
Show HN: Killing Procrastination by Making Everything Fit - maxkrieger
https://liquidti.me
======
akoumjian
I've found that methods like this don't actually help me avoid
procrastinating. The key for me is to remove the psychological barriers to
starting a particular task.

I think Getting Things Done has a good approach by dedicating time to figuring
out what the Next Actions are for any given task / project. The idea is that
it is way easier to start on a task if what's listed is a concrete action. For
example, you might add an item to your Inbox like:

"Add better search for project X".

You might avoid a task like this indefinitely. With GTD, you take regular time
out of your day (it's how I start every morning), and you take your Inbox
items like above and figure out what the literal next step should be to
achieve the goal. So the above item might become:

"Search google for adding search to a django project"

There is something about taking the mental task of figuring out what the Next
Actions are, and putting it into its own process that removes a lot of the
hurdles for me.

~~~
rmhsilva
> The key for me is to remove the psychological barriers to starting a
> particular task.

Agreed. And one solution is, as you say, writing down a concrete action. The
task is suddenly something you can hold in your head, and easily completely
mentally.

Procrastination, at least for me, happens whenever I can't see an end to the
task, usually because I haven't properly defined the task. As soon as there is
a well defined set of steps to take, it suddenly becomes much easier to not
procrastinate.

Procrastination is my brain's way of telling me it's not happy with the plan
I've made, and that the goals I've set need to be re-written to be more
achievable (in particular, more SMART [1]).

That said, projects like this are great, and definitely help with enumerating
and planning!

[1] [https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/smart-
goals.php](https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/smart-goals.php)

------
elsherbini
I really love the idea. I use pomodoro timing for my work, but I always have
to decide on the spot what I want to do for that 25 minutes. If I'm working on
one task, that's easy, but after I'm at a good stopping point with that task
it's hard. I like the idea of mindfully making the todo list every day or
week.

Three pieces of feedback:

1) I have to click "done" after editing anything and if I forget and click on
something else it undoes my edit. I'd prefer edits to be saved automatically.

2) I think the defaults should be 6 hours or 8 hours available for each
weekday.

3) It wasn't immediately clear to me how to proceed after planning. I edited
the url to go back to the root and then saw the timing functionality. Maybe
something that helps first time users find the "Today" button top-left.

~~~
maxkrieger
The rationale for the "done" UX is that there's validation too. If you
allocate too much time it'll warn ya before saving.

6 hours is a bit much default IMO, not everyone is a freelancer/workaholic.

~~~
kbutler
> not everyone is a freelancer/workaholic.

No, most people work 8 hour days...

And I second the issue with clicking Done - I wanted to set up a work week,
and clicked Monday's time slot, started typing (keystrokes didn't go
anywhere), clicked the hour time entry, then could enter 8 hours. Repeated for
each work day, then clicked Done for Friday, and saw that it lost all the
other day entries, and I had to go back through the process of setting up
times on M-Th...

Then decided I'd come look at this another time.

------
staticelf
I don't see how this differs from a normal calender in terms of killing
procrastination? The problem I have is not that I haven't planned correctly,
it's that I do not follow my plan.

~~~
maxkrieger
There's integrated time tracking. If you don't follow through in a day (say
you only did 30 minutes of an hour allocated), you can reschedule very easily
and down to the minute.

~~~
bear330
Procrastination is a psychological problem, not a planning problem. Seems like
you solve a problem in a wrong way, or you promote your product in a wrong
direction. You can say it is a combination of kanban, time tracker, project
management or even habitica...blahblahblah, but it is just combination of
functions not solving any procrastination problem at all.

~~~
dogma1138
>Procrastination is a psychological problem

Yes it is, but some planning tools can help you to break out of it as long as
you don't end up using your planning as procrastination.

I've known a few people that were chronic procrastinators I even had some
issues with that myself, I eventually outgrew it by using a bit of additional
organization but without "religious" adherence to any method.

For some a more strict method which they follow daily works, for others I've
seen it can make things worse they use 2-3 planners/organizers and just spend
the time they would normally be wasting on procrastination by procrastinating
via planning.

