Get Everything Done

I've been trying something different with DWM, and so far I really like it: I've been re-entering recurring tasks at the Today+30 page, instead of the Today+7 page.

This applies only to ongoing, repetitive tasks, such as checking my email, going through my paper in box, checking Google Reader, taking out the trash, replacing the furnace filters, stuff like that.

This does NOT apply to project tasks, where I am working towards a goal, little and often, and finally it's done. Those still get re-entered at Today+7.

Here is what I am finding:

(1) My top projects trickle towards the top of the list -- the first seven days. I take some action, and if I am not finished, I re-enter those tasks at Today+7, as the original DWM instructions say.

(2) The odds & ends and administrivia, which is what my recurring tasks tend to be, generally fall later down the list. Re-entering them at Today+30 keeps it that way.

(3) As I cycle through the list, I have started to get a feel for where the "real meat" is -- it's all concentrated on those first 7 days. So I spend most of my time there. When I need a break, or when most of that work is "done enough" for the day, then I naturally move down the list and spend some time on the other items -- new, upcoming projects that I haven't started yet, and the administrivia. If I am just taking a "breather", I might spend 15-30 minutes going through these tasks, then cycle back to Today, and get back to work on the important stuff.

My attention is automatically directed first towards the top projects that really need my attention. But the other things get just as much attention as they need.

Before this, I was always re-entering the recurring administrivia at Today+7, following the DWM rules. But this made those tasks stand out as much or more than the important projects. I always felt overwhelmed with too many small, trivial tasks that don't move my projects forward.

Pushing those items to Today+30 really helps get the trivia out of the way so I can focus on what's really important.

That makes two great sounding ideas for DWM Seraphim. (the other in the blog comment). Almost makes we want to try the system again with these adjustments. Yet I'm hampered by a lack of consistency. I tend to leave my AF list aside for a couple weeks which actually isn't a big problem for AF, but totally wrecks the DWM scheme.

Even so I always found sub weekly reactivation of recurrent tasks that are supposed to recur weekly more or less was a problem. This seems better to me.

Deprioritizing odds&ends recurring tasks to today+30 (instead of today+7) seems a good option to me too.

Another method to deprioritize these administrivia is to chunk/bundle them into fewer tasks. For example, these tasks ...
(1) Facebook
(2) Foursquare
(3) Twitter
(4) Buzz
... can be chunked/bundled into one ...
(*) Chk Social Media (FB, 4SQ, Twitter, Buzz)

So the four tasks gets quarter of the attention every cycle of my DWM list.

I re-enter most housework at either 7 and 10 days. 7 for fish and bills, 10 for dusting. Other things get repeated every season. I pick something that sounds reasonable at the time and add a "last done" note. That way if it ends up being a busy week I know which are getting old.

Alan -

<<<Almost makes we want to try the system again with these adjustments. Yet I'm hampered by a lack of consistency. I tend to leave my AF list aside for a couple weeks which actually isn't a big problem for AF, but totally wrecks the DWM scheme.>>>

Yes, I really do live out of my DWM list. I am finding myself getting more and more productive every week, feeling more and more on top of things. Which only makes me want to use it more. :-)

But if your circumstances don't allow that -- not enough discretionary time, for example -- then I could see that it would be a problem.


<<<Even so I always found sub weekly reactivation of recurrent tasks that are supposed to recur weekly more or less was a problem. This seems better to me.>>>

To be honest it didn't work for me very well before, because I was so buried that I never looked beyond Today+7. But then I realized that many of the pages from Today+8 to Today+30 only had 2 or 3 tasks on them. I thought, I can handle scanning through them, it should be a nice break from the "hot zone". And then I realized, since I was regularly scanning Today+8 to Today+30, I could put my administrivia tasks out there, and know that I would see them reliably several times a day (most days, at least). I never was able to do that before, because I never looked at anything beyond Today+7.



sabre23t -

<<<Another method to deprioritize these administrivia is to chunk/bundle them into fewer tasks.>>>

Yes, that can help to reduce clutter in the DWM list. I group pages like that in Firefox in one folder, and then use the "Open all bookmarks in folder" command to see them all at once.



