My pre-printed diary stinks, so I made my own. Tasks are written either one week or four weeks from the date they are written. I suppose using four weeks instead of one month is a tweak, if someone wanted to get very precise.

I am still enjoying the system. As the number of active pages grows, it does get slightly more cumbersome. But, at this point, the benefits of the system, still seem to overwhelm any cumbersomeness.

Using Outlook, or some other elegant electronic system, would address effectively the cumbersomeness issue. But past experience with Mark's systems has confirmed repeatedly that there are real advantages to keeping it manual.

My thoughts are still around how to define "re-entering" an existing task, compared to "entering" a new task.

What I've been finding works best is that if I have a new project, I will give the item for that project the one-month deadline. If I am working on a project, and I have completed a task for that project, and I have a new task for that project, I put that task in the system with a one-week deadline, even though I am not "re-entering" an incomplete task.

Again, I don't view this as a tweak, more as a way to make sense of the system. But I am open to suggestions and criticisms.

My overall impression of DWM is still glowingly positive. I am doing everything I can to clear out my nearest deadlines, while still staying current with all my other, less flexible, commitments.

Just a quick note, before I get back to my list.

I would often read Mark writing about AF and how he just didn't want to stop. I never had that experience with AF. I would reach a moment, and then I would tell myself, "That's it! I am off-list now." And I still might not leave the office for another 45 minutes. But I wanted to get off of AF.

With DWM, more and more, I want to stay on list. It has more of a game-like feel for me. I chalk this up to the fact that it is enormously more flexible. As long as there is nothing expiring today, I can really do whatever I want. But, since I am going through the list constantly, "what I want" is much more congruent with my long-term well-being than it has been in the past.

Two more reasons DWM feels good:

There's the feeling of freedom that comes from being told there are fewer and fewer things that need doing this week.

AF4 had 2 big decisions: Do I leave the closed list? What do I save during review? DWM appears to have none. This system takes all thought out of task management, which means all your thoughts are directed to task-actioning and not planning.

(I do wish I weren't a "strain" though. :-/ )

>>There's the feeling of freedom that comes from being told there are fewer and fewer things that need doing this week. <<

Nice point! In this sense it IS like DIT, because there is a sense of a day's work. I have a sheet of everything that will expire on February 8. I will either get it done or not.

Day 4 Update

First, I always found most of the AF instructions incredibly complex. It was usually quite difficult for me to picture how most of the AFs worked, until I actually worked the system, step-by-step.

The DWM instructions, on the other hand, were wonderfully simple. The entire system is wonderfully simple.

Second, if I find that DWM is sustainable, and at this moment I have every reason to believe that it is, I will eventually test it in Outlook. It really seems tailor-made for Outlook (and other applications as well). I know that there are trade-offs in abandoning paper. But, from my current perspective, it certainly seems worthwhile to give it a chance in Outlook. I'd really prefer not to go through pages of completed tasks.

I'd probably use 3 columns: Task, Expiration Date, Assignee. Of course, I'd sort on Expiration Date. I like the Assignee column because it allows me to filter on it. That way, if Mr. X calls me, I can filter that column and find all the things that I need to get from him.

Moises,

Outlook works very well using "due date" for expiration date I'd use the standard "contact" field. If you group by due date, <alt>VXL (in Outlook 2007) gives a "page list" with the number of filtered tasks on each page.

Brian has described in more detail, with some very useful shortcuts, in reply to the main DWM topic.

Oops: it's the "going electronic"stream on http://www.markforster.net/forum/post/1002402

Will,

Thanks for the pointer to the other thread. I found it helpful.


Mark,

Absolutely. It was never the case that the AF instructions were _unnecessarily_ complex. They were just as complex as they had to be. And, of course, you were right. The systems themselves were not complex. It's the old "a picture is worth a thousand words" cliche.

One of the complex descriptions that still has me scratching my head is how to avoid dismissal when you have to off-list (or primarily off-list) for several days or a week.