------
hal9000xp
I already wrote how I manage my time in this post:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12736194](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12736194)

I'm training hard for algorithm contests (mostly on CodeForces.com and
acm.timus.ru). It requires very intense focus without any distractions. Also,
it's very energy consuming (at least for me) and can be frustrating if you get
stuck.

But I have a problem with procrastination. To solve that, I agreed with myself
that I will work on my algorithm stuff only when I turn on timer for 15, 30,
60 or 120 minutes. But if timer is turned on, I must work without any
distractions at all (in complete silence, non-stop).

The key idea is that it's much easier to convince myself not to be distracted
for specific time frame.

If it's hard for me to start working non-stop for 120 minutes, I start with 15
minute timer, after that I usually warm up and can setup timer for 30, 60 or
120 minutes with less psychological resistance.

Another key idea is that in order to start working hard, it's easier to
convince myself to work hard only for 15 minutes. Then after that, you become
warmed up for longer work.

I also record all my time to a journal. So I know exactly how much time I
spent on algorithms last day, week or month.

I like simplicity and keep my journal in plain text.

I also wrote very simple program (C + X11 Xlib) to display histogram.

Here is how it looks like:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/qmd198jr17dlt1t/hours_resized.png?...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/qmd198jr17dlt1t/hours_resized.png?dl=0)

Displayed data collected since February 2016.

Vertical black/grey (color alternating to differentiate between days) segments
is how much time I spend each day.

Vertical blue lines mark 7 days frame.

Horizontal red lines mark 1 hour time.

------
slfnflctd
A list is made. Some items are starred. Other items might be double starred,
or marked in different ways. An estimate is made for the time each item will
take. Eventually, items get crossed off, or 'commented out'.

I do this all in a text file. It works great. I used to delete completed
items, but I found it robbed me of a sense of accomplishment I kinda value. If
I don't finish the list (which happens often), at least I _know_ what I didn't
do, and have a good idea why I decided I didn't feel like it.

Of course, now I have a folder with 12 mostly-completed lists, the last items
on which I keep dodging. There are no perfect answers in the continuing battle
with one's self. Honestly, this app looks pretty cool, and if I was younger
and more optimistic, I'd probably give it a go. I just feel like I know myself
well enough (or have accepted my many faults enough) at this point that I'm
pretty sure it wouldn't get me to do much more than I already am.

~~~
AlexCoventry

      > I used to delete completed items, but I found it robbed me
      > of a sense of accomplishment I kinda value.
    

This contains the key to ending procrastination -- crafting one's
psychological relationship to the intended task, and also to the pastimes one
uses to procrastinate. You can't fit work that in an app, though. It's more
like internal marketing, management, or propaganda than scheduling.

    
    
      > There are no perfect answers in the continuing battle with one's self. 
    

You can always strive to do better, though.

~~~
pcmaffey
Indeed, it's not just about getting things done. It's about creating meaning
through our actions.

Only we, individually, can define what's meaningful to us, and even then, that
process of understanding and evolving our desires, values, purpose etc is a
constant, ongoing struggle (called life).

Most 'productivity' systems and plans become out of date as soon as we learn
something new. Which is always the goal anyways.

------
fizzbatter
This looks interesting, but how does it deal with tasks that don't have an
expected finish time?

Eg, what i like about Pomodoro is that i am not planning anything more. I
simply chug away at my (hopefully micro optimized) task list, and take breaks
when the Pomodoro says so.

This looks nifty, but i have no clue how long most of my tasks are going to
take. Limiting them to 25m or w/e seems like it would induce more stress and
uncertainty.

I assume i have the product slightly wrong. Thoughts?

------
asciimo
I love this idea. I don't know how many weeks I have drawn out on graph paper
to accomplish the same thing. Thanks for sharing it. That said, here's some
cold feedback of my first 10 minutes:

First Screen

    
    
      - "How much time do you think you have on an average weekday," and all days of the week are displayed.
    
      - No indication of what to do. Decide to hold my breath and start clicking.
    
      - Animations prior to signing up show +/- controls to alter values. But I discover I have to type numbers into these fields.
    
    

Plan Screen

    
    
      - I click on the + to add a plan, and then click in the Untitled Plan field. Placeholder text remains, where I expected it to disappear on focus or keydown.
    
