The guys at workflowy have kept it super simple and basically made a tool that works just about like pen and paper, but enhanced it all the right ways...

So it basically works just like a pen and paper list. You start at the top and proceed to the bottom. You can group things together and create hierarchies if you want to (great if you want to organize like tasks under a project). You can insert into the list wherever you want. You can also dive into the hierarchy and just show that list which is very nice for focusing in on a specific group of tasks. You can also re-order tasks by just dragging.

It is all web based, but its so simple and clean that you can use the web interface on PC, iPad, iPhone. There is really no need for a mobile app.  They leave your session open forever so you aren't constantly logging in. I can't remember the last time I logged in. You just go to workflowy.com and instantly you are in your list.

My wish List

There is only one thing I really want to see in the tool that is missing and that is some improvement on managing completed tasks. Basically you can choose to show or hide all completed tasks. What I really want is to only show recent completed tasks or show all completed tasks. Seeing your progress checking things off is pretty motivating so I like to keep some around for a while. As I've described in previous posts on Uberfocus, keeping completed tasks around highglights the tasks I'm procrastinating when I have 1 incomplete task surrounded by 15 completed tasks.  I emailed the Workflowy guys and one of the creators emailed back promising some enhancements in this area so I'm optimistic to something improved here soon.

How I use it

It's a pretty simple tool and this hardly needs description, but I have mine organized like the following hierarchy:

• Personal
• Archive
• Completed tasks go here
• Active
• Current tasks and projects
• Project 1
• Task 1
• Task 2
• Another task
• Professional
• Archive
• Completed tasks go here
• Active
• Current tasks and projects
• Project 1
• Task 1
• Task 2
• Another task

The Archive section is just a way that I use to get some completed items out of the way.  Basically every week during my weekly review I start at the top of my list and move all completed items between the top of the list and the first incomplete item into the Archive section.  This is the only tool on which I can operate about 90% of the Uberfocus system effectively.

Summary

For right now I am using Workflowy instead of pen and paper. I am really liking it. I do find it a bit less engaging than pen and paper, but more convenient for most of my computer based tasks which represent a large portion of my important and critical tasks. For non-computer projects I find pen and paper a bit more engaging and effective, but for simplicity I'm sticking with Workflowy as my single system. My poor notebook looks bored and abandoned on my desk now.

Workflowy is definitely worth a try. It's free and easy to get started. Give it a shot and let me know how you like it.

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• Where my experiment left me… After finally abandoning all hope of finding an electronic task...

Honestly the only way I found to really get back on track with the deficiencies of the tools was to revert back to good 'ol pen and paper.  There is something extremely rewarding about writing things down and see them checked off.  You are never fighting the tool.  When I'm using an electronic tool I'm always wanting it to do one more thing than is really does.  Then I look for workarounds, then I just live with it, but all the while knowing that what I want is possible, but just not in this tool.

The pencil and paper system like I wrote about previously are rock solid systems that really just work.  They take all the focus off the system and just getting things done.  I can highly recommend it.

And all of that said I have finally found an electronic system that pretty much just works (well 98%).  More on that next time.

Loren

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I hear people say, "Oh I could never do that it would be so hard."  In reality this time it was easy, but it was about my 10th attempt to really make the transition so I've learned a few things about how to make it easy and how to fail in the transition.  I wanted to share my tips in case they are useful for someone else trying to make the transition to a plant based diet.

1) Have a goal.  Have some reason to do it.  Like I mentioned before sometimes the reason comes suddenly and other times it has to be self-generated.  If you haven't been struck with a sudden reason that has made your transition obvious and easy, you may need to come up with something.  In my case I picked an ultramarathon that I want to run.  It's a really compelling goal for me and I hadn't been making much progress.  I linked going vegan with the achievement of the goal and it became much easier.

