đž Archived View for idiomdrottning.org âş dot-and-do captured on 2024-08-31 at 14:06:22. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
âŹ ď¸ Previous capture (2023-09-28)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Time for some GTD heresy in this đ since youâre not supposed to do any prioritization at all according to the canon.
Hereâs something Iâve been using since almost day one for me back in 2006.
When I was using a paper system, I drew a box in front of every task.
I put a dot in the box. Then a checkmark means Iâve done it, an X means Iâve decided to not do it, and slash through the box means that Iâve moved it to another page or another list. Whatâs neat is that these same marks work whether or not there is a dot under them, they hide the dot, so I can use the exact same notation for undotted boxes. I got this system from some jerks online, the rest of their system sucks but this is still a good notation that Iâm used to, whenever Iâm on paper.
Currently Iâm on digital but most of these apps have some way of flagging or starring or marking your fave tasks.
I dot the things I most wanna do so they stand out.
When Iâm in a context I then can do the dotted things first, and then I might do some more, undotted things, before I leave that context. Iâm already at the grocery store, might as well get paper clips and garlic since they are both on my list even though the urgent thing is envelopes. Or whatever.
This helps me from getting overwhelmed when Iâve got a lot on my lists. Since GTD tasks (probably better known as âactionsâ) sometimes can get a little bit too separated from projects, dotting based on the most important projects can be really awesome making sure I donât miss the most clutch things.
Here is something that I donât do all the time but I go through periods of doing it since it can really help when I have low focus and a hard time making decisions or doing things. Itâs based on something Mark Forster came up with; he called it the âFinal Versionâ.
I put my GTD system in a mode where I can see all actions from all contexts in one big list, still sorted by context.
I look at the top action. Letâs say itâs distimming the doshes. I ask myself âWhat do I want to do the most right now, rest or distim the doshes?â If the answer is the latter, I dot the action.
Then I look at the next action. Letâs say itâs laminating the stasis. I ask myself âWhat do I want to do right now, distim the doshes or laminate the stasis?â If the answer is the former, I do not dot the action.
I only compare things to the most recently dotted thing and go through the whole list. That way each thing is more something I wanna do than the previous one.
I get a lot of mileage out varying the criteria. âWhat do I want to do firstâ, âWhat do I feel the most resistance towardsâ, âWhat is the biggest rock?â, âWhat would be the most restful of X and Y because Iâm tiredâ and so on. That sounds dumb but it really helped motivate me. Or sometimes skipping the comparison and instead dotting a specific kind of thing like âwhat are some tiny low-hangingâfruit tasksâ.
Then you have a list of tasks in a good order, a âchainâ if you will, and youâre supposed to do them starting with the lowest first and that can work pretty great!
Forster then cooked up with something called âFinal Version Perfectedâ where you partially re-dot the chain after everything you do. I never got along with that version at all; if the chain gets overly stale I just delete all the dots and start over.
I donât always use the dot&do and when I do, I donât always do âthe chainâ variant of it.
I primarily use GTD. Itâs just a way for me to cut through overwhelm. GTD is good at making me decide one thing to do and then I know that thatâs the best thing to do. I sometimes find it a little bit exhausting to dive all the way into the system between every task, and a relief from that can be to dot a handful of tasks, so I know that I have a couple of things that I know for sure I wanna do before diving back down again.
And thatâs why the âFinal Version Perfectedâ version failed for me,
since itâs based on having to dive back in between every task instead
of just doing a bunch of chained up tasks in a row.