      - In creating a new plan, I enter Time to Complete and Minimum Session values. I then click "give breaks" and those values are reset to default.
    
      - Values reset to defaults when choosing a new color, as well.
    
      - The color option should differ from previously selected colors. (Though it is nice that previously selected colors are indicated by a white dot in the palate.)
    
      - I just realized you have to click the "done" button. Maybe the values could be stored on blur?
    
      - It's not clear what follows creating plans. In fact, I was stopped in my tracks at this point and was about to give up until I started clicking in the day columns.
    
      - I could swear I said I had 2hrs on each weekday in the first screen. Yet I only have 1hr allotted to each day in plan allocation mode.
    
      - My plan minimum time does not seem to be honored when I click on the + button. Indeed, looking at the plan it has reverted to defaults. Maybe I didn't hit the "done" button when configuring this attribute? In fact, the time to complete also reverted. This is too much work for me right now.

------
mataug
I've come to realize that no tool is going to help me solve my procrastination
problem.

It has to come from within and if I bring myself to stop procrastinating then
the tool doesn't matter.

~~~
lintiness
this tool looks like a great way for you to waste time instead of doing what
needs to be done :)

~~~
mataug
by `this` did you mean using the tool or trying to solve the problem from
within ?

------
inputcoffee
This is great idea, just because it lets your prioritize what you actually
want to do with your time and manages conflicts explicitly.

I think you may have picked the wrong title. I am sure people are going to be
confused and wonder what this has to do with procrastination, and it it really
is the best tool against that and how it compares with other tools etc.

I think if you changed the title to "explicitly manage constraints", or
"trade-off calendar for your time", you might get more takers.

------
dEnigma
The "TimeInput_singleton" up and down arrows don't work in Firefox on Windows
10. Actually the down arrow does work if you try to find the right cursor
position, but the up arrow seems to be impossible to click on. Also, as
elsherbini has mentioned, clicking "Done" on every item, e.g. if you set your
daily defaults, is slightly annoying and I lost all of my values the first
time I put them in because I forgot to do so before switching pages.

~~~
jansenv
The time input is buggy overall for me. The minutes thing seems to have
problems with double digit numbers half of the time (firefox latest on sierra)

------
SZJX
Also if you currently don't plan on monetization anyways why not make it open
source. This way everybody benefits. The current functionalities are way too
limited. The biggest problem is the limited number of plans, which makes no
sense. Planning is only useful when it's divided into small chunks. Lumping
everything together into a big term does nothing at all. The current way it's
set up, even after I finish a small task I can't free its color up for other
plans to use. What's the point if all the finished tasks prevent new tasks
from being added? Then I can no longer add new tasks if I don't remove any
record about my past activities first? This looks absurd.

------
lucb1e
Note that the page is completely blank when Javascript is turned off. The
front page doesn't looks like it should need Javascript, it's some text and a
few gifs.

------
neap24
I generally prefer simpler, bullet point, plain text lists. The more complex
my to-do list system is, the more I actually end up procrastinating (by
spending so much time focused on the list itself). I remember a story from the
Frog and Toad children's book about Toad losing his list and being unable to
get anything done the rest of the day because he couldn't remember if it was
on the list or not.

~~~
r00fus
I do something similar - used virtual post-its, a file synched on SVN and
later git, now to a google sheets.

Habit works. Use whatever you can make a habit.

------
nray
Very minor quibble with the copy on the front page, it should read "It's
likely your long-term tasks are being shunted to the side", not "shunned".
Like a train, not a shame.

------
jbmorgado
My issue with this method and most other methods, is that I have no good idea
on how much time I need to actually allocate to each project/goal.

I work in research, when I start a project I have no really good idea on how
many hours I'll have to put into it in order to complete it.

Same goes for some of my personal projects. Let's say, I want to learn Data
Analysis in Python... I can't really come up with a good idea about how much
time that will take me.

What I actually feel the need (as a procrastinator, which is the target of
this product) is to keep tabs that I'm working on something (productively)
every day.

Pomodoro method helps me a bit with this, although just as a metric, not
really as a day scheduling tool as it was intended.

