I’ve been doing a 5 week block of full-time work on Calcatraz. I wanted to make sure I would be as productive as possible, so I decided to do a trial of Mark Forester’s Autofocus System.
I’ve used it occasionally in the past and noticed a big boost in both my productivity and my enjoyment of work. But I’ve always stopped a few days in. Mainly, this has been due to life generally getting in the way and either the system or my application of it being unable to keep pace. But life is pretty much out of my way at the moment, giving me a few weeks to try and really get to grips with it. Also, I was using the system back when it was on version 1 and so came up against some of the issues which the newer systems have been developed to address.
The Autofocus System
The autofocus system comes is 4 versions. Version 1 is probably the simplest and works as follows. In a notepad start writing any tasks you want to acomplish, one per line. Then, working 1 page at a time, you look over the items in that page and start working on the first one that sticks out to you as “ready to be done”. You work on it for as long as you feel like, then return to your list looking for the next item that stands out. When you can go through the whole page with nothing standing out, you dismiss the items and move on to the next page. Any new / unfinished items are appended to the list. The system purports to produce a high level of productivity as there is minimal organisational overhead and no procrastination as you work only on tasks that you feel ready to tackle and only for as long as you feel ready to do so.
A significant problem with Version 1 is that it can take a long time to reach a task at the (current) end of the list. As this is where new items are added, the system cannot effectively handle urgent tasks. Version 2 was introduced to address this. The main changes are that you now work back from the end of the list, and that page boundaries no longer have significance. The dismissal process has also been changed slightly.
Autofocus Version 3 seeks to balance the start-of-list bias of version 1 and the end-of-list bias in version 2. It does so by having you start each day in version 2′s reverse mode and then switch to version 1′s forward mode. To control the switch, a task to change between the modes is added to the system. When the task is reached and feels ready to be done, the switch is triggered. Again the review / dismissal process has been modified too.
Version 4 removes this direction switching. Instead you begin by drawing a line under the last item in the list, then repeatedly pass through the items above the list doing tasks until no more tasks stand out at you. You add new and unfinished tasks after the line. You then do a pass of the items after the line, before returning to the items before the line. When all the items before the line are done, you draw a line under the end of the list and repeat the process.
This lifehacker post describes a newer version of Autofocus (no version number that I can see). This version splits the main tasklist into several smaller lists (with old tasks, recurring tasks, etc). The post also laments the inability of the newer systems to fully capture the zen-like productivity of the first version.
My Variations on Autofocus
For me, I love the simplicity and frictionless nature of the first version. The main problem, as noted, is that important / urgent tasks can get neglected for a long time. I found a much simpler way of fixing this, without resorting to direction reversal tricks or cycling through the whole list (which can still take me a good few days if I get caught up in certain tasks).
Each morning I simply go through the list once, marking a star beside anything I consider to be urgent / important. These items then form a sublist, which I process first. I make passes through the starred list until all starred items have been worked on and begin on page 1 of the master list and start processing it, safe in the knowledge that there is nothing urgent lurking on the list.
I also don’t have a complex dismissal process. While autofocus lets you move on from a page if there are no items that are ready to be done, I generally force myself to spend a few minutes on the remaining items (though often the prospect of completing a full page gives me enough motivation to want to work on the remaining items). I dismiss an item either by finishing it, or by deciding during those few minutes that I no longer want to be doing this item. Either way, the item is not added to the end of the list.
My final variations address a concern of Mark’s, in the lifehacker article, that the original system does not produce the focus he had hoped for. By this I’m assuming he’s talking about the fact that your attention is spread across all the tasks you have thought to add to your list, rather than to your goals, etc.
First off, I have two lists. One contains tasks which work towards my business goals. This list gets worked on during my “office hours”. The other list contains all tasks that potentially distract me from my business goals. This list is worked on in the evenings and weekends with the intention of keeping my working week clear for goal related tasks.
Secondly, when I have an important short-term focus / goal, I go through the list and mark each item which works towards this focus / goal with a letter representing it (for example, if I want to focus on marketing, I’ll mark all marketing items with an ‘M’). Then immediately after completing the starred list in the morning, I’ll start on the focus sublist. Once I’ve completed that list I’ll either create a new focus sublist (possibly for the same focus if I haven’t reached the point I want to be at), or start working on the rest of the items on the list.
In this way I can deal with urgent items, focus items then the rest, while retaining the simplicity, addictiveness and low barrier to action of the original version of Autofocus.