Free System from Time Management Guru

by djones
4 replies
I know time management is an important topic for IMers, so thought everyone would be interested in this.

Anyone interested in time management might have heard of Mark Forster. He created a system called Do It Tomorrow (or DIT). While not quite as well-known as Getting Things Done (or GTD), DIT has a lot of loyal fans, many of whom switched over from GTD.

Well, Mr. Forster has created a new time management system called Autofocus, that he believes works even better than DIT. And, after beta-testing the system, he's releasing the AF instructions for free on his website.

The Autofocus Time Management System

There's also a discussion forum where you can read how the system worked for the beta-testers.
#free #guru #management #system #time
  • Profile picture of the author Tina Golden
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    • Profile picture of the author Karen Keyes
      This is quite interesting but goes against my every thought of prioritizing and scheduling tasks. This is a lot more "intuitive" than grouping tasks by importance (ie, such as A being most important, B, then C being least important etc.).

      So instead he's saying to just "brain dump" your to-do list line by line (is that a bad way of interpreting it?), then let 'intuition' guide you to choosing which tasks to complete first. Maybe intuition is the wrong word but that's the idea I get from reading the full instructions.

      But the more I think about it, the more I like it. I like how the system seems to weed out unnecessary or frivolous tasks that we might think are important but later realize they are not. He suggests 25-35 lines on a page, which sounds like a lot though. I feel as if I might get a tad overwhelmed if I saw all of my to-do tasks written out like that.

      But I do find the technique very interesting and think I will give it a try! I certainly need some help in this department!

      Thank you for the info,
      Karen
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      • Profile picture of the author djones
        Originally Posted by Karen Newton View Post

        This is quite interesting but goes against my every thought of prioritizing and scheduling tasks. This is a lot more "intuitive" than grouping tasks by importance (ie, such as A being most important, B, then C being least important etc.).

        So instead he's saying to just "brain dump" your to-do list line by line (is that a bad way of interpreting it?), then let 'intuition' guide you to choosing which tasks to complete first. Maybe intuition is the wrong word but that's the idea I get from reading the full instructions.

        But the more I think about it, the more I like it. I like how the system seems to weed out unnecessary or frivolous tasks that we might think are important but later realize they are not. He suggests 25-35 lines on a page, which sounds like a lot though. I feel as if I might get a tad overwhelmed if I saw all of my to-do tasks written out like that.

        But I do find the technique very interesting and think I will give it a try! I certainly need some help in this department!

        Thank you for the info,
        Karen
        The thing about the system is it seems to go against everything we've been taught about the "right way" to manage our time. When I was reading the instructions, I had a lot of knee-jerk, "No way!" reactions to some of it. And a lot of the beta-testers seemed to have the same reaction. But they gave it a try and had positive results.

        A lot of the system does seem to be intuitive, and I know I have a hard time trusting my intuition on things like this. But I've been following a more rigid time management system, and hating it more (and avoiding it more) every day. So I'm hoping a more flexible system like this will give me better results. I've already done a lot of stuff that I'd been putting off or procrastinating on for too long, so it's going good so far.
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  • Profile picture of the author bauger
    Its a pretty interesting technique.

    I personally just go by my to do list and priortize my test according to what is most necessary in getting done first
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