2) Attack all your addictions at once.  For me I've been a strong 6 Coke-a-day guy for a long long time not to mention the bag of M&Ms that goes with each Coke.  The running joke around my house is that it's easy for me to quit soda and caffeine because I do it multiple times every single day.  Unfortunately I started again just as many times.  This time I gave it all up together.  Drinking soda for me leads me to vending machines or fast-food restaurants and all manner of unhealthy cuisine.  Giving that up takes away the temptation to go to those places.  I've found giving up all the unhealthy habits at one time is actually a lot easier than trying to do it one piece at a time.

3) Prepare for the transition.  While  I do say attack all the addictions at once when you really commit, it was very helpful to me to practice for a month before I went 100% vegan.  This meant that I could eat whatever I wanted, but whenever possible I had to try to eat vegan.  This was great practice at just doing the mental exercise of thinking of good choices and choosing to drink more water rather than a soda every time.  In order to have a vegan lunch for example I had to think about it and prepare for it.  This required more effort.  It's much easier to go through the practice when there is no pressure to stay 100%.  If I made a non-vegan choice it wasn't failure just a chance to improve before I made the big leap.

4) Eat green.  The easiest way to break sugar addiction is eat a lot of greens.  I don't know exactly why this works, but every time I've ever been able to break my sugar addictions it has been preceded by a dramatic increase in consumption of greens.  The easiest and most effective way to get a lot of greens first thing in the morning is to make a green juice.  My favorite is a simple green lemonade (will post recipe later).  It's a bit of an acquired taste, but is pretty good once you get used to it.  I recommend eating more greens later in the day as well in either a salad or a green smoothie.  If you can find a couple chances a day to get some serious greens into your body, breaking food addictions will be a lot easier.

5) Prepare everyday.  The best thing to do to stay on track is to know what you are going to eat before you start the day.  If you are deciding something vegan you can eat as you are running out the door late for work, it's going to be tough.  Next you might get some blood sugar issues, followed by cravings, and then you are off track.  If you already have food with you or you know where you are going to grab food things are much easier.  Plan the night before and everything gets much easier.  Also make sure you have some quick emergency snacks handy in case you get hungry.  A bag of raw nuts or a Larabar within easy reach is really easy.

6) Stick to a routine.  My personal opinion is that you need to limit variety as much as possible.  The fewer number of times you have to make a decision of what to eat the better off you'll be.  I might go for a couple of weeks eating pretty much the same thing for each meal.  I might have green juice every morning for breakfast (24 oz.), then a mid-morning snack of nuts and seeds, lunch might be quinoa with either steamed veggies or sauteed veggies, a Larabar in the afternoon, and a green smoothie at the end of the day.  This is a basic structure I use and I can cook the quinoa and veggies on a Sunday and just have them available for lunches for 2-3 days.  Then I refresh that mid-week.  So I basically cook 2 days per week and then just make a quick smoothie and juice each day.  This takes no less time than cooking normally and is only slightly more time consuming than grabbing fast food.

7) Find other people.  Find a few people online that are vegans doing something similar.  I'm pretty sure they are out there.  For my goal finding ultramarathoners who are vegan is super easy.  Reading their twitter posts is inspiring and keeps me focused, plus I get great new ideas each day.   This also keeps me focused on my goal.

Don't let it get boring.  I said above that you should stick to a routine.  While that can really help you should find ways to mix up the routine every 2 to 3 weeks.  This might mean finding some great vegan cookbooks.  There are some seriously awful ones out there, but also some great ones.  My favorite one is currently the Jaiseed cookbook.  I love that book because the food is extremely flavorful but also simple.  It's easier for me to keep to a super simple routine most of the time, but every couple of weeks its awesome to cook up something super flavorful and savory.  You really don't need to try to be cooking new recipes everyday, that's way too much work.

9) Eat live food whenever possible.  Some would call this a "raw vegan" diet, but really what we are looking for is food that has its natural waters in it that still tastes alive and that hasn't had all the nutrients cooked out of them.  When I eat a lot of cooked food I find it much easier to slip back over the line -first a bit of cheese, then some food made with eggs, etc.  Pretty soon I'm back to my junk food diet.  When I'm eating a "high raw" diet there is really nothing in the animal world that really compares to a fresh strawberry or fresh spinach and I think this sends my brain the signal that I'm doing something distinctly different - the line is very distinct.  On the other hand, my body also at times craves food that is warm or crunchy and that can be a bit more work to replicate with raw food.  For this reason I try to eat 2 meals a day that are made with fresh fruits and vegetables (e.g. juice, smoothie, salad, etc.).

