Experience with Revised AutoFocus 2
In my continuing quest to try and report on the various AutoFocus approaches for the past 2 weeks I have been experimenting with Mark Forster's revised rules for AutoFocus. After my last post on using AutoFocus 2 with OmniFocus I switched back to paper and pencil methods. So here is my report on using the revised AutoFocus.
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.
OmniFocus for AutoFocus 2
This is a quick update on a 2-week experiment I've just completed using OmniFocus as a tool for implementing AutoFocus 2.
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.
AutoFocus 2 – Experience so far
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?
Autofocus vs. GTD
I have been using the Autofocus system for time management for the 5 weeks and wanted to write a post to describe my experience.
The Autofocus system is simple and you can read about it at the link above. I won't detail how the system works because you can read it there. It is an alternative to GTD although I think they complement each other somewhat rather than being strictly mutually exclusive.
What I like about it is expressed by the following quote:
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication"...Leonard da Vinci
First let me provide a bit of background...
I have used GTD for about 3 years. My experience with it has been positive overall, but I never was able to get to the point where I really felt on top of everything in front of me. The idea of Inbox Zero and collection were extremely effective for me. The "2 Minute Rule" made sure I responded to many more emails quickly and properly filed the actions that I needed to come back to later. I feel that fewer important things got dropped and I could always find emails and things that needed to be responded to.
My major challenges with GTD have been the following:
- Weekly Reviews seem essential and are very rewarding, but so hard to get around to and complete in a busy schedule. In discussing GTD with colleagues and reading what others struggle with online it seems to be a consistent issue. I've heard David Allen say that the people who succeed with GTD are the ones who do the Weekly Review.
- People seem to constantly fall off the GTD bandwagon. There are definitely things that are easy, like collection, but getting things organized into Projects, Tasks/Next Actions, Contexts, Tickler files, Someday/Maybe, etc., is a bit of work in itself. If this unravels I think the system breaks down pretty quickly.
- Widget cranking is a bit overrated. I understand the intellectual argument of separating planning and action and the psychological payoff of completing a task.
- When to do it...GTD seems to lack any specific guidance on when to do an action. It seems to emphasize just cranking through the list based on context and prioritization is downplayed. I haven't found that this works well and its too easy to start jumping around working on whats easy rather than what's important. Maybe there are great solutions to this in GTD, but I haven't seen them.
10 Power Mind Tips for Commuting
Making Commuting Fun
While an increasing number of people are working from home, most of us still spend significant amounts of time in our cars or the train or a bus going to and from a job, visiting clients, or if you are lucky just going back and forth to the bank to deposit your big checks.
Like we discussed in a recent post, those minutes can really add up. You might not be able to easily reduce the amount of time you spend in the car, but you can probably make better use of your time and arrive more relaxed, smarter, and more prepared for what comes next. So here are 10 tips for spending your commuting time wisely.
- Review the day from multiple perspectives. Don't just think about the day from one perspective, but think about a few key interactions you had (face-to-face, over the phone, or e-mail) and think about them from the perspective of each of the other people involved. Then imagine you are an objective 3rd party just watching the interaction and think about it from that perspective. This always has a way of adding some new perspective to the situation for me. And remember just because you think about it from their perspective doesn't mean you know what they are thinking...you probably aren't a mind reader yet, but at least you can see the situation from a perspective other than your own.
GTD Mac Showdown – OmniFocus vs. Things
OmniFocus vs. Things
Having been a long-term and obsessive OmniFocus user (since the early Alpha builds) I thought it was time to look at some of the alternatives out there. I didn't really have time to review all the choices out there, but so I decided to do an evaluation of Things from Cultured Code. There are plenty of exhaustive reviews of these products and the world probably doesn't need another one, so I'm going to describe just the key issues that drove me to ultimately replace OmniFocus with Things.
Like I said I've been an OF user since before it was officially released and purchased its iPhone app the day it was released. OF has been a good friend, but it hasn't been without some trouble. The iPhone app has never worked reliably for me. I admit that I have a very large database and my workflow creates many of the tasks from e-mail. OF currently includes email text and attachments in its database which causes significant bloat (according to their technical support). This results in painful loading time on the iPhone and in my case it simply crashes almost all the time, either on start-up or after using it for 30-60 seconds. After repeated attempts to resolve the issue I stopped using the iPhone app.
As I began to use Things I was excited by the chance to have a working iPhone app again. The Things iPhone app provides a lot of the capability of the desktop and is very easy to use. I like it, but with it lacks two features the OF iPhone app has. OF has a wide variety of methods for syncing the iPhone and desktop databases. The one I use is using .Mac/iDisk so that my databases sync no matter where I am as long as I'm on a network. Things syncs over a wireless network when your iPhone and desktop software are on the same LAN. This works very well, but really requires you remember to sync them before you go mobile. So while I like the Things iPhone app, it still needs more work. This wasn't a big deterrent for me in switching since I had adapted to not having a reliable iPhone app anyway. The other feature the OF has is the ability to tag locations to your tasks and use the GPS to find tasks that can be completed in your vicinity. This sounds like a neat feature and I know people who use it, but again without the app working for me is theoretical. I would love it if Things added this though.