Cricket -

<<<I re-enter most housework at either 7 and 10 days. 7 for fish and bills, 10 for dusting.>>>

Do you find it confusing to have several "entry" pages? Mark always said it's ineffective, though I never quite understood why. Sometimes it makes me feel disoriented to see a task I just finished showing up on an odd page where I don't expect it -- it makes me think I entered it on the wrong page.

So for me, I stick to the Today+7 and Today+30 as my entry pages. The only exception is for tasks that can't start now. For them I enter them at (Earliest Start Date)+30, so they first appear on my active DWM list as soon as it's possible to take action.



<<<Other things get repeated every season.>>>

???


<<<I pick something that sounds reasonable at the time and add a "last done" note.>>>

???

Sounds very interesting but I can't figure out what you mean. :-)

So much for quickly reading DWM and adapting my current system to match. I still think of it as "day to start" rather than "day it expires".

My home-made task calendar has extra columns to separate "start today" from the DWM part.

If I don't get around to dusting on the planned day, it's not a big deal. When I finally do it, I cross it off the planned day and re-enter it 10 days from now in the "start today" column. That way, it doesn't cross my mind until it's due. There's no sense dusting 3 days after I last did it.

Cleaning the gutters is seasonal.

I haven't decided a reasonable repeat for many tasks. Pulling the stove out and cleaning behind it can be every 6 - 12 months (assuming not major spills). When I do it, I enter the next date at 9 months, unless that already looks to be a busy month. I write "last Aug/10" so if I know if I've put it off too often. Yes, I know DWM is designed to force you to do things rather than put them off indefinitely, but I don't trust myself to follow it exactly.

I think I'm going to back off on DWM for a bit and see how my current blended system holds up over the next few months.

It seems to me the DWM date is a sort of deadline, and the DWM system is a commitment to always look ahead over the coming month. If something needs to be finished (or at least started) on March 15, write it on March 15. You will start seeing it in February and have plenty of time to get to it.

What about tasks I want to forget about for the next week but then consider doing? Where do they go? There's no need to clean the fish tank more than every 7 days.

Is it different for something you don't want to think about for 3 or 6 months?

Cricket -

<<<I re-enter most housework at either 7 and 10 days. 7 for fish and bills, 10 for dusting.>>>

I'm intrigued by what 'fish' means here - is it absurdly obvious??? Or am I missing out on some piscatorial secret that the rest of the world knows about??

Hi Cricket,

<<<What about tasks I want to forget about for the next week but then consider doing? Where do they go? There's no need to clean the fish tank more than every 7 days.>>>

I would enter them at Today+30+7 = Today+37. Then they'd show up on my list seven days from now.

The problem is, that task might get neglected for 30 more days before DWM forces you to act on it. The fish might not like that.

I have a similar situation, and I don't follow Mark's strict DWM rules to handle it. I need to make sure I give my trees a good deep soaking every 2-3 weeks. So I re-enter that task at Today+(3 weeks). It doesn't enter the DWM "hot zone" until after 2 weeks, and then it becomes critical / subject to expiration after 3 weeks. In the meantime, it does show up repeatedly, outside the "hot zone", when I can't really take action on it since it would over-water my trees. So I just ignore it till it shows up in the "hot zone".

Not the best solution but it works OK. I'd rather deal with the annoyance of seeing the watering tasks there and knowing I should just ignore them, rather than take the risk of not watering my trees on time.

Another option, I suppose, would be to use a tickler system of some kind, and enter the task when it shows up in the tickler. E.g., let's say I just watered my trees today. I could set it to tickle me on 9/14, and it will say "Enter into DWM at Today+7: Water the trees".