10) Don't make it forever.  Thinking about never being able to eat a steak again might seem really great after you've been vegan for a while, but going into it that might seem extremely limiting and if  you are like me your brain seems to rebel against that thought and decide to make sure you still have choices available.  Try setting a deadline to try a vegan diet until the end of the summer.  Make it 2-3 months so you are really feeling all the benefits, and when your deadline comes up you can make a decision about whether to continue or not.  In reality every day, every food choice is a decision about whether to eat a plant based diet or not, but by putting a finite time on how long you are going to limit your choice to a vegan diet will make your brain so much less rebellious.

11) Transition over a long weekend of holiday.  I always find it easier to make these changes beginning on a Friday before a long weekend.  This way you only have one day to deal with your normal weekday routine and for most people the weekend provides more flexibility.  If you are dropping caffeine, trying to be productive with a bit of a headache might not be a lot of fun.  If you can do it over a long weekend, most of the painful part of caffeine withdrawl can be kicked in 3-4 days.  If you a fueling yourself with tons of greens then you will already be squashing the major cravings.

Well those are the 11 key things that I think have made the transition for me feel very easy and natural.  I'm feeling better than I've felt in a long time.  Good luck with your transition.  If you have any other tips to add please add them in the comments.

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I'm going to just lay this out in chronological order of how my experiment unfolded.  I ended up in a different place than I started, but not for any of the reasons I expected.

So first I decided to compare Omnifocus and Things at the same time.  I normally keep two separate systems running (context), one for my main job and one for everything else: family, personal, financial, businesses I own, etc.    I put my main job into Omnifocus and everything else into Things.  I felt this would let me get the best side by side comparison of the two tools.

If you have not read my earlier writing on Autofocus and Uberfocus I think that these system address a major gap in my understanding of GTD.  GTD is wonderful at capture, organizing, and planning, but the execution portion I think is underspecified.  The "focus" approaches are all about how to execute through the tasks currently on your plate.  In my opinion any tool that can't support an efficient way to execute my Uberfocus system is useless to me.  My needs are not unlike anyone using the AutoFocus systems, but if you aren't into that then your criteria may be a bit different.

First Omnifocus.  Without re-writing my earlier review let me say that I think very little has really changed with the tool and that most of my earlier comments are still valid.  Omnifocus really stands out in its ability to synchronize across multiple devices and integrate with email.  It's very hard to beat it for that.  Where I think it is still in the stone ages is that it really has no solid notion of how to order your work, but its loyalty to GTD does not make that a surprise.  In other words I don't want the sequence in which tasks shows up to be forced upon me.  The only place you can move the sequence of Projects and Actions is in planning mode.

In short I used it for a week, tried everything to get it to behave the way I wanted.  Ended up actually using planning mode for everything but even that is incredibly clunky and inefficient.  I had to abandon it because it was seriously impacting my work.

Next up: Things.  Again not much has really changed with Things since my last review.  I am much happier with my integration with email this time around and it now has short cut keys for moving where tasks are in the list.  A fundamental action in Uberfocus is to work on something until you can't work on it anymore, and then you want to essentially re-write it at the end of the list to be continued later.  This makes it very clear which actions are progressing and which are not.  Things makes this very easy.  The only complaint I had is that I really want new items to show up at the end of the list and not the top and I wasn't able to get this to work.

Replacing OminFocus...

I had committed to 30 days and barely made it to 7 with OmniFocus.  So I decided to broaden my net and look for new GTD applications that might be promising.  After some research "The Hit List" looks like the most promising one that might have met my needs.  I really like the Hit List.

The UI is my favorite of all the tools reviewed here.  It has great key strokes for shortcuts and it's foldering system seems more powerful than Things', but cleaner than OmniFocus.  It has a very nice system for setting up recurring tasks (like "Write status report").

