Sunday, October 30, 2005
A NEW INSIGHT INTO APPLYING PRIORITIZATION TECHNIQUE TO THE MANAGEMENT OF TO-DOS WITH THE MASTERLIST.
In the past, I have used this Blog to hype The MasterList, to explain its key features, and to advocate how the design might be changed to make it work and fit in the Virtual World of the Future. But, I have never explained, in any real depth, how I personally use The MasterList, for what purposes I invented it, or what insights have led me to not only invent it, but to stick with it as my best and most valuable life tool.
Recently, I had a new insight that radically changed how I use The MasterList. This insight involves a technical novelty in handling priorities. This innovation is an evolution which is a synthesis that blends the design techniques featured in The MasterList with a usage technique inspired by the Priority Lessons of Alan Lakein, whose great book How to Get Control of Your Time and Life, published in 1973 was the Genesis of my career in time management, case management, project management, process management, knowledge management, and database management. Ironically, when I designed The MasterList, I was limited by a narrow view of what I expected of a custom-made database, as applied to my then very specific career in Litigation Management. As a result, the ideas of Alan Lakein are not embedded in the original physical design of The MasterList. Or, in any iteration of the software thereafter. Even as I became more knowledgeable and open-minded from intensely studying the technical side of the OS-application-database-internet metaverse and from getting feedback from thousands of users and potential users, my eyes were not re-opened to the wisdom of Lakein's unique insights until very recently.
Perhaps by serendipity, my views on Lakein have come full circle. I am now applying Lakein technique to MasterList design usage. This involves no change in the design of the program. Just a novel way of applying the program as already designed.
You might say I have been "Lakein-izing" my use of The MasterList. The results have been profound. I had been waiting to improve the program, feeling the lack of self-esteem that goes with not being able to create a "virtual" version. But, all I needed all along, to make it work for me, was a tweak in the perspective that I brought to the program. In short, I have finally "mastered" The MasterList. And, it rocks. It's the penultimate.
So, why does The MasterList exist? Let's start with a 98 pound intellectual weakling who keeps getting knowledge kicked in his face. And, has a history of making bad choices. And, who feels a need to get his life under control. What better time for a book called How to Get Your Time and Life under Control, with great suggestions like turning off (and throwing out) the television set, keeping to-do lists, applying the A,B,C Priority Method, asking Lakein's Question ("What's the best use of my time right now?", applying the Swiss Cheese Method to break large tasks down into small, and using the 80/20 rule. Lakein may not have invented all of these concepts. But, back in 1973, he was the first and greatest prophet of applying rigorous technique to solve the problem of too much to do in too little time with too much devastating effect on one's self.
In my life, I applied Lakein's principles rigorously, but then moved on to experiment with other equally rigorous and quirky techniques for getting an intellectual and emotional handle on what I came to occasionally refer to as my "Action Environment". These included verbalization and definition, quantification (counting), diagramming the problem (Feyneman analysis), game theory, visualization, linguistics (fundamental underlying structures of action-taking and decision-making along the lines, by analogy, of a transformational grammar of "action"), and complexity theory.
Then, after getting through college and law school, following what I personally named "A Call To Order", I became a litigator. Litigation involves deadlines and rules, intense confrontational action, complexity, multi-tasking, variability. You name it. A perfect field to experiment with techniques for managing, organizing, and controlling actions, tasks, to-dos, events, and their connections with fluctuating bits of special knowledge, unique facts, and tailored writing and research.
Then, after some success as a trial lawyer, and starting my own firm, and employing 5 lawyers, I invented a program, The MasterList to manage them, me, and the cases. But, by this time, I was deep in the woods; and, although I often applied Lakein techniques on paper, Lakein's ideas had grown fuzzy and sporadic to me as I focused on the more-defined problem of organizing direct winning results in a linear way.
Little did I foresee the path that would lead me back to Lakein. That path involves twists and turns with my law practice, making a fortune-sized personal investment in program design, folding the law practice to make a go of marketing The MasterList, getting all kinds of feed back and design ideas from all kinds of users and converting The MasterList into a generic project manager for professional and personal use by anyone, handing The MasterList over to my partner (and wife) so I could provide real economic support, and then experimenting with The MasterList as a real-world user in a corporate managerial position and now (currently) in a legal/corporate managerial position, where I am both manager and litigator.
So, why do we need something like The MasterList? We struggle to manage, to control, to get through, to close, to balance. We seek balanced success. In other words, to be balanced, not just to be successful. Some of the problems are clutter, misplaced stuff, faulty memory, lack of an effective overview, lack of an effective strategy, filing systems that don't work in hard copy or on the computer, information overload, random influx of data that comes at us by mail, phone, and e-mail with punishing rapidity.
