Six Aspects of Focus

SUMMARY: Getting started on Wednesday, I'm just not feeling the focus. When I get stuck I usually just write something to get my brain working; writing helps me linearize my thoughts, which helps me visualize what's wrong and what can be done. This time, I become aware that there are six different challenges that I've hazily grouped under the focus label.

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Mark Forster’s Autofocus System to “Get Everything Done”

A reader pointed out Mark Forster's Autofocus System to me recently, and I think it's worth passing along. Autofocus is a methodology for handling the stuff you want to do by using a simple ruled notebook to maintain the list, and then trusting a set of rules for processing them into doneness. I know we've all heard that before, but there's a deeper insight and elegance in his approach that I really like. In particular, I like this insight of Mark's (from the what can I expect from the system section):

Focus on what is important. It’s very difficult to focus on what is important with one’s rational mind alone, because what your conscious mind thinks is important may not be what your subconscious mind thinks is important. What I’ve found is that looking back on what I’ve done I can see that the focus produced by the system feels “right” - right for me in my current circumstances.

In other words, it's the balance between your rational and subconscious that's addressed in the processing. You use your rational mind to add things to the end of your list in your notebook. You process a single page at a time, scanning line-by-line thoughtfully and picking what jumps out at you. You work on for as long as you like. If you don't finish it, you add it back to the end of the list. Stuff that ends up hanging around and doesn't jump out at you (what I might call the "meh" response) after the line-by-line gets purged and not re-entered...which I love. You could go re-enter it, but Mark suggests that you give it some time.

Anyway, the system tickles me enough that I'm going to try it this week. I've been feeling the need to build myself a brain box to get my head focused for January 2010, but perhaps it's my mental operating system that needs an upgrade instead. I'll probably end up doing both :-)

So check it out... there are multiple translations, downloadable booklets, and forums as well!

Intermittent Task Tracker 2010 Updates

Project Management Index Cards

I'd forgotten about this old Task Order Up! (TOU) variation, the Intermittent Task Tracker (ITT). A reader just asked me about making an update, so I went back to my 2006 Form Variations Folder and found it again. I updated the typography a bit and have just posted it.

The basic idea behind this design is to keep all the details relevant to a project on a single 4x6 index card over the course of several days. The intended purpose was to handle projects that one intermittently worked on; these are things like auxiliary support projects that can't be completed in a single day. An ongoing maintenance task is a good example of this. The TOU cards, by comparison, are really designed to handle a single task that can be completed in a block of continuous time.

The ITT card is also interesting in that it uses the Concrete Goals Tracker (CGT) point system. You could create an ITT card as an alternate way of logging what you're getting accomplished that is in alignment with your overall goals. The focus of the ITT card, though, is on a kind of project; if this reduction of scope is useful for you, then maybe it will work out well.

This is the larger "recipe size" card, which happens to feed more reliably through my printer than smaller 3x5 cards.

Download the 2010 Intermittent Task Tracker Cards

• The 4x6 Index Card Version

Enjoy! For more information, visit the ITT Page.

Day Grid Balancer 2010 Updates

In May 2009 I started to explore what work-life balance meant to me in terms of day-to-day activity, and I created a mash-up of some existing forms that I called the Day Grid Balancer, which I then released with a Creative Commons license. You can read more here on the official Day Grid Balancer page about design rationale. If you're using the DGB forms as-is, you can download the following PDFs. If you are interested in remixing these forms, you'll need Adobe Illustrator CS4 to modify these fully-editable files.

Download 2010 Updates to Day Grid Balancer

• Download Day Grid Balancer Draft 1, which features the "balance grid"
• Download Day Grid Balancer Draft 2, which has a biorhythm-inspired grid

Enjoy!

Plain Five Day Planner 2010 Updates

Earlier this year I posted a summary of a 5-day liveblogging of my day. I made a grid in Excel that helped me visualize not only where the time had gone, but what kind of time it happened to be. This was an interesting exercise, and I made a 5-day planning format form loosely based on the Emergent Task Planner. For more information, read the Five day Planner (P5P) Page.

It's pretty straightforward, which is why it's called the "Plain Old 5-Day Planner". Basic grid paper, downloadable as a PDF. You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to print it out. Updates for 2010 are minor; I just added separate "starting hour" times for each of the five days by request.

Instructions

• Fill in the hours on the left-hand side.
• Jot down what you need to do, when.
• Keep notes on the right-hand side.

Download 2010 Updates to the Plain 5-Day Plannery

» Download the Plain 5-Day Planner US Letter size
» Download the Plain 5-Day Planner A4 size

Enjoy!