It's email integration (or at least the one I came up with) is the least powerful of the 3, forcing everything into the Inbox.  I prefer to just dump most of those into a single list I call Next Actions and I wasn't able to quickly work out a way to do that.  It also seems to struggle with Task ordering and actions seem to not be where I want them.   It does easily let me move tasks to the end of the list, but again new tasks don't always go where I want them.

Summary

This has been a really brief summary of my experiment with the 3 tools and you can probably tell I'm not completely happy with all of them.  I was completely committed to continuing to use Thing and Hit List for the 30 days to give them both a fair shot.  As the 30-days came close to expiring I had planned to switch my personal work Hit List and just keep using them.  Intellectually I really prefer the idea of having an electronic system and I do love that my tasks that were generated from emails let me get back to the original email with a single click.

All through the 30 days I had this pervasive sense that my life was unraveling and I could not stay on top of things.  I really did not connect that feeling with the tool evaluation.  It's true that it's an incredibly busy quarter for me with many very large projects in my life all nearing completion, working with new business partners and colleagues, etc.  One day I finally asked the question, "Could this pervasive sense of losing control have anything to do with having changed my system."  I know that at home for example, I had everything captured and in my system, but I just found that I wasn't taking the time to work on my actions when I was at home.  At work I knew what the projects were, I had everything captured as well, but I was beginning to miss deadlines which had not happened in a very long time.  Coincidence?

I'm going to address how I resolved this issue in my next post.  In quick summary on these 3 tools here is my basic rating:

- Hit List - If electronic tools work well for you, I think it's the best of the 3.  More powerful than Things, simpler and far more beautiful than Omnifocus.  If you can live without good device syncing.  I would highly recommend it.  You can get it here...

- Things - In theory I like it, but I've just found that I seem to avoid using it.  It's device syncing is weaker than OF, so I can't really think of any reason to use it over Hit List.

- Omnifocus - I just really dislike it and have never found myself really successful using it.  I love how easy it is to capture things with it, but unfortunately things don't get done when I use it.

I'm sure there are many differing opinions on these tools and how to use them.  Those are mine.  I hope they are useful to you.

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I've recently been thinking about the Power of Words and what power do words really have?  I've known many people skilled in using words to influence, persuade, and get people to take action.  I've known many people who are able to make big and exciting promises.  I've known many people who become addicted to making people feel good with their promises and their words.  I've known far fewer who can do that and follow through on those promises.

Think about what would happen if someone gave you money and then when you went to spend it, you found out it was fake, that it wasn't really backed by Gold.  It was really not worth anything at all.  How long would you continue to accept money from that person?  How long would you accept money at all?

In large part, we are only known by our behaviors.  The way we commit to other people what we will do and won't do is usually through language - our words.  It is in essence our currency.  If people don't believe what we say, then, in time we will have no ability to get things done, to influence, to persuade, to sell, to teach, to love...

So how strong is your personal currency?  Is your word backed by Gold or is it worthless?  Counterfeit?  Is it a waste of a perfectly good piece of paper?  Is your currency inflated?

As we begin a new year, personally I'm re-committing myself to do better at only making commitments I intend to honor and know that I can and will honor.  I've seen more trouble over the past year with people making and breaking commitments.  Their words are cheap.  That currency is easy to spend because its counterfeit.  Plenty more where that came from.

Words have power when backed up by real action.  We have power when our words are as good as Gold.  Make honest, sincere commitments and when you can't don't. If you thought you could and now you can't then be honest.  You can almost always go back and re-negotiate, if you take the first step.

Think about it as you continue to plan for who you want to become during 2010.

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QUESTION #1: What am I no longer willing to tolerate or compromise on in my life?

QUESTION #2: What are my basic core beliefs?

QUESTION #3: What specific things do I need to be doing for my behavior to be more aligned with what I truly believe.

QUESTION #4: What would I be willing to give up to have more of what I truly want?

