GTD vs. Autofocus ( Mark Forster )

[TesTeq]

A matter of stress.

As for GTD's emphasis on clarification and preparedness for action, I think this is a matter of taste: there is nothing inherently inferior about a system that does some of this clarifying "in the moment", rather than in advance, *provided* the system forces you to actually do this clarifying, rather than letting the unclarified actions sit around on your list.

In my opinion - it is a matter of stress - not taste. My stress is proportional to the amount of the unclarified stuff and the time of "unclarification". Stress is caused by the lack of decission. Writing down does not relieve this stress - it only reduces the stress related to your fear of forgetting about your commitments.

 

[ludlow]

Yes, I do take that point. But for me, that element of stress has been entirely outweighed by the fact that with AF I have the confidence that I really will get to those items and really will get them done. It's a different kind of "trust in the system".

With GTD, in my case, there is always a sense that I am perfectly primed for action, but still entirely capable of procrastinating on action itself.

 

[TesTeq]

Motivation by flipping back and forth between the notebook pages?

With GTD, in my case, there is always a sense that I am perfectly primed for action, but still entirely capable of procrastinating on action itself.

Yes, you are right. GTD cannot force anybody to do any action. But the perspective factor of GTD (Horizons of Focus) help build the motivation. I do not see any motivational aspect in Autofocus requirement to flip back and forth between the notebook pages.

 

[moises]

TesTeq,

Vive la difference!

If GTD is working well for you or for anyone else, why tinker with it?

There have been some common themes, however, among many on this forum. Some people like to create a "today" list. Others just find that even with GTD, they are procrastinating more than they like.

I found that AF gave an "oomph" to my motivation that has been sustained for almost three months. It looks like AF destroyed your "mind-like-waterness." Since you gave it a test for a month and were dissatisfied with the results, I respect your decision.

I think that you hit the nail on the head in this thread, above, when you focused on the relation between stress, on the one hand, and the clarification of one's desired outcome and next action, on the other.

This is one of the key contrasts between GTD and AF. GTD calls wishes and wants that are fuzzy and unresolved "stuff", and promises us that their translation into clear and distinct outcomes and actions will bring us mind like water, which means the elimination of stress.

AF, on the contrary, almost encourages its practitioners to enter into their lists that which David Allen calls "amorphous blobs of undoability." There is no restriction on what can go into one's list.

GTD structures the items rigorously. AF does not distinguish well formulated from poorly formulated items.

The above sentence refers to the processing stage. Let's now compare the doing stage. How do we decide what to do? Now the positions of GTD and AF are flipped. In processing, GTD was highly restricted, but in doing it is most unstructured. In the GTD book, David writes that doing is determined by "your gut, the seat of your pants, your intuition" (191).

AF, in contrast, has a highly regulated procedure for doing. In fact, AF is nothing other than a set of rules for doing. The rules for doing constitute the entirety of AF.

If you (TesTeq and anyone else) have no problem doing, then your major concern should be collecting, processing, organizing, and reviewing. I can think of no better system for doing these things than GTD.

I, however, was not satisfied with my doing. I was satisfied with my collecting, processing, organizing, and reviewing, but I found it all too easy to put important projects on my list, review them weekly, and not make significant progress on them.

With AF, for almost three months, I am getting more of the things done that are most important to me.

My conclusion? I got more, beneficial, stress-reduction and mind-waterness from rigorously structuring my doing.

The point of my post is not to disparage clarity. I think it is good. I still believe that David is spot on about reviewing, collecting, and about processing and organizing into one's trusted system. But as far as doing is concerned, it's fine to add poorly-formulated items on a doing list (which is what AF is).

So, just like some people do GTD, but add a today list, or a most important tasks list, as their doing list, I am doing GTD with AF as my doing list, because I have found that with AF my motivation to do has increased.

 

[DoingIt]

I have been using GTD for three and a half years. The system is quite good at forcing me to think what the Next Action is and thus prepare me to execute it at an opportune time. This is good as far as it goes.

I started testing Autofocus a few weeks ago. My first impressions about it are favorable. It's relatively simpler to implement that GTD. It has a discipline of its own which I find tends to drive tasks to completion better than GTD. With GTD even doing the Weekly Review never forced me to give up on quite a large number of Next Actions. In fact, the longer a Context list became, the easier it was for a few Next Actions to lurk between the lines and thus never be done.

Autofocus enforces a continuous, revolving review. Tasks that do not pass after review, must ultimately be "dismissed". The term "dismissed" does not mean "discarded" or "deleted". According to the Autofocus instructions "you should let some time pass before you [re-enter dismissed items] and consider carefully why they were rejected, whether they really need to be done at all, whether the time is ripe for them to be done, whether they distract from your main goals, and any other factors. When you do re-enter a dismissed item, it is often best to break it down or re-phrase it in some way."

A die-hard GTD user would find Autofocus daunting, too casual or even risky and dangerous, at first. In order to transition from the GTD methodology you need to be prepared to trust Autofocus, just like you trusted GTD when you first started using it.

 

[DoingIt]

I, however, was not satisfied with my doing. I was satisfied with my collecting, processing, organizing, and reviewing, but I found it all too easy to put important projects on my list, review them weekly, and not make significant progress on them.

Moises you posted your comment while I was composing mine. As you will see, I agree with the above quote!

 

[abhay]

GTD cannot force anybody to do any action. But the perspective factor of GTD (Horizons of Focus) help build the motivation. I do not see any motivational aspect in Autofocus requirement to flip back and forth between the notebook pages.

Exactly what I wanted to say. Even before starting on GTD, I was a collector since I was always afraid of forgetting. So I had my stuff-lists in front of me while working. And if I was procrastinating upon an item, it did not change by going through the list.

The runway implementation of GTD was an improvement as far as indecision is concerned, but not where I resisted doing something. It is only when I started concentrating on horizons of focus, and particularly the vision part, most of my resistance disappeared. For me, the conscious emotional attachment with my vision of "wild success" has started working for whatever projects I employ it.

IMHO, It is difficult for a "task management" system, including the runway part of GTD, to act as a motivator. One has to play with one's own mind!

Regards,
Abhay

 

[TesTeq]

A car without a steering wheel and brake pedal.

For me Autofocus is just a GTD in-box reviewed regularly. So it is not possible to expect any higher level benefits that GTD promises and - in many cases -delivers. This is why I am against the Autofocus system. It promises a car but delivers it without a steering wheel and brake pedal.

 

[kewms]

I'm trying out the Autofocus system, at least for a few days. We'll see how it goes. It's already helped me shake loose a few things that had been stuck, but it isn't a cure all. In particular, the first-in, first-out nature of the list is incompatible with things like batch-processing phone calls. It's very tempting to cheat and cherry-pick the list, which probably defeats the purpose. We'll see.

Katherine

 

[Longstreet]

Best of luck!

Good luck, Katherine. Please let us know how you get on with Autofocus versus GTD. While different, both are excellent approaches to getting things done.

-Longstreet