Here's how I now handle that by "Lakein-izing" my use of The MasterList.
* I consider anything I can't do now, a to-do to be added to The MasterList.
* For any to-do, I ask myself if it is associated with an existing Project or Case.
* If not, I associate it with a special "holding pen" project I call WhiteBoard.
* I then go to the proper case or project and study what I have input there.
* Input in The MasterList consists of to-dos/events, knowledge notes, and links.
* Historically all tasks have operated off "task codes" which essentially categorize the task by type, e.g. "call" "correspondence" "research" "meeting" "deadline".
* Over time, I and other users have discovered that aggressive use of The MasterList leads to the definition for one user of an inventory of tasks/events in the 500-800 range.
* We designed prioritization tools and sequencing tools to manipulate this inventory, but power-users get consistently overwhelmed.
* This is where Lakein comes in.
* But, first a distinction between 2 kinds of tasks I have discovered, before we apply the Lakein "overlay".
* When any task is born, regardless of whether it is a high, medium, or low priority, it is also either a Trigger (or Target) task, or it is an follow-up (or Flow-Thru) supportive task. I call this distinction Targets and Arrows. For instance, if I have a project called Birthday Party, "Sending out invites" is a Trigger task that requires a date reminder, just as much as the date of the Party itself. Whereas, details as to the list of whom I will invite, whom I will call, and what notes I will keep in the follow-up, or even in the planning are supportive to that Trigger or Target task. In The MasterList as we originally designed it, we did not account for this distinction or for the fact that power users would develop up to 800 tasks in as many as 100 projects.
* Thus, my recent insight begins with what I call TML (The MasterList) Compression. TML Compression simply means to study all projects/cases and to decide which listed to-dos are Targets and which are only Arrows pointing at Targets. So, Technique #1 in "Lakein-izing" my MasterList usage has nothing specific to do with Lakein, at all, except that it is in the spirit of his idea to change things up now and then to get better insights into the problem of managing too much. Applying the principle of TML Compression, whenever I create a new task, I ask myself if it is a Target/Trigger or an Arrow/Follow-up/Follow-Thru task. Targets get their own lines with dates and are fully subject to the time-management controls built into The MasterList. They are intended to be limited in number. Arrows are sub-tasks. It was a mistake for me to ever think they should be placed on the same level with Targets/Triggers. My current technique is to use the spacious 999 characters in my task entry fields to describe them numerically, or to make bullet points in the unlimited task note fields. Of course, all events and deadlines are ALWAYS Targets/Triggers. The art is in figuring out what non-event non-deadline to-dos are Target/Triggers and which are sub-agendas. Applying this technique I have cleaned my MasterList to-do lists up mightily. I now view my Notepads as recipes or "manuals" for the Target tasks. The target tasks take advantage of the sequencing structure of The MasterList. The structure is no longer overloaded with the surplus of sub-tasks.
* In the process of creating sub-tasks, the Lakein Insight came to me. Not all targets and triggers are high priority merely because they are a target. There are high priority targets and low priority targets. Each might have oodles of sub-tasks, but what controls my choice as to which one to work on is the PRIORITY. In other words, if a CALL is a low priority, and a RESEARCH task is a low priority, whereas another CALL is a high priority and another RESEARCH agenda is a high priority - what is the value of having task codes CALL and RSCH for purposes of sorting, sequencing, and decision-making on the run when faced with dozens of to-dos in the moment? I thought we had solved this problem when we added color prioritization to The MasterList, but that held out a false promise.
So, here is the recipe to "Lakein-ize" your MasterList.
1. Add 3 task codes in System Maintenance: A, B, and C.
2. For any task that is not an event or a deadline or really, really special, assign the task code A, B, or C.
3. As with Lakein, A means high priority, B means middle priority, C means low priority.
4. Pull up the My Day Report at the beginning and end of each day and periodically throughout the day.
5. Work only on A's and true task-coded events and deadlines.
6. Use the time-blasting tool to pare down the working to-do list that cuts across all projects to one screen's view of to-dos at the beginning of every day. (20 tasks).
7. At the close of the day, or as true insights about what you can really accomplish that day vs. what you cannot become clear, bump all B's 2 days minimum, all C's 3 days minimum into the future. Bump all A's to tomorrow, or to the appropriate, accurate expected date you believe you should be working on them.
8. As you work through the My Day list, occasionally click into the project to study and re-rate priorities higher or lower, based on changed circumstances.