I won't provide many examples because I don't want to limit how you might think about these questions, but Question #2 might require a bit of explanation.  For this I try to think about things where my internal thoughts don't seem to match my external behavior.  So I might really believe its important to serve in my community, but I never really do.  Or do I really believe its important?  I mean watching TV is pretty important to, right?  Or I might believe that be truly successful at the level I want I'd need to eat a healthy diet, but I eat at McDonalds twice a day, or....what is it for you?  And what does it take to begin doing more of what really matters?

Happy New Year!

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1) My lists aren't like Mark's as far as I can tell.  I tend to have more things on there that I won't be able to take action on for a while.  There just aren't enough small chunks in a day to work on everything and that is completely okay with me.  My life is extremely busy.  I'm married, I have 6 young children, I am an executive in one company and work full-time as a senior manager in another, and I have many interests outside of all of that.  It's okay for things to sit on the list for a little while.  So the dismissal rules of AF4, as I understand them, are far too aggressive.  I also seem to have more urgent tasks that come up that really need to be done with a quick turnaround.  AF4 makes it very hard to get back to the Active list when followed literally.

2) I have felt for a long time, that the unconscious mind gets subjugated to strict processing rules in some of the AF systems.  I think my system improves that by allowing the unconscious to get a bit more involved by controlling, not just what item is selected to be worked, but the flow through the list.

3) Given that my backlog can be fairly long, I really need a way to get back to my Active list quickly.  When urgent things come up with AF4 I find that I am constantly just ditching the processing rules to get back to the active list or I end up being unresponsive to important items.  So I have to break the system to make it work.

4) I think the introduction of the Backlog/Active line in AF4 is a stroke of genius, but I much prefer my system for using the Backlog/Active line than is described in AF4.  See below for more details.

My System in a Nutshell

The system is basically the same as AF4 in terms of adding tasks to the list as one long list.  I currently use a simple cheap notebook (they tend to last longer than the more expensive ones I've tried ironically).

• Each morning I review each list (I currently maintain two lists: one for my full-time job and another that combines my personal tasks and a company that I separately, but that I frequently do work for at home).  I ask myself, "What tasks on the list absolutely need to be done today or something catastrophic will happen including my breaking a committment or not acting with complete integrity?"  Any tasks that meet that criteria get a small checkmark.  On average there are about 5 tasks each day that meet this criteria.

• Then I begin processing by working through only the checkmark items.  I just refer to this as being in "checkmark mode".  I do everything possible to complete these tasks before working on anything else.  Sometimes enough progress is made that I'm satisfied with my progress for the day and re-write the task.  If I am interrupted I will re-write it with a check to be continued later in the day.  Once I complete "checkmark mode".  I begin following the following rules.

• I begin processing my list from the end backwards.  This is my Active List.  I follow the normal AF rules of reading back through until some task stands out as being right to be done right now.  I work on that task until completion or I feel the need to move on.  If not complete, I re-write it at the end of the list and continue moving backward through the list.

• The exit from the Active list is to hit the Active/Backlog line and ask the following question: "Is there anything in the Active list that is more important to be doing now than the tasks in the backlog?" If yes, process the Active List again back to front. If no, then go to the beginning of the backlog.  This is purely an intuitive question.  My reasoning is that my mind knows what's on these lists and I let it guide me where to put my attention.

• Process forward through the backlog until you reach the Active/Backlog line and ask the same question: Is there anything in the Active list that is more important to be doing now than the tasks in the backlog?" If yes, go to the end of the list and begin working backward again.  If no, then go to the beginning of the backlog and continue processing.

• As the backlog is processed each time the end of a page is reached where no actions have taken place ask, "Are there any tasks on this list that are no longer important or that I should defer?"  (On an average day this results in dismissing 1 or 2 tasks).

Moving the Active/Backlog Line

I move the Active/Backlog Line purely based on my intuition about my list.  My goal in moving the line is to make sure that anything that is reasonably urgent is easily reachable while processing the Active List.  (For reference, my personal list is about 18 open pages right now, and my main work list is 6 open pages).  I find that I feel comfortable with my Active/Backlog line being 1-2 pages from the end of the list.  One rule of thumb I frequently use is: "After doing my daily check-marking, if the Active/Backlog line is significantly earlier in the list than the earliest check-mark item, then I will move the A/B line to just before that earliest check-mark item."  That one rule probably accounts for moving the line 80-90% of the time and has worked very nicely.  The rest of the time, I will just move it to a place that seems about right.

