Get Everything Done

I'm testing DWM at the office. I'm planning to take a break from the office and go on at least one month's vacation leave. When I return, I cannot just pick up where I left off because every task would be expired by DWM rules.

Some tasks related to a few projects will be put on hold until I return.

I suppose that, before going on leave, I could dump all tasks to be resumed on a separate list. Then, after returning from leave, I could dump them back into the DWM diary and resume work.

Or maybe, before going on leave, I could just forward (re-write) all tasks in my diary to one month ahead of the date of my resuming work.

With AF4 I would just pick up where I left off. How does DWM deal with taking a break from task processing that exceeds the expiration period?

I know Mark has posted about this before, although I don't know in which thread.

I'd probably do something like your 2nd option <I could just forward (re-write) all tasks in my diary to one month ahead of the date of my resuming work.> because the month you're away for doesn't exist for DWM purposes.

So if something new came in a week before you left, you'd write in 3 weeks after you're back (the 1 week you're still there before you leave, plus 3 weeks after is the "+30 days" date. Technically, it's about 7 weeks, but 4 weeks of that is vacation time so it doesn't count in the 30 days. At least, that's how I'm understanding it now...iow... subject to change at any time :)

Marks explanation is here: http://www.markforster.net/forum/post/1004461#post1008700

< Marks explanation is here: http://www.markforster.net/forum/post/1004461#post1008700 >

Mark, as I understand the system, I will need the pages you cross out, for items carried forward between 1 & 7 March (1 Mar + 7 = 8 Mar etc). I would therefore expect that they should not be crossed out but rather left blank until needed. Or do I have the wrong end of the stick?

Geoff: Each day 2 pages get renumbered until you've caught up. So you will write on *some* Mar 7, just not the original such page which has been summarily removed from the system.

Or:

You could just let everything get dismissed.

Controversial I know, but in practice you're likely to have closed a lot of the stuff that you really needed to complete before you left. And knowing all those pages would get dismissed might force you to do something with them. I often struggled with getting back to AF etc after a break, precisely because most of the tasks had lost their relevance.

Anything I worked on from the 'in danger' pages that I *really* needed to pick up when I got back I'd put in outlook as a 'tickler'.

You could also mark the pages that got dismissed while you were away, and have a task to review them repeating for a bit. In practice you generally remember most of the important stuff anyway.

And if you're lucky enough to be going away for more than a month, I'd be wanting to start a new list when I got back anyway!

I think if I knew well in advance that I would be away for a week, or two, or four(!) I might be tempted to just not enter anything in the task list for the time I would be away. For example, if I were going to be away from 15-20 Mar, when I got to 16 Feb, instead of entering tasks one month forward on the 16 Mar page (when I know that I will be away), I would enter them on the 23 Mar page instead. Likewise, when I got to the 12 Mar and did some work on a task, I would re-enter it on the 26 Mar not 19 Mar. Or am I missing something (very likely!)?

John:

Apart from making task entry far more confusing, I think that would be counterproductive, in that you'd suddenly lose any pressure to work on those tasks. And where would you stop? Would you use the same approach if you were away for a couple of days? And what if your holiday was booked at the last minute?

John - I think I'd do it the way you described too, and probably put an X or a note on the page as a reminder.

Ed - for 1 or 2 days, I may just give those pages a 'grace period' of 1 or 2 before expiring them. Maybe not. I haven't had that happen yet, so it's imaginary at the moment :)

> that you'd suddenly lose any pressure to work on those tasks.

I don't know if that's true - before the break, I'd still see those tasks on the Mar 26 (using John's example) so I can work on them beforehand. If not, well, I know I can't work on them during Mar 15-20 anyway, so giving them an expire date of March 23 or whatever, doesn't change the number of days available to work on them. (Maybe I need more coffee before I try to post? :) )

Mechanics aside, if I were gone for several weeks, there may be several things that have become urgent which weren't when I left. I think the sensible thing to do is to take an hour and review all items to see what needs doing, or maybe a day just to catchup and see what's important now, and what's obsolete now. Once that's done things should be getting back to normal.

Lillian, that seems quite sensible. If you know several days are not available, write your tasks instead on an available day and skip the renumbering. If it's just a couple days, I would simply try to work ahead and not delete any days. Or if behind, just accelerate the dismissal process a bit to catch up. Depends. If there are lots of things on my list, time compression is not going to help, so then I wouldn't.