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.
Overall while I think GTD has been a big help to me, it seems like a tall horse that I and others seem to fall off of all the time. If you are riding a horse to your destination, constantly falling off just hurts and doesn't get you there very fast. GTD strikes a cord with so many people because it helps solve the overwhelm so many of us feel in our busy world, but I really wonder how many people are really getting things under control with it compared to those who feel they are more under control simply because they have a system. Not that feeling under control is bad, but maybe there's a better way.
Enter AutoFocus
I have endlessly tinkered with my GTD system since I first started using it...I wonder if this is because I'm just a tinkerer (because I am) or because there is something missing in the system. I'm pretty smart, hold an advanced degree in engineering, have read David's books multiple times, have listened to GTD interviews, read many many blog postings on GTD. I've used many software versions of GTD: GTD Outlook Add-in on Windows and Kinkless GTD, Omnifocus, Things, and its still not quite working for me. So when I read about AutoFocus I figured I'd give it a try.
I will explain the basic mechanics of how I use AutoFocus then try to explain what I like about AutoFocus as well as what I think isn't quite working yet.
So how do I use this?
Mark Forster describes the Autofocus system as being run from a spiral bound notebook. So in order to implement the system closest to how it was described I started using a Moleskine notebook and doing everything manually. I found that I REALLY liked doing it manually. My initial concerns of course were that I would lose track of important emails and other digital information, web links I wanted to follow, etc. (More on that later).
I started out with a single list and including everything on it. This definitely had the effect of getting personal and professional items moved forward, but when I really had to focus on professional tasks, it made it too hard to find those tasks amongst the many personal tasks mixed in. So for the past few weeks I have started using two contexts: Professional and Personal. When I'm working on professional tasks I'm working the pages at the front - forward, and when I'm home, I'm working back through the pages. This works very nicely. I initially used both sides of the page, but now just use the right page for AF tasks, and the left page for notes.
I know there are many people trying to figure out how best to use AutoFocus on a computer. Having been a GTD digital tool addict for 3 years I can't believe I'm saying this - I don't think you can beat pen and paper. It's true I always have my iPhone clipped to me, but its still sluggish to open the app, wait for the app to load all my tasks (and it is slow if you have a lot of tasks), enter new tasks on the clunky keyboard, etc. It's almost always just as easy to keep a notebook handy. Its all in one place.
Getting Everything Done
I love AutoFocus because almost everything in my life is more or less under control now. Very few aspects of my life are completely starved of attention. I realize there is a time for imbalance, but I've been pretty imbalanced for the past 3 years with GTD by choosing to spend 98% of my time in the work contexts.
At this point, for example, projects around my house are moving forward quickly and I'm catching up on a long backlog. Not every project is moving forward, but this aspect of my life is definitely going forward much better, as are most others.
I think there are a couple of reasons for this. One is the intuitive way tasks are chosen. If something really needs to get done or is easy to get done, it shows up as the next thing to be doing. With GTD I found it easy to isolate these into contexts that I simply ignored. So I would say that having fewer contexts is much better for me.
No Weekly Review
I don't feel an intense need for a Weekly Review like I used to with GTD. I've heard David Allen say that the people who succeed with GTD are the ones who do their Weekly Review, but I also know very few GTDers who consistently do a Weekly Review.
Because I tend to circulate through the pages in my AF notebook almost once a day (when things are moving along well), I see all the items on a pretty regular basis. I am regularly evaluating and thinking about how to move an item forward. AF also has a nice system for dismissing items. That is, if you go through a page without picking any of the actions then you mark them with a highlighter (I circle them) and mark the page as closed. I only dismiss items if my pass through the page does not pick any items because they don't seem important. If the tasks are waiting on something else or important, but I just can't get to at the moment, like "Fertilize the grass". Well I can't fertilize until I've mowed the lawn then I wouldn't dismiss it. If it were, "Read Leonardo da Vinci biography" then this is probably a great task and there is nothing stopping me from taking action on it, but nothing I'm going to get around to soon, so I will dismiss it.
The dismiss idea is a good technique to evaluate why something is on your list, but not getting any attention. I enter an item in my notebook called, "Evaluate dismissed tasks". Then whenever I have time I go back and evaluate those items and figure out why they were not moved forward.
In GTD the idea of renegotiating your commitments is discussed. AF and dismissal provides a very clear way to know what you need to go back and re-negotiate.
Next Actions are Great, but is that all there is?
I've heard the example in GTD of a project being anything that takes multiple steps to complete. So if I need to get new tires on my car, the Next Action would be "Get phone number of the tire store". Then once I've done that I'd add "Call tire store and get prices", then I'd eventually decide whether or not to go to the tire store and ultimately I might enter "Take care to tire store". Are we stupid? With AF I feel free to write down "Get new tires on car". When I get to that it's not too difficult to ask myself, what's the next step? If the answer is, "Call the tire store" then that's what I do. When I complete that I might simply re-enter at the end of the list, "Get new tires on car." I know perfectly well where I'm at on the project.
I guess I just don't believe that its really possible to separate the action and thinking parts and I don't think that's a good idea anyway. AF lets you take some action on an item and then move on when that makes sense and just re-write it at the end of the list. This is a superb technique for reducing procrastination and creates a rhythm and momentum that is hard to describe, but that I rarely experienced with GTD.