Structure of my Notebook

• I use a simple black school notebook right now.  It has 100 pages and 24 lines per page.  I number each page in the upper right corner when I get the book.  I only number right facing pages, so my numbers are 1-100.

• The last 10 pages are reserved for additional lists that I will describe in a minute.

• I use left facing pages for notes on whatever I'm doing.  It might be technical notes, meeting notes, something I've read, miscellaneous lists, etc.

• I run my personal/2nd business list starting at page 1 and my full-time job list start at page 45.  They both progress at very similar rates.

• The last 10 pages include the following: 3 pages for daily statistics.  I expect to complete a book in less than 2.5 months at my current velocity, so I need about 75 lines.  This gives me 72.  I'll have to hustle.  For each day I track the following stats for each list: how many items created, how many items completed, how many items dismissed, number of open pages, number of check marked items, and how many check marked items I completed (yes I don't always finish them).

• I use one page to write lists of books, movies, online videos I wanted to go watch.  I used to keep these in my main list, but they ended up always getting dismissed because I can only really read one or two books at a time.  Now I keep them on their own page and work on one at a time, when I complete a book, I go back to this page, cross it off the page, and then add a new item to my main list, "Read <Book Title>".  I usually keep one audio book and one regular book the main list at a time.  I divide the page in 4 quadrants one for Audios, Videos, Books, Movies.

• I use 5 pages as a tickler file.  When I start a new book I put the next 4 months in the book.  So my current book was started October 1, so I have pages for Nov. 2009, Dec. 2009, Jan. 2010, Feb. 2010, and Future/Someday.  I am okay with having things I want done in the next 30 days in my main list.  So at the beginning of November, I'll dump all the November items into the Main List.  I also will check the other lists to see if there is anything else on there that seems more urgent that should be moved up.  If your book is larger or you will take longer to move through it, I would recommend having more months reserved in the back.

• I have one free page that I haven't decided what to do with yet.  Suggestions?

Additional Thoughts

• I fought the introduction of the checkmark mode very hard and tried various versions of it and have found that this version works the best, and for me is absolutely necessary to stay on top of certain tasks.  I normally complete this checkbox mode by early morning at the latest.  Although on some days, depending on work/home balance, I might leave home tasks until evening if I know I can do them when I'm back in that context.

• AF and particularly this latest variant has radically and dramatically improved my ability to make incremental progress on long-term tasks.  One big area of improvement is in helping my kids to get things done with Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, sports, or other long-term projects.  I put tasks in my lists to work with them, e.g. "Scouts - John".  I usually just mentally allocate a day to do that, usually Saturday.  When Saturday comes around those tasks get picked off, I either remind them to do something for it or work on it with them.  The difference in their progress is DRAMATICALLY BETTER.  I'm now the parent with kids on top of all these things.

• There are several other daily type tasks that I usually put in my list.  For example I'm learning Spanish right now using Rosetta Stone, so when I complete my practice on Saturday I will insert "Spanish (L: Sa)".  This means I did it last on Saturday.  This is useful for two reasons.  One, for the rest of the day Saturday it makes it easy to see that I already did this tasks today (yes sometimes I can't remember), and if I get busy and miss a few days it's easy to see how far behind I am.  This has been a big help in keeping track of things I do daily, but only once daily.

• I have not found this or any of the AF methods at all useful for staying on top of physical exercise.  I find calendaring this into my fixed daily schedule is FAR more effective.

• As I said I keep daily statistics.  This usually takes about 10-15 minutes to update, but it also forces a read through of my entire list each morning which is quite useful and I recommend even if you aren't keeping track of statistics.

