This is Week 40 of a Year of Living Productively
This week I tested whether Mark Forster’s concept of Little and Often could help me get more done. I used this concept in conjunction with Do it Tomorrow and Routines, deleting tasks more than 3 days past due.
How Little & Often Saved My Sanity This Week
- Enabled me to finish projects I’d put off . I cleared my backlog of a project I’ve felt guilty about not doing for over a year. Where the Guilt Hour failed, Little and Often succeeded. There’s something about having to do the smallest thing to move a project forward that works like magic on my procrastination.
- Prevented future overwhelm. I’m amazed by how many things I finished well ahead of time that normally came down to the wire. As I keep moving projects forward little by little, well before they are due, I know my stress level will remain low into the future.
- Helped me establish new habits. I learned I was avoiding some of my routine tasks (especially in the evening), because I felt they had to be done completely or perfectly to count. This week, I gave myself a gold star on my HomeRoutines app if I did anything at all toward that task. The great thing is, of course, that once I started, I usually did more than one little thing. The big surprise for me is that all of these benefits made me feel better about my time usage and put me in a great mood.
How Little & Often Made Me Crazy This Week
- Uncertainty about deleting tasks. I wasn’t completely sure how I would handle deleting (and reinstating) routine tasks when I hadn’t done them in 3 days. I didn’t know if I missed a daily chore if I had to spend three times as much time on it or if doing it once out of the three days counted. Not knowing made me anxious. I ended up failing to do any of the special chores I have assigned to Saturdays before they were more than three days overdue. I deleted them. But then I wondered what to do with them? I decided that as long as I have done a daily chore at least once within that 3 day overdue time frame, it can stay on my list. Special chores assigned to a certain day can be reassigned to the day you actually move them forward. This rule will apply to tasks deleted from my ToDoist list. If a task gets deleted, I can add it to tomorrow’s list if I do at least something on it today (which I will have to do just by remembering to do it). If I work on my deleted Saturday tasks on Sunday, I can add them to that days’ list. My rationale is that this will add tasks to the list on days when they are most likely to be done. Further, taking action should be rewarded by allowing a project to be added back to the list.
- Can feel scattered. A little and often approach means I am juggling lots and lots of balls. Sometimes that felt a little scary. I kept waiting for something to fall. It didn’t. While I didn’t get to spend as much time focused on singular pursuits, for my lifestyle, this is a benefit. I don’t have just one hobby with a very defined job. Little and often in that situation could be quite crazy-making. But if that were my lifestyle, I wouldn’t be doing this series!
Did Little and Often Help Me Get More Done?
YES! Of all the approaches I’ve tested so far, this one has made the most significant impact on my productivity. What’s more, I love it. Applying little and often to my routine tasks has helped me get control of that aspect of my life, too. When I start to expect too much of myself, deleting tasks seems capable of keeping my life in balance. I get up every day excited to see what I need to do to move things forward and keep projects from the chopping block.
The Productivity Approach I’ll Be Using for Week 41
This week I’ll be testing a problem-solving approach. I’ll primarily use Scott Young’s idea of writing to solve personal problems. If that doesn’t work, I’ll work through Mind Tools’ productive thinking model.
The concept. We all have unique problems to solve with respect to our productivity. Unless those specific issues are addressed, changing apps or to-do lists are unlikely to succeed in improving your time management. In fact, much of our time is wasted pondering these problems, which may have little to do with work itself. If we have a relationship problem, we may keep rereading the same paragraphs over and over as we fixate on what so-and-so said. If unrealistic demands are being made of you, using Google Calendar won’t fix things right up.
Using a problem-solving approach takes it out of the realm of the personal and the emotional. When I was in practice, I often had my clients write down everything that was bothering them. Adjacent to each problem, I would have them write down a potential action to take. Even if no action was taken, the process of writing out the problems often freed my clients up from related anxiety. My approach was similar to Scott Young’s, except he advises us to write until we feel like we have a solution. MindTools, on the other hand, would have us treat problems in a very objective way. One of the most helpful steps in their process is to get input from others. Problems that seem impossible to solve because of our connection to them, may offer easy solutions to others.
If you’d like to join me this week, here’s what you do. Keep track of personal and professional problems you are having. Take Scott Young’s approach and write about them until you feel like you have an answer. As a Christian, I prefer to combine this process with prayer. If you are still struggling, work through Mind Tools’ steps, taking advantage of many of the helps they offer. If you’d like a fresh perspective on the area where you’re struggling, feel free to comment here, on the Facebook Page, or on Google+, referencing me with +Melanie Wilson. I’ll be looking for advice for areas I feel stuck in as well.