Engaging Intuition
My favorite thing about AutoFocus is that it provides explicit guidance on how to select items to be done next. It really lets you engage your intuition or unconscious mind in the process of selecting the next task. I think this is extremely powerful if one is willing to really trust the process. Much more could be said about this, but when the conscious and unconscious portions of a person are aligned massive action can result. In many cases I've found that when I trust the system I pick things to work on that surprise me consciously, but generally has worked out for the best. With GTD I've often observed people having the desire to just get things checked off and so they are checking off actions with no real concern for the importance. This creates a false sense that everything is equal.
Mark Forster has described AutoFocus as using Closed Lists. This means that rather than roaming over the entire list of actions to find something to do you are limited to a single page. You continue working on that page until you pass over the list and find nothing that stands out. This seems like a minor point, but in my experience it's quite important and helps prevent one from just skimming pages looking for something easy to do. It really helps move things along quickly.
The Closed List property of AutoFocus also gives rise to concerns that you can't get to urgent things because you just added to the list because you are stuck working through a few pages back. My experience is that when intuition is guiding things you will usually get a sensation or signal that you need to be doing something else other than what is going on in the pages. I use the AF system is used for work when there is nothing more urgent and important to be doing. I always start my work with the question, "What do I need to be doing right now?" If something critical comes to mind then I do that immediately and I repeat that until the only answer is something like: "Just work through the lists." Then I start my official AutoFocus work. When I first started using AF, there was almost always something urgent I had to deal with. Now its most common that I just work the lists and as I get things done proactively I find myself having fewer emergencies.
Statistics
I have closed out relatively few pages and over time I've realized recently that if something isn't getting attention you should dismiss it earlier and investigate the reasons its not progressing, either its not important or there is some obstacle (real or imagined) to taking action. I have quite a few pages with 1 or 2 items remaining that probably should be dismissed. Dismissing leads to insight and helps move things forward rapidly or gets rid of items that came up at some point and got on the list, but really aren't important to get done. These numbers are a bit misleading because mid-stream I switched from one context to two which resulted in some items being moved from single list to a personal list even though no action was taken on them, but overall I think they are instructive.
Work List: 23 pages, 20 open, 3 closed (average page is about 80% complete)
Personal 7 pages, 0 closed (average page is about 70% complete)
Average page has 40 items on it. Over 5 weeks this is about 1200 items entered, 800 of which are complete.
Lessons for GTDers
If you are interested in trying a new system I would recommend trying Autofocus. If you aren't ready to try that consider a few ideas from AF in your GTD system:
- Reduce the number of contexts you are using
- Keep track of items that aren't getting done (by creation date) and figure out why
- Try using a physical system rather than a digital one
Summary
Overall I'm very pleased with AutoFocus and feel that I've been much more productive since I've started using it. I love its simplicity and the drive it creates to move things forward and complete them.
Having built many complex systems as an engineer I can say without doubt that those that operating simple, easy to remember, easy to understand systems work by far the best. I think the fact that there are 100s of applications to do GTD and GTDers seem to endlessly tinker with their systems and programs is evidence that its not really working for many people. Fixing the tools won't solve the underlying issues. Autofocus is simple, easy to apply, and seems to work.
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May 27th, 2009 - 07:13
Thanks for this interesting comparison.
I’ve tried Autofocus, too, but come back to GTD for the following reason:
- I prefer to have a digital list on my Palm Treo
- I make an extensive use of Agenda and Call list. I don’t want to have my Agenda items scattered among many pages
After using Autofocus, I created a personalized view on Outlook to see task ordered by creation date, without showing contexts. This way, I can see my Agenda items when I am out of office (on my Palm) but I can see all the Work related tasks when I am in front of PC in the office.
How do you manage Agenda items now?
Andrea
May 31st, 2009 - 00:03
I’ve never had a single Agenda item list work for me with GTD or Autofocus. For meeting Agenda items I typically keep lists for each standing meeting of items I chair or regularly attend. This might be for weekly staff meetings, one-on-one meetings, etc. For one-off agenda items I normally just keep those in my regular Autofocus list or “Work” or “Home” contexts in GTD.
July 7th, 2009 - 22:54
Hi,
Nice article. I have just started using the autofocus system yesterday. I had never heard of any technique like that before, I’m new to these kind of productivity-enhancing techniques. All I gotta say is that wow, it truly works great. I got one notebook for the job and one for my personal life. So far so good, I’ve never felt so good doing so many important things! It really helps fighting procrastination.
Have a good one!
November 8th, 2009 - 06:20
Thank you for this post. It gives much insight. My experience is: To stay on top of daily work and to stay organized is quite a challenge. To stay organized with my email inbox I use Email Sorter Wizard, an Outlook add-in, a low cost solution for organizing email. It is easy to define rules and the add-in is organizing all my emails. I am glad that I read this article and I really enjoyed it.
November 8th, 2009 - 15:29
Thanks for sharing this amazing article post. Sharing is caring! From time to time I look back what I had experienced in the past few weeks and what I did. I want to check if I have tried to stay organized and in which areas I had difficulties to stay organized. That helps me a lot to adjust a few things in order to run my daily life even smoother. Since I use Outlook to download my emails from my various online accounts I have the advantage that I can use the add-in Email Sorter Wizard that helps me to organize my email. One can define rules to make Email Sorter Wizard sort and file incoming and outgoing emails. Great article and I’m sure people will profit from it.