• I have experimented with overlaying Covey's quadrant model onto this.  Ultimately I found that this new system basically addresses the quadrants implicitly.  The checkmark mode handles Quadrant 1 activities nicely.  Quadrant 2 activities naturally get dealt with by letting tasks stand out to be done.  By allowing access to the Backlog whenever there is nothing more important to be done (Quadrant 1), the elegance of the AF model to build incredible momentum and focus is preserved.  Quadrant 3 activities, also get handled well by a combination of the checkmark mode, and having many ways to get on and stay on the active list if needed.  Quadrant 4 tasks can be built in and selected appropriate or dismissed.

I hope you find this useful.

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First I have to say I was quite happy to be back to pencil and paper.  I felt that this worked much better for me.  One of the things I've liked so much about AutoFocus is that it builds a sense of momentum, but I felt this was lacking somewhat using AutoFocus where there was really no notion of a page, and little sense of completion or progress.  It's a little like running on a treadmill compared to running outside.  I think an AutoFocus app could be built, but I don't think you can just take a GTD app and redeploy it as an AutoFocus application and get all the benefits of AutoFocus.

In many ways this experiment with the revised AutoFocus rules was something of a failure.  The major change here is the use of modes a reverse mode and a forward mode.  Forward mode is handled by entering a task on your list called "Switch to Forward mode" and then when that is the task that sticks out you switch to Forward mode.  Over the two weeks I've been doing this I only found myself switching into forward mode 3 times.  I found the tail end of my list far more compelling and important.  The beginning of my list that could only be reached using Forward mode really didn't have that many truly critical and important tasks so they tended to get dismissed each day (with a few exceptions).  Dismissing those tasks always seemed very reasonable and painless.  There were tasks that I dismissed that I wished I'd gotten around to doing, but none of them were a big deal.

Overall I have to say that I was pretty happy with the new revised rules because they do help you get back to the beginning of the list and I continue to like the new dismissal rules.

Let me share my stats for the past few weeks because I think they are fairly interesting.  I found them pretty interesting.

It's clear that I'm opening pages much faster than I'm closing them out, at least some are getting closed out.  If this trend continues though I'll end up with an untenable number of pages.  There seem to be only 3 possibilities for addressing this issue:

1) Dismiss items faster

2) Do a better job of taking small actions more frequently so that I can cover more pages.

3) Add fewer tasks

#1 is an option and I'm sure there are more tasks that could be dismissed faster  (AutoFocus 1 handled this a bit better.  #2 is an option, but already feel that there are times through the day when I'm shifting my attention too many times - often to things of lower importance.  #3 isn't in the spirit of AutoFocus where you can dump things in and filter them.  I think this is actually working pretty well because the things that aren't getting done in general are not that critical.  My worry is that I am still spending too much time on things less critical rather than spending more of my time on the truly important things in my life.

You'll see from the dates above that this experiment is a few weeks old now. I have done another variant involving prioritizing critical items. I'll post the results of that tomorrow.

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When Mark Forster posted his updates on using AutoFocus I started a new notebook and began using it and loved it.  A  number of people were posting on his forums about successfully using OmniFocus and other electronic versions.  In my opinion this was only made possible with the use of Open Lists in AF2 vs. Closed Lists in AF.  I have purchased and have extensively tested both OmniFocus and Things as traditional GTD tools.  I have previously stated my preference for Things over OmniFocus, but OmniFocus does provide much better syncing with the iPhone and so I opted to go with OF for this test.

Implementing AutoFocus with OmniFocus is the simplest thing in the world.  I simply deleted all my previous contexts and deleted all my previous projects and created one new project called "AutoFocus".  Then I clicked on the Contexts button and all my tasks show up as "No Context" which is just fine.  Then I work from the bottom to the top.  I add tasks using Quick Entry and just type the name of the task and set the Project to AutoFocus.  With the Auto Complete this is very efficient.

Because I had only switched to using AutoFocus 2 a few weeks before this experiment I chose to not start over and not re-enter tasks either.  I did the unthinkable I used both.  I began entering all new tasks in OF and worked backwards and when I reached the top of the list I began working back in the notebook.  My thinking was that I would quickly clear the notebook and fully into the OF version.  This did not happen.  At the end of the 2 weeks I still have 4 open pages in the notebook.

