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!
You wrote: “Autofocus is a methodology for handling the stuff you want to do”. And that’s exactly the difference between Autofocus and GTD. If you use GTD you process the stuff to convert it into actionable Projects and Next Actions. There’s no such step in Autofocus so it can only be used as a methodology to maintain GTD’s @context lists.