I would actually like to hear some thoughts about people that also struggle
with this and how do they manage to stay productive (productive on their
personal point of view).

~~~
dageshi
Personally the only method I've ever found that reliably works for me is to
have a rough idea of what I want to tackle the next day, then first thing in
the morning after a good cup of coffee I open up notepad and attempt to plan
out the things I need to do for the rest of the day. I try as hard as I can to
break them up into as many individual tasks as possible. Then through the rest
of the day I implement them.

Those first few hours in the morning are typically when I'm at my most
mentally able to come up with good solutions for whatever I'm doing and the
rest of the day I find it relatively easy to follow the plan.

In terms of pomodoro I use the opposite method, I don't time myself when I'm
working on individual tasks from the list, instead as soon as I finish one I
give myself 10 mins before starting the next.

My mind absolutely refuses to change context too quickly, it's almost as if I
have to go defocus my mind on reddit or HN/youtube for 10 mins before it'll
suddenly snap back to the next task.

But I'm a lifelong chronic procrastinator, I sometimes think I'm the
equivalent of a runner who's trying to run a marathon in 100 meter sprints...

I'm productive enough in my own terms :) I get things done and mostly meet
deadlines.

------
wrl
This looks really cool, but it'd be nice to not need a Google account (which I
do not have) to sign in.

------
drcode
This is a really interesting time management concept I hadn't seen implemented
before- Starting with "# hours needed" and "Deadline" and then working
backwards to schedule individual days is a great idea. I always have way too
many projects happening simultaneously with no clear conception of how long
it'll actually take to accomplish everything and without a decent way to
establish reasonable deadlines.

I might give this a shot.

------
SZJX
I've always been using Google Calendar for planning. Guess this could be an
improved version of Google Calendar if everything goes well, and I'll
definitely give it a try. Don't think this necessarily have much to do with
procrastination, but rather general planning which still is absolutely
essential to getting things done.

------
ranprieur
You kill procrastination by making everything fit in a meaningful larger
context. This is much harder than making it fit on a calendar.

------
andulus
I see a "put back" button. Isn't it a synonym for procrastination? :)

I suggest following for at least taking one step away from procrastination.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas...](https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator?language=en)

------
Jonovono
Interesting. I will look into this some more. I have been trying to find
something that works for me.

Recently I found [http://pomotodo.com/](http://pomotodo.com/). It combines
todo lists with the pomodoro method and I have found it pretty great so far.

------
yetanotherjosh
I'm not sure what the intent is for how much time per day to manage with this.
When it asked me how much time I have per day, I wanted to at first say 24hrs
(duh). I figured that was probably wrong (because it's asking), so I said 16
hours, since that's more my usable time window given 8 hours of sleep. This
app is obviously not meant to fill 16 hours. So I think I've missed the point
here. Is this for people with 9-5 jobs and set schedules to manage their "free
time" with side projects? I just don't understand what the intended audience
and use case is.

------
godelski
I like this, but a nice idea might be to add an unknown time to completion.
For example I like to get myself to have at least an hour a day working on
studying. So it'd be nice to just put this as 2 chunks instead of
"50*5+however much I want for the weekend".

------
desireco42
Really good idea. I have a feeling it will not work for me, here is why:

I learned that to make things work, you need to schedule them, put them on
calendar. However hard this is for me, I do that. Most of the time, I have to
spill over a lot of things I would think I can do in a day over 3 day period.
Majority of the time, even 3 days are not enough. So it keeps me honest. At
every second, I know exactly what I need to do, and what I am avoiding to do.

It took me a while to get into that system. I suspect others have their own
and it would be hard for them to get into this new one.

Having said that, I wish you best and will keep an eye.

------
krosaen
I manage a similar workflow using Trello boards, one master board with my
current projects, goals etc, another that serves as a weekly template, from
which I create a copy for each week. I try to visualize what I'd like to
accomplish with cards placed across the days I plan on spending time on it. A
daily todo card has the number of 25 minute blocks I'd like to spend towards
each.

So I see the value in this product, the challenge is being in a silo without
necessarily having the resources to be as flexible and available cross-
platform as Trello.

------
eyeinthepyramid
It'd be cool if it divided the day into 30 minute blocks and you could just
allocate the tasks to the blocks. Like a type of paint interface, where you
just color the blocks.

------
terda12
I'm sure it would be helpful for many people, but for me personally once I
miss a scheduled event like " At 3PM practice drawing for 2 hours, then do
