blog to discovery

There are times when you feel overwhelmed with tasks; everything is urgent.  So what do you do? How do you choose what task to work on? You could choose the task with the nearest deadline, the one you like the best or the one you are being nagged to complete the most.

I’ve just finished a busy time at work and I’ve frequently felt overwhelmed with my urgent tasks as we approached the end of the financial year. Most days my AutoFocus system works wonderfully, but at times times my mind is so preoccupied with urgent tasks the thought of using that list just adds to my bewilderment.

I admit I like processes; in fact I’ll go as far as to say I love processes. There are so many wonderful things about processes, here are a few:

• help explain what needs to be done
• ensures every stage of a task has been considered
• helps to identify efficiencies
• helps to teach other people
• ensures consistencies

I get a great deal of pleasure from breaking tasks into its component actions and arranging them in an efficient manner. Despite this I’ve never used processes at home; maybe I thought it was too much like work or perhaps I thought it was just too anal!

There are some tasks that you really want to do, but are so big that you don’t know how you’ll find the time to complete it, or even where to start. There are two solutions:

• put aside a day (or longer) and work on it until the task is finished
• work on the task a little bit regularly over a longer period of time

I’m a big fan of the little and often approach and have used it for yeasr within different organisation systems and it is one of the features of AutoFocus, in fact it is positively encouraged.

Advantages of little and often

• less resistance to starting the task if you know you only need to work on it for a short time
• less procrastination as you can stop working on the task when you get tired of it and lose focus

AutoFocus is such a simple system that I think some people find are finding it difficult to get started. When I wrote my review of the system I thought about including some pictures of my set up, but decided against it because after all it is just a list. However after several requests, here is a description of my AutoFocus set up, which is pretty close to following Mark Forster’s instructions.

The book

My book is an A5 hardback wide ruled notebook. This is a book I already had in the house and from the notes on the inside cover appears to be a book from work that I previously used to track progress as part of my management diploma course. My bookmark was a gift from my sister from Japan and is a cat that clips to the cover of the book and the tail marks the page with my current task.

I’m a big fan of Mark Forster and have all three of his books (pre-ordering two of them). Mark has lots of tips for increasing productivity that do not involve a complex system like Getting Things Done. I have found many of his ideas beneficial particularly rotating through tasks implementing little and often, the concept of a closed list and minimising distractions by not working on incoming tasks until tomorrow.

Before giving birth I developed a new organisation system that incorporated many of Mark Forster’s ideas, as well as some from Getting Things Done. However, I soon realised it was not going to work because of the time it took to set up each day. Fortunately Mark issued a request for Beta testers for his new system AutoFocus in January 2009 just as I was looking to spend time on things other than baby.

AutoFocus

Everyone is used to a task list that grows until it is overwhelming, but since introducing concepts from Getting Things Done and Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management I have noticed a large improvement in my task management. However over the last few months my task list has grown and grown and at the end of December I was overdue by 93 days. I knew I could reduce its length (12 sides of A5 paper) as I have done previously , but I felt it was time for more serious action.

There are some tasks you’ll never get to – and holding on to them generates a constant state of guilt and disappointment, feelings that have an adverse effect on your productivity.

Julie Morgenstern – Never read emails in the morning

There are many reasons an organisation may introduce hot desking; to increase flexibility, to reduce costs, to introduce a different culture. It can be a difficult time for staff to move to this new way of working, but it is easier and less stressful to change your working habits to work with the new system enabling you to be open to the benefits offered by hot desking.

My organisation has been hot desking for five years and I enjoy the flexibility and sociality of it. Here are the tips I’ve learnt:

Before you start

1. Understand the hot desking situation – are all desks free for you to use? Do you need to book a desk? By asking these and similar questions you can ensure you know exactly what to do when you walk into the office in the morning

I’ve now had my Blackberry 8800 for over two months and I’ve been pleasantly surprised how useful I am finding it. Here are six of the ways I’ve used it to help my productivity.

Themes

It is possible to change the ‘desktop’ layout through the Options>Themes menu; there are three standard themes on the device and you can download others through the same menu (use the application button and select Download Themes).

I’ve selected one of standard themes, BB Dimension Today because it enables me to see at a glance the latest emails I’ve received, my next two appointments and any calls I’ve missed.

Profiles

When I first introduced the ideas from Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management all tasks that came in today were added to tomorrow’s list which meant I had a plan of action. However when I realised this wasn’t going to work and started developing my own system I realised I missed the daily plan of action which wasn’t provided with a complete task list which just provided a list of all the things I could be working on. I needed something to lead me through the day in a clear, productive and defined way, so I developed a today planner.

Morning routine

At the top of the page are the tasks I should complete every morning to ensure I am set up for the day.

The current initiative is an idea of Mark Forster’s, so I will let him describe it:

Things didn’t go as I expected over the past week. My new role involves an increased amount of time out of the office, but I thought with my new organisation system that I could easily cope being away for a few days. And I did up to a point, but having had time to think about it over the long weekend I know that I could perform much better and be much more effective.

Last week I was only in the office for one and a half days; I had two trips to London (including one overnight) and one to Birmingham. So all this travel means I need to be make effective use of my time in the office to meet people and use specific software I can’t use on other computers, but I also need to be more aware of those tasks that I can complete while I’m out of the office. Of course, Getting things done has the solution with the use of contexts. I tried using these in my first attempt at implementing GTD, but I didn’t find it very useful because I was in the office most of the time. However I think I will benefit considerably from considering this concept again.