9. Which A to pick if you have, let's say, 8? Use random rotation to choose. An A is an A is an A. If you don't know for sure which one to pick, or if you feel you are getting in a rut by always starting with the same one, apply randomness, BUT ONLY TO THE A'S. I favor binary rotation with strict time limitations per working session to mix it up. For instance, I might rotate a mix of A's in a binary way with inflow of hard copy mail and e-mail. But, if I get really backed up, I might use tertiary, quadratic, or even hexagonal rotation. It just depends on the amount of backup, the pressure any particular priorities are generating, and whether or not free-wheeling between the priorities to generate some stimulus change is safe at that particular moment.
So, that's how I have "Lakein-ized" The MasterList. God-willing, and with the help of The MasterList as my tool, I have my personal and porfessional time and life under control.
It's as simple as A, B, C.
In the past, I have used this Blog to hype The MasterList, to explain its key features, and to advocate how the design might be changed to make it work and fit in the Virtual World of the Future. But, I have never explained, in any real depth, how I personally use The MasterList, for what purposes I invented it, or what insights have led me to not only invent it, but to stick with it as my best and most valuable life tool.
Recently, I had a new insight that radically changed how I use The MasterList. This insight involves a technical novelty in handling priorities. This innovation is an evolution which is a synthesis that blends the design techniques featured in The MasterList with a usage technique inspired by the Priority Lessons of Alan Lakein, whose great book How to Get Control of Your Time and Life, published in 1973 was the Genesis of my career in time management, case management, project management, process management, knowledge management, and database management. Ironically, when I designed The MasterList, I was limited by a narrow view of what I expected of a custom-made database, as applied to my then very specific career in Litigation Management. As a result, the ideas of Alan Lakein are not embedded in the original physical design of The MasterList. Or, in any iteration of the software thereafter. Even as I became more knowledgeable and open-minded from intensely studying the technical side of the OS-application-database-internet metaverse and from getting feedback from thousands of users and potential users, my eyes were not re-opened to the wisdom of Lakein's unique insights until very recently.
Perhaps by serendipity, my views on Lakein have come full circle. I am now applying Lakein technique to MasterList design usage. This involves no change in the design of the program. Just a novel way of applying the program as already designed.
You might say I have been "Lakein-izing" my use of The MasterList. The results have been profound. I had been waiting to improve the program, feeling the lack of self-esteem that goes with not being able to create a "virtual" version. But, all I needed all along, to make it work for me, was a tweak in the perspective that I brought to the program. In short, I have finally "mastered" The MasterList. And, it rocks. It's the penultimate.
So, why does The MasterList exist? Let's start with a 98 pound intellectual weakling who keeps getting knowledge kicked in his face. And, has a history of making bad choices. And, who feels a need to get his life under control. What better time for a book called How to Get Your Time and Life under Control, with great suggestions like turning off (and throwing out) the television set, keeping to-do lists, applying the A,B,C Priority Method, asking Lakein's Question ("What's the best use of my time right now?", applying the Swiss Cheese Method to break large tasks down into small, and using the 80/20 rule. Lakein may not have invented all of these concepts. But, back in 1973, he was the first and greatest prophet of applying rigorous technique to solve the problem of too much to do in too little time with too much devastating effect on one's self.
In my life, I applied Lakein's principles rigorously, but then moved on to experiment with other equally rigorous and quirky techniques for getting an intellectual and emotional handle on what I came to occasionally refer to as my "Action Environment". These included verbalization and definition, quantification (counting), diagramming the problem (Feyneman analysis), game theory, visualization, linguistics (fundamental underlying structures of action-taking and decision-making along the lines, by analogy, of a transformational grammar of "action"), and complexity theory.
Then, after getting through college and law school, following what I personally named "A Call To Order", I became a litigator. Litigation involves deadlines and rules, intense confrontational action, complexity, multi-tasking, variability. You name it. A perfect field to experiment with techniques for managing, organizing, and controlling actions, tasks, to-dos, events, and their connections with fluctuating bits of special knowledge, unique facts, and tailored writing and research.
Then, after some success as a trial lawyer, and starting my own firm, and employing 5 lawyers, I invented a program, The MasterList to manage them, me, and the cases. But, by this time, I was deep in the woods; and, although I often applied Lakein techniques on paper, Lakein's ideas had grown fuzzy and sporadic to me as I focused on the more-defined problem of organizing direct winning results in a linear way.
