I like the idea, and I’ve tried variations on the timer technique. But when I’m on deadline, a timer adds to the stress, plus I chafe at having to sit still for long chunks. And the timer doesn’t change the coping habit that I’ve been refining over decades: encounter obstacle, get out of chair, walk to kitchen and look for food. Distract! Numb the anxiety! The timer has no power over this drive.

I’ve tried setting the timer so that it counts up instead of down. This method creates less stress and helps me educate myself about how long things actually take, which is a pleasant surprise when something goes faster than expected, but just as often an unpleasant surprise when it takes so very much longer. Unpleasant but useful to know. The counting-up method has potential but isn’t there yet.

Here’s what does work, I discovered.

Five-minute increments

Yep. Five minutes. Because that appears to be my upper limit for sitting with uncertainty, anxiety and frustration.

I tried this last week, on deadline. I was so tired I was having trouble focusing, but the project still needed major edits and was due within the next 24 hours.

I sat down to face the edits. Felt the familiar reaction: “Gahhh! Don’t know how to fix this!” Observed myself starting to get up, in search of food and escape. OK, I said, I need to be kind to myself—I’m sleep-deprived and I’ve got to get this done. Let me spend five minutes focused on the edits. Then I can forage if I need to.

About three minutes later, the foraging urge hit hard. I can focus for two more minutes, I said to myself, and believed it. I stayed with the project. A bit further in, the urge to jump up from the desk hit again. I checked my watch; seven minutes had passed since I started. OK, I’d stuck with the deal. I stood, stretched out my neck and arms, ate a piece of fruit. Was I ready to go back to work? Nope, too exhausted from lack of sleep the night before. OK, I thought, I’ll lie down and take a nap. If I have to complete this project in five-minute work sessions with half-hour breaks in between, so be it.

After resting for just 15 minutes, I felt refreshed enough to go back to my desk and work for another five minutes. Then I took a 20-minute break. After about three of these cycles, I’d built up some decent momentum and was able to work steadily for six hours. I finished the project and met my deadline.

Inefficient, you may say? It’s actually pretty efficient, compared to the usual stalling and struggling and worrying and munching.

The six-hour session that followed the ramp-up would be considered by some (like Robert Boice) to be a binge—not ideal. Later, I’ll look at how to take breaks during extended sessions without losing momentum. But first: Let’s make the five-minute increments a habit and see how that goes.

What I want: I’d like to enjoy those Big Projects I’m juggling!, rather than stressing out about them.

Ways this could happen:

• I could allow myself to feel whatever I’m feeling as I start work and continue working.

• When I have the urge to take a break, I could gently ask myself whether I’m giving myself a gift, or running and hiding (or both!), and listen compassionately to the answer.

• I could allow myself breaks way before I get tired or sore or burned out.

• Even if/when my inner editor is cricitizing or worrying, I could allow myself lots of awareness outside of her voice.

• Even if/when my inner editor is worrying, I could let myself enjoy the topic I’m engaging with and the information I’m learning and sharing and working with and transforming so it can be helpful to others.

My commitment: I’ll print out what I just wrote and read it over, every day, this week.

* Here’s the post (Havi’s) that gave rise the comment (mine) that led to this post (here) that-lay-in-the-house-that-Jack-built!

Here are my musings, posted almost verbatim, as an experiment in doing things the just-enough way—stretching my NONperfectionist muscles. Shout-out to Havi, who has turned this structure of asking-for-things (what she calls a Very Personal Ad) into an art form.

What I want: I’d like to write a blog post this week with very little effort and stress. (Leaving lots of energy for the big projects I’m juggling at the same time.)

Ways this could happen:

• I could dash off a really short post, for a change!

• I could get an idea that motivates me to write a post about it immediately!

• I could notice something going on in my life that I realize could be a post topic, and write about it with minimal effort.

• I could look over my list of post ideas and one of them could grab me.

• Someone could suggest a post idea that inspires me to write something, quickly and easily.

• I could notice myself having fun writing a post!