The things that really drove me to switch are:
(1) A beautiful UI. The Things UI is simple and clean. OF is feature-laden, but a bit clunky. There are tons of modes and settings, none of which I find profoundly useful. One day I accidentally, without realizing it, set my system into a "Perspective" which caused many of my projects to simply disappear. I was convinced by entire DB had become corrupted. There are many clunky things like this in OF, that the simplicity of Things simply avoids.
(2) Tags. I really love the idea of Tags in Things. It's a general idea that you can Tag projects and you can Tag tasks and then filter the next actions you are looking at by Tag. Tags can be used to implement Contexts and it also allows multiple Tags to be assigned to a single task. I love this because I can easily implement the idea of "Waiting For". When I delegate a task out I simply add the Waiting For task to it, which still preserves the other tags assigned to it. In OF a task is in only one Context so I add it to Waiting For context, but lose track of which context it was originally in.
It also allows implementation of priority. OF has a Flag capability that is binary, it's flagged or its not. I used this to indicate priority, but invariably too many tasks get Flagged and it begins to lose its meaning without very careful management. The Tag capability lets you implement whatever scheme you like. This is a HUGE benefit of Things for me.
(3) Areas. Things lets you group projects into Areas. This is quite flexible and lets you group tasks into "Work", "Home", "Father", "Husband", "Finance". Then you can easily look at all your projects in that context. This feature is completely optional, but I find it incredibly useful. In OF previously I managed the same thing with SubProjects, but I found this quite cumbersome and grouping a large number of projects and making sure they stayed organized was fairly painful.
(4) Today. This might be my very favorite feature of all in Things. There is a category called "Today" and you can simply take any projects in your "Next" list and designate them as "Today". I love this for implementing the "Most Important Tasks" idea (See Review of Power of Less). First thing in the morning I select 3-4 tasks that really must be done that done and add them to the Today category. I begin working on those first and try to make sure they are done by the end of the day. There is no good way that I know of in OmniFocus to implement this.
Conclusion and how to integrate with e-mail.
These are the major things that compelled me to switch to Things. I am so happy I did. Before I finish this I want to describe how I integrate with e-mail. A very large number of tasks that come my way come via e-mail, but in my opinion neither OF or Things really handles this correctly out of the box. I find this a shocking oversight. To be fair they have both implemented a service that allows clipping and this can be scripted, but as far as I know you can only tell it to insert the selected item. Normally when doing e-mail you want to add the e-mail to your inbox or directly to a project and then Move the e-mail out of your Inbox into some archive or reference folder (I call mine Reference).
So I am using Apple Mail.app for mail. When I want to convert an email into a task hit the `-t key sequence and Mail Act-On will then invoke a script that launches the Quick Entry feature populated with a meaningful subject and a link to the e-mail in the Notes section. Then when I want to do the task I can simply click on the link, the original e-mail is there which I can then reply to, forward, or whatever I need to do. By default the task is entered placed in the 'Inbox' which I find to be the best place as I can more thoughtfully go back and assign it to a project, add tags, etc. later.
When I first started evaluating Things I wasn't sure if it was going to be possible because Things lacks a proper Apple Script interface, unlike OF which has an extremely powerful one. Fortunately I found that Niclas Nilsson has developed and published a very creative solution that does exactly what I was looking for. This mimics exactly how I want to use it and how was doing things with OmniFocus. If you want to use Things I strongly encourage you to review his posting here.
Quick workouts – the question?
joyful and fun exercise
In light of the last post on saving time I wanted to explore the topic of efficient exercise. Experts say that you should exercise daily and recent research suggests that even moderate daily exercise may not be enough.So how much exercise do we really need? In my own mind I usually figure that I will need to exercise 30 - 60 minutes in order get into reasonably good shape? And let me be clear I'm not exercising much these days - and to be honest, trying to find 3-7 extra hours a week to really exercise seems daunting and keeps me from really getting started again - since I'll only run out of time to do it right anyway.
If we use our 1 year calculation that is between 6 and 16 days in a year just spent exercise, realistically more if you include time driving to a gym or the extra showers and changing one might do. So it's definitely a topic worth exploring if we want to use time efficiently
Let's pretend for the sake of discussion - and this is an invitation for discussion, that you can get significant gains from short periods of the "right" exercise. But what is the right exercise? This is what I'm looking for input from readers.
The question
If you budgeted 15 minutes a day for exercise, what would your exercise routine include each day?
(The goal should be to be well rounded and build strength, flexibility, and endurance.)
I plan to take all the input and feedback and build it into a personal workout plan to try out personally and document the results.
Please comment...
Book Review – The Power of Less
The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential...in Business and in Life by Leo Babauta
[amazonify]1401309704:right[/amazonify]
Leo Babauta is the author of the Zen Habits blog which is now one of the Top 100 blogs in the world. His blog is based on his inspiring story of changing his life beginning with quitting smoking, becoming a vegetarian, running marathons, turning his financial life around, creating a blog with 100,000 readers. The theme of his blog if you haven't read it yet is simplicity, doing less, enjoying more by being absorbed in the moment. It's a simple, focused message that permeates every area of life if you adopt if fully.