progrmaming from 4-5pm". If I start drawing at 3:15 and finish at 4:15,
everything gets messed up. Fixed scheduling just isn't for me. I'd rather have
a checklist like "draw for 2 hours" and "program for 1 hour", which I can
check off daily and is flexible to my schedule.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I reschedule my "time boxes" during the day, and also keep them flexible. I
found having them anchored to a specific time during the day (even if I get to
move them around several times) to be very helpful - if I don't do that, I
often find myself thinking "oh crap, I don't have 2 hours left today to
practice drawing", etc.

------
hosh
Great idea. Was thinking less about procrastinating and more about how it
keeps ongoing projects steady. It's really buggy though.

Is there an opt-in mailing list I can sign into to get updates on it? This
isn't usable for me right now but I can see it being sufficiently useable in
the future.

------
ChrisNorstrom
I love.love.love. this. I'll try this out for the entire month of November, I
promise. I love trying out new productivity apps and software. I like how I
can easily look back and see if I've been productive.

I really don't like some of the UI so I crafted my own Stylish css script to
override yours, makes it look a bit more professional, currently it looks like
it's for middle-schoolers. Sorry.

The following CSS code basically does this: Less kindergarten-buttons, more
minimal out-of-the-way UI, smaller headers, more space for content, full width
support now stretches and adjusts to browser width, removes rounded borders
for non-clickable objects.

.Allocator__allocator___s0wBY .Allocator__heading___2pO2F
.Allocator__pills___2v0H1 {border-radius:4px;} .PlanBar__planBar___2ET1U
{border-radius:0px;} .PlanList__addButton___aSwx0 {border-radius:4px;}
.PlanBar__planBarSegment___2fD3q {padding-top:0px;} .DayBar__bar___13rc2
{border-radius:0px;} .MonthDay__addSubtract___2js9l{border-radius:4px;}
.Allocator__allocator___s0wBY .Allocator__heading___2pO2F
.Allocator__pills___2v0H1 .Allocator__selected___3cu8c {background-
color:yellowgreen} .PlanList__addButton___aSwx0 {background-color:lightblue;}
.PlanList__planList___3U3vn .PlanList__bottom___1zgQS {height:auto;}
.PlanList__planList___3U3vn .PlanList__bottom___1zgQS {height:auto;}
.PlanList__addButton___aSwx0 {border-radius:0px;} .PlanList__addButton___aSwx0
{padding:0; margin:0;} .PlanEdit__button___2AMRT {border-radius:4px;}
.Allocator__allocator___s0wBY .Allocator__calendarContainer___3r2TT
.Allocator__weekLabels___2OG5E .Allocator__weekdayLabel___uiapn {width:14.3%;}
.WeekDay__weekDay___90P4W {width:14.3%;} .Allocator__weekdayLabel___uiapn
{width:14.3%;} .MonthDay__monthDay___156P4 {width:14.3%} .Nav__nav___XdSZA
{padding:0; padding-left:0;} .Nav__nav___XdSZA .Nav__navItem___1iyJS
{display:none;} .Allocator__allocator___s0wBY .Allocator__heading___2pO2F
{padding: 2px 5px;} .Allocator__allocator___s0wBY
.Allocator__calendarContainer___3r2TT .Allocator__weekLabels___2OG5E
{width:100%;} .Allocator__allocator___s0wBY
.Allocator__calendarContainer___3r2TT .Allocator__calendar___-60yN
{width:100%;} .PlanList__planList___3U3vn .PlanList__header___S1Rpc
{padding:3px 9px;} .PlanList__planList___3U3vn ul {padding-top:43px;}
.PlanList__planItem___3d2Bx {padding-bottom:0; padding: 5px 10px 9px;}
.PlanList__planList___3U3vn .PlanList__header___S1Rpc {height:auto;}
.Allocator__allocator___s0wBY .Allocator__calendarContainer___3r2TT
.Allocator__weekLabels___2OG5E { height: 35px;}
.Allocator__weekdayLabel___uiapn {height: 36px; line-height: 36px;}
.MonthDay__monthDay___156P4 {height:17.6%;}

Elements that cannot be clicked should not have rounded corners. Buttons on
the other hand should have slightly rounded corners.

------
ericdykstra
I've tried a number of time-tracking/scheduling services, and I'll give this a
shot. It has a pretty high bar to beat in terms of flexibility and user
interface though compared to what I'm using right now, a pen and notebook.

------
roberthensing
Feedback:

Firefox support could be better: color picker does not respond, time entry
widget is annoying.

It would be nice to have a feedback/contact button or info about liquidtime
app, an e-mail address, anything.

Out of curiosity, how did you build it?

------
maxkrieger
Also on product hunt, if that's allowed:
[https://www.producthunt.com/posts/liquidtime](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/liquidtime)

------
omouse
I like this idea because you can also adapt your schedule to others.

------
abeyer
Login doesn't work and fails silently if you don't accept third-party cookies
by default. I had to muck around in dev tools to figure out what was wrong and
sign-in.

------
miesman
Nice webapp and UI. (to the author) To state the obvious.. You'll see a lot
more people adopt it and stick with it if you layout your vision in a few page
tutorial.

------
SadWebDeveloper
Ok m saving this link so i can plan later my schedule to tackle my
procrastination just going to keep watching netflix for just a couple of more
minutes...

------
stemuk
Apart from the product itself, what has been your experience with Firebase
along the way and what were the main decision drivers towards Firebase?

------
kowdermeister
That's a really neat looking calendar. I'll play with it instead of working on
the stuff I supposed to do :)

------
Gruselbauer
I really want to stop procrastinating and use a tool like a this, but in the
end I just can't be arsed.

------
ktopaz
integrate/sync with google calendar?