But that's too much overhead for my taste. It forces me to think too hard about the mechanics of the system. I don't like having to think about the mechanics of the system.

How about a section of each day's page for "tickler" items? Say you should water the trees on day 20 through 30. Enter it in Tickler on day 25. That way it stays out of the way until day 28, when it enters the Hot Zone.

Not ideal, and still not suitable for the fish. I'll keep thinking about it. I'm curious how Mark handles this type of thing. Maybe we're missing something.

Make that "enters the hot zone on day 18" (25-7)

If there's some sort of deadline, Mark recommends noting this on the task itself. for example, "Tax car [31/8"]

The diary dates on DWM govern when you start and stop thinking about a task, not when you do it. I find that using them as some sort of deadline confuses me.

Incidentally, I have changed my mail process to drop actions from mails into +30 rather than +7. This seems to work better.

Following on, if I were organised, I'd put "Tax Car [31/8]" on the 24/8 page, as I wouldn't want it cluttering up my list for a month and there's no way I'd do it before then. Or I might put it in my diary to do on a certain day.

Will, Unless I'm missing something, it doesn't matter which page you enter"Tax car [31/8]; if you are cycling continuously through the pages from 'today' through to 'today+30', you'll see it the same number of times. The date at the top of any particular page is not the date you start working on it - you start working on it when it 'feels ready to be done' or whatever triggers you to take action on a task. If you don't want to see a task until the earliest date you can start on it, it's better to add the task to a tickler file or calendar.

This is an interesting thread - it's useful to go over the mechanics of DWM just to keep it fresh in our minds.

Margaret,

I agree with what I think is your main point. By "thinking about" a task, I meant "consider whether to do" it. Sorry I wasn't clearer.

I think it does matter (though possibly not very much) when you enter something for a couple of reasons:
1. The list (less than 30 days out) should be as short as possible and
2. The list should be a list of actions which can be done now.

The example I gave was of course quite wrong. I should have said that I'd enter this task on 24/8 +30 (WAY after the task needs to be completed) so I was only looking at it for the week where I might actually do it. Frankly, this demonstrates that the calendar is a better place to tuck away time critical tasks until you need to think about them, when you can put them into DWM.

For things that need doing quarterly, monthly, and mid month I use an email reminder from Google calendar.

When the email arries I either write 'monthly reminders' on my list if I'm busy, or clear nearly all of them right away and write the left over ones on the list.

OK I could write them on an index card and make a note in my diary but it's not quite so automatic.

Robina,

Sorry I missed your question until now. "Fish" means clean the fish tank, which should be done weekly but can go for 10 or even 14 days in a pinch.

I'm finding that my 43 Folders system works very well in tandem with DWM (they are are both eternal, cyclical systems). For something like "Tax car", I put the documents in the appropriate day folder (e.g. 21 if I were to do it 21 August) and take them with me on the morning of the 21st. Having bought the tax disk, I pur the old one in the July folder to remind me next year. Something like this need never get to DWM at all.

Cricket,
Thanks for explaining about "Fish".
I thought, when no-one got back to me, that the answer must have been so obvious that it didn't even merit an answer....so I did read back and found you had mentioned cleaning the tank and did feel a bit foolish. Nice you got back to me though.

It allowed me to remember a funny incident (which has nothing to do with time management) When I was a teenager, my boyfriend and I caught a small carp and put it in an old fish tank. The carp was not happy and became more and more listless and listing.....

We had an implement to clean the tank which had a kind of prong on 1 end and a razor blade on the other for scraping the sides. One evening my mother was all dressed up, just about to go to a meeting and decided to touch the fish with the end of the prong to see if it was still alive. It was. It jumped. She jumped. The razor blade caught her nose....
She left the house mopping the blood and furious with the carp!

History doesn't relate whether she explained to the parochial church council that the cut on her nose was done by a fish...

I can't think of fish tank cleaning without recalling this. Thanks for giving me the opportunity for a nostalgic chuckle.....