• I could have some insights about someone else’s post and link to it with a few brief comments, giving myself permission to be brief.

My commitment: I’ll print out what I just wrote and read it over, every day, this week.

Coming next: Ways to enjoy (yes, enjoy) all those Very Big Projects I’m juggling.

*Here’s the post (Havi’s) that gave rise the comment (mine) that led to this post (right here) that-lay-in-the-house-that-Jack-built!

I’ve referred to Autofocus a few times not because it’s the be-all and end-all of time management tools (no such thing—you gotta do what works for you), but because it’s so different from what’s out there. It acknowledges resistance to tasks—something a lot of other systems gloss over—and works with that resistance in a practical, matter-of-fact, friendly way. I think it’s especially useful for creative, rebellious sorts who don’t like to be regimented but still want to see progress on important tasks both large and small.

The last time I blogged about Autofocus (AF for short), Mark had just come out with a revised version that addressed some problems with the previous version. Now he’s got an even newer version, AF4, that addresses problems with earlier revisions. I know how this sounds!, and lest all these revisions raise doubts about how well the system works, give Mark credit for testing and adapting it—incorporating user experience and not treating AF as set in stone.

Besides the instructions for AF4, there’s now a really helpful illustration of the process: a PDF based on Mark’s own real-time list. (You can get to it from the AF discussion thread by clicking the link in paragraph 2.) Created by a fan of AF, the PDF is worth downloading—it’s a large file—as it gives you a way to look over Mark’s shoulder and see the system in action. Don’t worry about the high page count of the PDF—just keep advancing the pages and you’ll get a quick, straightforward experience of watching Mark work his way down the list.

This is key: Autofocus wasn’t revealed to Mark from on high. Same with any other time management system or guru. Mark’s got his rules, and it makes sense to follow the rules as you’re learning the method. If you’re someone who keeps trying and giving up on complicated time management systems, remember that a system works great for the person who designed it, a person who is wired differently from you. So do what you need to do, to get it to work for you. Cobble together pieces of systems that you like, and don’t worry about the pieces that don’t work.

I myself started using previous versions of AF with gusto, only to abandon them when life got too busy and hectic. This is a danger that people report about pretty much any time management system, and it’s one reason I’m skeptical of true believers in any approach.

So I made my own adjustment this week. I got back from vacation a few days ago, to a typical post-vacation pile of tasks with semi-urgent deadlines. It didn’t make sense for me to work Autofocus the usual way, cycling once through current tasks, then zooming through my backlog a few times before returning to the current list. (Don’t attempt or evaluate AF based just on my summary! Read Forster’s instructions and skim the comments to get an idea of the benefits of AF as well as the details.) Instead, I did a brain dump of everything that needed to get done the first few days I was back, and cycled through that stand-alone list until sanity returned. Now I’m ready to go back to Mark’s rules. With renewed enthusiasm.

Boice recommends an approach he calls a conceptual or elaborated outline. Essentially, it’s a rough list of points with notes underneath to start fleshing them out. I’ve been doing some version of this on my own, already, forever—not worrying about the Roman numerals, just throwing ideas on the page in some tentative order. But what Boice brings to the party is:

• Each point gets not only a brief description, but also includes your questions, reservations, and even dialogue with yourself about how to treat the material. This means that instead of getting stuck when you run into doubts or concerns, you can incorporate those concerns into the process. You’re embracing the enemy instead of using up energy fighting with him. (My take, not Boice’s.)

• You can rewrite your outline—in fact, you’re expected to. You add detail, emphasize some points, de-emphasize others, move things around. As you include successively more information in each version, you get closer and closer to an actual draft, without having to take yourself officially in hand to Sit Down and Write.

• You proceed even when some points aren’t complete. Holes in outlines are a good thing, says Boice. I like that—anything that encourages me to move ahead imperfectly.

I’ve been noticing that the mere act of putting a dash or bullet point in front of an idea helps me lighten up a tiny bit. There’s something about The Draft that automatically makes me stiffen. When it feels more like a list, and less like a draft, it’s less daunting—the inner doomsayer doesn’t make quite as much noise.