Little did I foresee the path that would lead me back to Lakein. That path involves twists and turns with my law practice, making a fortune-sized personal investment in program design, folding the law practice to make a go of marketing The MasterList, getting all kinds of feed back and design ideas from all kinds of users and converting The MasterList into a generic project manager for professional and personal use by anyone, handing The MasterList over to my partner (and wife) so I could provide real economic support, and then experimenting with The MasterList as a real-world user in a corporate managerial position and now (currently) in a legal/corporate managerial position, where I am both manager and litigator.
So, why do we need something like The MasterList? We struggle to manage, to control, to get through, to close, to balance. We seek balanced success. In other words, to be balanced, not just to be successful. Some of the problems are clutter, misplaced stuff, faulty memory, lack of an effective overview, lack of an effective strategy, filing systems that don't work in hard copy or on the computer, information overload, random influx of data that comes at us by mail, phone, and e-mail with punishing rapidity.
Here's how I now handle that by "Lakein-izing" my use of The MasterList.
* I consider anything I can't do now, a to-do to be added to The MasterList.
* For any to-do, I ask myself if it is associated with an existing Project or Case.
* If not, I associate it with a special "holding pen" project I call WhiteBoard.
* I then go to the proper case or project and study what I have input there.
* Input in The MasterList consists of to-dos/events, knowledge notes, and links.
* Historically all tasks have operated off "task codes" which essentially categorize the task by type, e.g. "call" "correspondence" "research" "meeting" "deadline".
* Over time, I and other users have discovered that aggressive use of The MasterList leads to the definition for one user of an inventory of tasks/events in the 500-800 range.
* We designed prioritization tools and sequencing tools to manipulate this inventory, but power-users get consistently overwhelmed.
* This is where Lakein comes in.
* But, first a distinction between 2 kinds of tasks I have discovered, before we apply the Lakein "overlay".
* When any task is born, regardless of whether it is a high, medium, or low priority, it is also either a Trigger (or Target) task, or it is an follow-up (or Flow-Thru) supportive task. I call this distinction Targets and Arrows. For instance, if I have a project called Birthday Party, "Sending out invites" is a Trigger task that requires a date reminder, just as much as the date of the Party itself. Whereas, details as to the list of whom I will invite, whom I will call, and what notes I will keep in the follow-up, or even in the planning are supportive to that Trigger or Target task. In The MasterList as we originally designed it, we did not account for this distinction or for the fact that power users would develop up to 800 tasks in as many as 100 projects.
* Thus, my recent insight begins with what I call TML (The MasterList) Compression. TML Compression simply means to study all projects/cases and to decide which listed to-dos are Targets and which are only Arrows pointing at Targets. So, Technique #1 in "Lakein-izing" my MasterList usage has nothing specific to do with Lakein, at all, except that it is in the spirit of his idea to change things up now and then to get better insights into the problem of managing too much. Applying the principle of TML Compression, whenever I create a new task, I ask myself if it is a Target/Trigger or an Arrow/Follow-up/Follow-Thru task. Targets get their own lines with dates and are fully subject to the time-management controls built into The MasterList. They are intended to be limited in number. Arrows are sub-tasks. It was a mistake for me to ever think they should be placed on the same level with Targets/Triggers. My current technique is to use the spacious 999 characters in my task entry fields to describe them numerically, or to make bullet points in the unlimited task note fields. Of course, all events and deadlines are ALWAYS Targets/Triggers. The art is in figuring out what non-event non-deadline to-dos are Target/Triggers and which are sub-agendas. Applying this technique I have cleaned my MasterList to-do lists up mightily. I now view my Notepads as recipes or "manuals" for the Target tasks. The target tasks take advantage of the sequencing structure of The MasterList. The structure is no longer overloaded with the surplus of sub-tasks.
* In the process of creating sub-tasks, the Lakein Insight came to me. Not all targets and triggers are high priority merely because they are a target. There are high priority targets and low priority targets. Each might have oodles of sub-tasks, but what controls my choice as to which one to work on is the PRIORITY. In other words, if a CALL is a low priority, and a RESEARCH task is a low priority, whereas another CALL is a high priority and another RESEARCH agenda is a high priority - what is the value of having task codes CALL and RSCH for purposes of sorting, sequencing, and decision-making on the run when faced with dozens of to-dos in the moment? I thought we had solved this problem when we added color prioritization to The MasterList, but that held out a false promise.
So, here is the recipe to "Lakein-ize" your MasterList.