Here are the links to the productivity hacks I’ve tried so far:
Week 16: David Seah’s 7:15AM Ritual
Week 17: Another Simple and Effective Method
Week 18: Daily/Weekly/Monthly To-Do List
Week 19: Ultimate Time Management System
Week 25: Make it Happen in 10 Minutes
Week 33: David Seah’s Ten for Ten
Week 34: David Seah’s Emergent Task Planner
Week 35: Steve Kamb’s Do It Now
Hi,
I really like this article series.
Could you specify a little more how you used the system in combination with Do It Tomorrow and Routines?
Thanks
Nigel, so glad you like the series. I posted more about this approach on the forum here: http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2239783 Please feel free to ask additional questions here or there and I’ll answer. 🙂
Thanks Mel.
“I don’t allow myself to add these tasks back to the list, so that I have to rely on memory only.”
So, you don’t put tasks you haven’t worked on for three days on a someday/maybe list?
And how would you recommend I implement all this?
I have a reasonably big list of tasks to do. Do I take some of those tasks and create a new list to work with? Or do I include everything I have?
What do you think?
Nigel, no on adding deleted tasks to a someday/maybe list. The only way you can reactivate them is to do some little action on them. Then you can either add it to today’s list and cross it off, or just add it to tomorrow’s list. Up to you. The idea is that if all that happens is the task gets added to a someday/maybe list, it’s not negative enough to motivate action. That being said, you could certainly try it. It just wouldn’t motivate me. I still have associated emails I can search for. I would never delete notes or emails that went along with a task — just the task itself. A task that I deleted is driving me crazy because I can’t get it out of my head. I plan to do it today! 🙂
On a backlog, I would add things to your list that you want to work on in some fashion in the next four days. Anything else that you want to accomplish by a given date, determine how much time you’ll need (with plenty of leeway) to finish it and add it to your list for the appropriate start date. You can move everything else to another list if you like or can tag it @backlog. When you are doing a review (I think weekly is good), you can look through those items and determine if you want to add them to the list. On the contrary, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with working a backlog daily outside of the list as DIT prescribes. The most important thing is that you choose an approach that doesn’t immediately overwhelm you. If you can manage to stay on top of everything so you have no overdue items, so much the better.
I hope that makes sense. Please let me know how it goes if you try it. I’m eager to know if this is an approach that works just for me or for others.
Ok, great! Thanks, Mel.
I’m starting today!
Just something that crossed my mind…
What do I do with tasks that I have for a specific day? ie. recurring tasks
For example, on wednesday I always like to clean up the computer.
I could put it on the list and then do something about it at least every three days or do I keep doing this on wednesday?
And if done for the week, do I cross it off? Or do I keep it there for the next week?
Lots of questions, I’m sorry, but I want to do this right.
Nigel, I’m happy to answer questions. Of course, you could manage it either way, but I suggest making this a routine item outside the DIT list. I track my routine tasks in the same way as my DIT list, to ensure I don’t drop everything in favor of my DIT list, but they aren’t on the same list. I hope that’s clear.
Thanks, Mel.
So if you have a routine task scheduled for Tuesday, you have three days to do something of it?
Or do you always do your routine tasks the same day?
Nigel, the majority of routine tasks are done the day they are scheduled. But yes, for your example, cleaning up the computer…if I didn’t do it on Wednesday, I would have through Saturday do get it done. If I didn’t, I would delete it from the routine and would re-add it on the day I actually did it. The idea is to create a routine that you’ll actually do — not an “ideal” routine. Maybe you think Wednesday is the best day for it, but you have too many other commitments that day. Saturday is a better day. It could also be the case that you may want to turn it from a routine task into a DIT task that gets crossed off and re-entered every time you do a little. You’ll determine that with time.
The approach is helping me to plan ahead, too. If I know I can’t clean up my computer on Wednesday because I’ll be gone, I can do it earlier in the week so I don’t have to play catch up. Otherwise, the standard excuse is always “I didn’t have time.”
(For some reason I couldn’t reply to your ultimate message.)
Okay, excellent!
I Understand.
Thanks very much for the detailed explanations!
I wish you did another year of living productively as the series are great. Have read them all. Keep up the good work.
Well, we’re a pair then, Nigel, because I tried to reply to you from my phone and couldn’t. I’m so glad you find this helpful. If I keep going for a year, what could I do that would be helpful to you? I may have a tough time coming up with 50 more hacks to try!
Nigel, I just posted an explanation to Mark on the forum that you might appreciate. I think it makes my DIT/AF approach more clear: http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2239783
Great thanks! Now it’s even more clear.
I like the addition of the top priority task!
