Autofocus, a new task list
Autofocus is a deceptively simple task management system, that has hidden benefits. I have been trialling the system for a week now, and am seeing some changes in the way I process tasks and keep my list moving.
The basic system involves a paper list, which serves as a depostiory for all tasks. A book with about 20 lines on each page is filled with tasks as they occur. Then the pages are worked through in sequence. Each page is viewed as a unit and any tasks that feel “ready to be done” on that page are completed. Once no tasks stand out, the next page is started. To tick off a task, you only need to do something to progresss that task. If it remains imcomplete when you have run out of energy for it, you add it back onto the end of the list.
In this way, the pages of tasks are slowly completed over the day. Eventually, there gets to be less and less “virgin” tasks on each page. When you get to a page and for the first time nothing jumps out at you, and feels “ready” to be done, then you archive all those tasks, or “discard” them. They are not tasks that you really wanted to work on.
The advantages of this system are:
- Simple
- Not too much organising (read procrastination)
- Copes with an exceptional amount of different information
- Deals well with recurrent, neverending tasks like email, social networking, blog maintenance
- Encourages incremental progress on difficult tasks
- Can be used to limit access to procrastination tasks like checking emails or social media (if you include that as a task, you have to complete at least one task per page before you can do it again).
I originally was looking at this as a way to manage on call tasks, which are too immediate to be managed in an electronic or context based system. But after using it for a few days as a trial, I realised it was helping me progress some of the more difficult, tedious tasks I had been avoiding. And I was able to get s a process for limiting tasks such as email, or twitter checking, that have the tendency to take over my day.
Sound interesting? Read more about the system instructions, or see it in video form, (which doesn’t add a lot more information).
Stay tuned for my digital version of this, which encorporates “impure” features from other systems (like contexts).
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