Results

In the 15 days of this experiment I created 337 tasks and completed 234 of them.  This seems roughly 50% slower than the progress that I seemed to make with the notebook.  I like using the notebook better because although it can be slightly less efficient to enter the tasks (I definitely type faster than I write) and it's less convenient to carry a notebook around I do think there is something important about physically writing things.  Overall I think OmniFocus is perfectly fine at implementing the system as I defined it, the inability (perhaps my own) at simulating the physical notion of a page is missing.  There is something compelling about completing a page rather than just checking things off one long electronic list.

I found the OmniFocus syncing to the iPhone to work much better this time around.  Probably because I was using the tool in a much simpler way.  I also found that in the entire time I entered about 2 tasks on the iPhone and checked off about 3.  So overall having it was nice when I needed it, but even in those cases my notebook was just as accessible so the benefit was fairly marginal.

Next Steps

Now that Mark Forster has once again revised the system, reincorporating AutoFocus 1 as "Forward Mode" I am going to try that system out for 2 weeks and report the results back.  I am going to switch completely over to the notebook again and re-write my current task list over.  I'm not in love with the complexity of his new formulation (it feels like a classic coding hack when you know how to make something work, but aren't sure how to streamline it) but I'm going to try to give the system a fair shake.  If I can complete that before it changes again I'll also implement my own tweak to the system that I think may resolve my existing issues with AF2 and not being able to get back to the beginning of the list.

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AutoFocus review

On June 27, Mark Forster released his AutoFocus 2 which is a followup to his AutoFocus time management system released earlier this year.

AutoFocus is described on Mark's site and I did an earlier comparison of it to David Allen's GTD here.   AF2 is designed to resolve some of the issues that have been observed about AF.  Mark describes these well on his site.  This quick article is my description of my experience with AF2 after the first 10 days.

Overall I'm very pleased with AF2.  It has really re-engaged my use of the system.  I found my use of AF flagging a little bit in the few weeks before AF2 came out.  I think this was partly due to having split my lists into a Home and Work list.  With AF2 I am back to a single list.  While I initially really liked the "closed list" idea of working on a single page until there were no items that were standing out, it became difficult to iterate through the list fast enough to deal with urgent issues.  In AF2 you work backwards through the list and after each task you jump to the end again so it allows very rapid progress as items come up.  I find that this makes it difficult to get back to items earlier in the list though.  So far I've solved this by making one linear pass through the list each day, where I start at the end and just keep working back.  Then I follow the normal rules the rest of the day.  This seems to work well and allows reasonable progress on all parts of the list, but also allows me to make quick progress on important items and things that are important that come up during the day.

The other thing I really like are the new rules for dismissing items.  It becomes pretty clear what items will get dismissed "tomorrow" and almost every day I have dismissed one task.  On one occassion it was a task I really should have done, but just didn't get to and it was reasonably urgent (but really dreaded doing).  In every other case, the dismissal has removed a task that really isn't that important, or something that is important, but not for a while.  These new dismissal rules are great and help get pages cleaned up much faster than before.

When I started AF2 I threw away my old list and started with a brand new notebook.  In 10 days I've got 12 pages, 2 of which are closed, and many of the pages have just a few items remaining.  My pages currently hold 26 tasks, compared to the 40 my prior notebook hold.  I find I like having a bit more room to write the tasks.  In comparing my current statistics to my earlier experience with AF after 5 weeks, it appears that I'm moving a bit faster and closing pages faster as well.

The best way to compare AF and AF2 is they both seem to build incredible momentum to getting tasks done, but with AF2 there is more fluidity and it feels easier to naturally follow through on important tasks whereas with AF it often felt as if I sometimes needed to do unimportant tasks in favor of things I knew intuitively were more important.  As stated earlier, I think the biggest problem now is how to really handle important things that aren't at the head of the list.  I do believe that the key to resolving all these issues is to really internalize and follow the notion that  your intuition is the guide and determines what "stands out".

If you are using AF2, what is your experience?

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