Maybe next year you could take the most promising systems you’ve tried and test them for a month. That should give a better insight into their long-term strengths.
I sometimes think that just the change of productivity systems is what keeps your work fresh. That it’s the novelty that keeps of motivated and not really the working of the system. Have you done more this year than the previous years? Or have you always been testing these systems?
Nigel, I do plan on testing the combination of the approaches that work best for me in January — not just one a month. But I absolutely agree that novelty is very important for me. Before I started this series, I felt guilty for changing approaches. I did figure out that productivity is a hobby for me. I love it. I really enjoy reading about new ways of approaching work and new apps. Accountability is extremely motivating for me, too. So knowing that I have people who are going to read my latest review keeps me going. There’s no question that this has been a more productive year for me.
I’ve been using this system for a few days and I really like it.
There’s a bit of a risk that you won’t do the stuff that’s really important i.e. prioritizing.
So the time blocking you suggested is really necessary here.
You can do 2 to 3 hours everyday of what’s important to move your cause along and spend the rest of the day with your little and often tasks.
I’m glad, Nigel. I find that necessity drives the bus on the top priorities. For example, I haven’t been adding my blogging and podcasting tasks to the list because I have time blocks for it. However, I’ve had my time blocks usurped by other activities recently, leaving me with time crunches. Fortunately, I have found that these time-sensitive tasks get done no matter what. On the other hand, the little and often approach helps move important, but not urgent tasks to the fore while at the same time, helping me get a head start on the time-sensitive ones. I have been considering adding my blogging and podcasting tasks to my list so I’m not completely dependent on the time blocks. We’ll see how that goes.
That’s interesting.
Maybe you could give those tasks two(or one) days before deleting them instead of three.
You could even go as far as rating each task according to importance.
So, a very important task only has 1 day to be done before deletion. A somewhat less weighty task but still important can get 2 days. A less important task but one that still has to be done can get 3 or 4 days etc.
Seems interesting to test.
On ToDoist, I can ranks tasks by importance which I do. I do all the tasks before they’re deleted, so it doesn’t matter that much that they’re ranked — except those that are rated #1 meaning they must be done “today.” On one screen I use, I really like how the tasks are presented first with Today’s tasks in order of importance (I make sure to do the #1 tasks which HAVE to be done today) followed by 3-day overdue tasks, etc. This is essentially how I want to do my work. I don’t think you’d have to game the system by varying the number of days to deletion for certain tasks IF you get started on them early enough. It’s interesting to me that my guest posts are getting done way ahead of time because I’m adding them to my list, while my regular posts aren’t because I’m depending on my time blocks for them. Time to change that. 🙂
Melanie –
In the spirit of B. Sher’s “Isolation is a dream killer”, I’m joining you on this productivity adventure. I admire what you’re doing here, and that alone might be the motivation and accountability I’m looking for. Kinda excited about this.
Avrum, I’m delighted to have the company. I have really had such a wonderful year chatting about productivity with people like you. I am interested to hear how it goes for you. I don’t know if this is working for me because of everything I’ve already done, because of my own lifestyle, or because it’s a good approach period. You can help me in that regard.
” I don’t know if this is working for me…”
Melanie – can you clarify what “this” means? Do you mean the current productivity system you’re trying, or this approach to trying different systems? Thanks.
I’m not sure where you pulled that quote from, Avrum, but I suspect I was saying that I don’t know if this is a system that will only work for me or if it’s something that other people can use, too. Whatever I was saying, I can tell you that I DO know this DIT hybrid is working for me. Will it continue to work long-term? I certainly hope so, because I love it.
Avrum, I wasn’t able to comment on your book website. Fabulous title! The most rewarding therapy I ever did was family systems therapy in teams. And SO effective. I could go back to that kind of therapy I think.
Argh – site lost my comment.
In summary, I feel blessed to have found Family Systems theory. Without it, I’d wager that I would be still be single, and caught in various triangles at work and in my family.
As an aside, my clinical supervisor is the chief librarian of the Bowen archives.
It sounded like Family Systems has been a blessing for you. It was neat to read your story. We worked as a team behind a mirror, being able to communicate with the two therapists working with the family. Just the greatest experience. 🙂
A little bit of clarity… are you using Scott Young’s approach for ALL of your productivity needs. I’ve read his blog entry, and it seems geared towards single problem one is struggling with. What about all those tasks, habits, etc? Or are you continuing to use “little and often” (DIT hybrid) along with Young’s suggestion? Thanks.
Avrum, I can’t give up my DIT hybrid. I’m using Scott Young’s approach just to solve some pesky problems I’m having outside of my DIT system. Thanks for asking for clarification.