Note for those of you about to helpfully suggest “Mindmapping! Freewriting!”—those tools are all well and good, I use them, I’ve taught them. But to really get a draft down that I can work with I need a sense of structure, which freewriting doesn’t provide, and I need a greater level of detail than mindmapping allows. Plus, I can’t freewrite a whole draft! Yikes! When I freewrite, I do it in chunks—by paragraph or section.

The Gigantic Outline

As I tried to outline a speech I was putting together for a new audience, I realized that one of my problems with working at a computer is that it doesn’t show me the whole project. I can only see a screen’s worth of ideas at a time.

Whatever I’m creating—a workshop, an article, a web page, any kind of project—I need to see the whole thing at once. How all the pieces fit together. The computer screen constricts me. So I freeze.

Outlining by hand, on a pad of paper, is a slight improvement, but I’m still limited by how many ideas fit on the page.

Solution: a gigantic outline, on flip chart paper. How is it that I never tried this before? I have pads of flip chart paper around—I take them to client sites when I’m leading workshops. But I hadn’t thought to use them for solo work.

You can buy flip chart paper (aka easel paper) at office supply stores. The sheets I use are 27×31 inches. If you find that size unwieldy, fold the paper in half lengthwise.

I’ve used butcher paper in the past, but the flip chart paper has more room (added benefit: it doesn’t keep rolling up on me).  Now I can see all the main ideas in relation to each other at the same time. This lets me start with the big picture and then gradually get more detailed…an alternative to my usual approach, which is to strangle uncertainty by microfocusing. Instead of getting bogged down in details I’ll never use, now I can put placeholders there, because it’s easier to gauge the amount of detail I’ll need based on how each section relates to the whole. I have a better sense of how much will fit and where I can let things go.

The outline took shape quickly, leading pretty seamlessly into the next step (drafting my talking points). I can’t say this technique lowered the intensity of the anxiety-about-getting-started-and-staying-with-it, but it made it less of an impediment by giving me something concrete to work with, which is where I get my momentum.

Next up: The elaborated outline, via Robert Boice.

I’ve talked about Mark Forster’s Autofocus system—an ingenious, paper-based way of tracking your to-do’s that works around procrastination by mixing up large and small tasks, considering them in relation to each other, and drawing on intuition (not in a touchy-feely way).  As the smaller things get crossed off, the bigger projects also move along, steadily, by degrees—what Forster calls the “little and often” approach.

When I mentioned Autofocus [urm, scroll to the asterisk at the end of the post], I said that much as I liked the system in principle, it wasn’t working for me. Time-sensitive tasks were falling through the cracks, and I’m not someone who typically lets that happen. So I abandoned the method after a week or two.

Huzzah! Forster has come out with a new version, AF2, which solves the problems I was having with it. I’m still soaring along on that new-thing high—ask me in a few weeks if it’s sustainable—but for the past few days I’ve been making better progress through undone tasks, and feeling a sense of accomplishment about them, rather than guilt over what’s still to be done.

A couple of caveats:

• The system is complicated to explain—I’ll let Forster do that—and takes some getting used to. Don’t worry about the lingo (“open” vs. “closed” lists and so on). It’s simple to use once you get the hang of it.

• The instructions for the new version, AF2, are aimed at people who were already using AF1 and understand the basics. If you’re brand-new to the system, you may find AF2 mystifying. Start by skimming the instructions for AF1 (there’s a video!), then dig into AF2, including the two-pages-max of related comments. If all this gives you a headache, wait until Forster comes out with the promised instructions designed for new users. (Waiting would be a good use of your time, says I.)

• Like so many productivity systems, Autofocus has spawned an obsessive fascination among users about how to work it. The discussion boards on Forster’s site, while full of helpful clarifications and examples and suggestions (including how to adapt AF to electronic devices), are addictive. Be aware of the temptation to spend hours reading through hundreds of posts, exploring the intricacies of the system, when you could actually be getting your work done. You have been warned.