1. Add 3 task codes in System Maintenance: A, B, and C.
2. For any task that is not an event or a deadline or really, really special, assign the task code A, B, or C.
3. As with Lakein, A means high priority, B means middle priority, C means low priority.
4. Pull up the My Day Report at the beginning and end of each day and periodically throughout the day.
5. Work only on A's and true task-coded events and deadlines.
6. Use the time-blasting tool to pare down the working to-do list that cuts across all projects to one screen's view of to-dos at the beginning of every day. (20 tasks).
7. At the close of the day, or as true insights about what you can really accomplish that day vs. what you cannot become clear, bump all B's 2 days minimum, all C's 3 days minimum into the future. Bump all A's to tomorrow, or to the appropriate, accurate expected date you believe you should be working on them.
8. As you work through the My Day list, occasionally click into the project to study and re-rate priorities higher or lower, based on changed circumstances.
9. Which A to pick if you have, let's say, 8? Use random rotation to choose. An A is an A is an A. If you don't know for sure which one to pick, or if you feel you are getting in a rut by always starting with the same one, apply randomness, BUT ONLY TO THE A'S. I favor binary rotation with strict time limitations per working session to mix it up. For instance, I might rotate a mix of A's in a binary way with inflow of hard copy mail and e-mail. But, if I get really backed up, I might use tertiary, quadratic, or even hexagonal rotation. It just depends on the amount of backup, the pressure any particular priorities are generating, and whether or not free-wheeling between the priorities to generate some stimulus change is safe at that particular moment.
So, that's how I have "Lakein-ized" The MasterList. God-willing, and with the help of The MasterList as my tool, I have my personal and porfessional time and life under control.
It's as simple as A, B, C.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
THE TO-DO LIST IS THE FULCRUM
The To-Do List is the fulcrum of a personal or professional organization system. Everything else centers on it. A calendar is a subset of a to-do list with mandatory requirements as to time.
If you understand how people really do things, then you can attempt to create a software system that is harmonious with personal and professional management reality. The to-do begins with the self. What should I do now? What am I going to do next? Where do I have to be later? Who do I have to talk to today? What can I do about organizing an event next month? What’s the best use of my time now, today, generally? What are my plans for next week? What are my plans for this project? What are my plans relative to you? What are my plans relative to your project?
To-do management is really about self-management. Self-management is really about management of actions and decisions in a relational context.
There are 2 aspects of self-management that can be replicated in a relational database software system. A. Collection of information on a relational basis. B. Definition of action on a relational basis. (Synthesis with a purpose.) The average professional has more to-dos than she knows. In other words, her list of potential to-dos is longer than her list of facts necessary to be analyzed to make the decision. If management is about action, and action is about decision, and decision is about synthesizing facts into actions with purpose, what should a software system look like that attempts to harmonize with this natural process of decision making without getting in the way and interrupting the flow?
The MasterList is our attempt to define a paradigm for handling self-generated action based on personal knowledge collection and synthesis that works relationally and accounts for the relationship to self. The MasterList provides a system for collecting and organizing knowledge at unique, user-definable screens, that links to any other related knowledge, with visual lists for laying out ideas and to-dos in a way that welcomes you to let go of your paper-based to-do system and buy into a software method that really works.
The To-Do List is the fulcrum of a personal or professional organization system. Everything else centers on it. A calendar is a subset of a to-do list with mandatory requirements as to time.
If you understand how people really do things, then you can attempt to create a software system that is harmonious with personal and professional management reality. The to-do begins with the self. What should I do now? What am I going to do next? Where do I have to be later? Who do I have to talk to today? What can I do about organizing an event next month? What’s the best use of my time now, today, generally? What are my plans for next week? What are my plans for this project? What are my plans relative to you? What are my plans relative to your project?
To-do management is really about self-management. Self-management is really about management of actions and decisions in a relational context.
There are 2 aspects of self-management that can be replicated in a relational database software system. A. Collection of information on a relational basis. B. Definition of action on a relational basis. (Synthesis with a purpose.) The average professional has more to-dos than she knows. In other words, her list of potential to-dos is longer than her list of facts necessary to be analyzed to make the decision. If management is about action, and action is about decision, and decision is about synthesizing facts into actions with purpose, what should a software system look like that attempts to harmonize with this natural process of decision making without getting in the way and interrupting the flow?
The MasterList is our attempt to define a paradigm for handling self-generated action based on personal knowledge collection and synthesis that works relationally and accounts for the relationship to self. The MasterList provides a system for collecting and organizing knowledge at unique, user-definable screens, that links to any other related knowledge, with visual lists for laying out ideas and to-dos in a way that welcomes you to let go of your paper-based to-do system and buy into a software method that really works.