I have resisted shifting to DWM so far because of this. I have a week long business trip coming up and most things on my list can't be worked during this time. No problem for AF4. But I just don't quite understand how to do the renumbering that Mark describes to resolve this in DWM:

"The answer I myself am experimenting with is that you cross out all the days between the last 1-month page you put tasks on and the current 1-month page. Then you renumber the first day you missed to today's date, and the similarly renumber the 1-week page, then each day renumber the next pages until you catch up. That's much harder to explain in words than it actually is in practice! For example if you are away for the next 2 days (Feb 2 and 3), when you come back 1) delete Mar 2 and 3, renumber Feb 2 to Feb 4 and Feb 8 to Feb 10.."

Is this correct: Cross out each of the dates I was gone, and each of the dates one month ahead of when I was gone. Then renumber all the pages with crossed out dates. If I am gone, this seems to workj.

What happens if I am still adding things to my list while I am away? I don't think it matters if I get a few things done (just cross them off and renter 7 days out) but I am not even sure about this.

<<Is this correct: Cross out each of the dates I was gone, and each of the dates one month ahead of when I was gone. Then renumber all the pages with crossed out dates. If I am gone, this seems to work.>>

Mary,

Yes. That is correct. But the beauty and elegance of my system (I don't want Alan to get any of the blame for this) is that I don't have to bother with crossing out and renumbering. The renumbering strikes me as a royal pain in the neck.

With my system, I _do_ have to number my own pages. Strike one against my system. With an printed diary, the pages are already numbered. Which is a big advantage.

But, if I, expectedly or unexpectedly, miss a day of work, I just keep using DWM without skipping a beat. Not so with the preprinted diary.

<<What happens if I am still adding things to my list while I am away? I don't think it matters if I get a few things done (just cross them off and renter 7 days out) but I am not even sure about this.>>

Add them one weeks ahead or one month ahead. Whatever gets done gets crossed off the list.

I use DWM only at work, not at home. But, occasionally, there are activities that I get done at home that were on my DWM list. When I am back at work and scanning the list, I see an item and remember I completed it at home, so I mark it done. Pretty simple.

"I have resisted shifting to DWM so far because of this. I have a week long business trip coming up and most things on my list can't be worked during this time. No problem for AF4. But I just don't quite understand how to do the renumbering that Mark describes to resolve this in DWM:"

Marty, I just added a post titled "Why not DIT2?". I think this may be relevant to your question:

"6.) Planner/diary pages are numbered, but dates are not entered until you add items to that page. Takes care of holidays, etc., but sticks to dismissal 30 days hence if no action taken."

Let's say you have a planner/diary with pages numbered from 1 to 60. If you place a task from today (7 February) 30 days out, on Page 30, you would date the page 9 March. If you have new tasks tomorrow (8 February), you would date page 31 as 10 March. If you then take 3 days off, and start adding tasks on 12 February, then page 32 is dated 14 March. No need to skip pages for days off. The key is that you number the pages in the begining, but add dates only when tasks are added to the page.

I just did a test case with a couple of months of dates where I hypothetically took a week off-list and renumbered. It seems like I end up with a number of pages either with no date or the same date. All the pages between my renumbered one month out for the day I return and the the prenumbered day for one month out are in limbo. If I was completely off-list nothing would be added on those days. But if I add things they are on pages affected by this.

Would they just all get dated one month from when I return?

Got it, thanks. I am not sure why this was so hard for me to grasp or why is caused me so much angst. Now I need to get a diary since I no longer have a good reason not to try it!

I suspect that my problem may be somewhat unique since I will be working while on business trips, but probably not be in a position to work 90-95% of the items on my list due to either time, location, or both. But there will likely be several things that pop up that need to go on the list. They are likely to need much of their month to mature before I am ready to tackle them! I was worried about not giving them enough time on the list.