~~~
maxkrieger
It's on the roadmap, but there would be a ton of API calls to make; one of the
main features is the ease of rescheduling things. Also, the idea is you can
spread your task out over a day, because it's mainly a plannable timer, so any
calendar integration would just be in the "day" field.

------
madsbuch
Maybe we should instead look another way than constantly try to be evermore
efficient?

------
hkeide
Very cool concept. Can you describe your experience in using this? Is it
effective?

~~~
maxkrieger
I've been using it since I was developing it, and it's as effective as you
make of it. Imagine a pomodoro timer, but you plan your pomodoros with extreme
ease. It adds a lot more structure to your day too.

~~~
gr3yh47
is my initial time setting per day all non sleeping time? non sleeping and non
work time?

------
dizrupt
Killing Procrastination in one step: Start with the smallest part or thing.

------
ing33k
why is there no repeat daily ?

~~~
maxkrieger
I've thought about it, and it's ultimately not really the idea here, because
your time spent would be predetermined. If you really want to, you can use the
mirror mode and hit every weekday.

------
nulagrithom
Spinners look broken and some buttons not working on Firefox (Ubuntu).

~~~
gr3yh47
I couldnt even sign in on firefox and had to use chrome

------
jessewmc
I don't suppose signing in without Google is on the roadmap?

------
Dnguyen
What framework is behind the UI may I ask?

------
v4nn4
Pretty neat for a high school side project!

------
stinger
complicated and super buggy...would love an intro video and the UX bugs fixed

------
BeetleB
Over the years I've tried many planning methods, with very low success.

I tried GTD ([https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-
Produ...](https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-
Productivity/dp/0142000280)) for 7 years before declaring it a failure. It
does have some good ideas that I still use, but the TODO management didn't
work for me. I think it'll work only for people who have fewer goals than I
do. It doesn't handle large lists very well.

Some things I kept from it:

1\. Filing cabinet - Instantly useful from day 1.

2\. Calendars are only for _hard_ deadlines. Don't put stuff in there that you
merely _want_ to do. I know this is the opposite of the submission here. For
me, planning everything in the calendar, including things I could ignore, led
to a mess. Keep it for things you really cannot ignore.

In general, any obsessive time based planning like this submission fails for
me. GTD is not time based. I prefer planning my tasks for the week, not for
the hour.

I like the idea behind Kanban, but I do not think it fits most of our personal
lives. Very good for certain work environments, though.

Pomodoro technique: It's good, but not really for task management. It's just a
good technique to stay focused. Worked for a few months until I got used to
it. Now it does not keep me focused and I can easily get distracted by the
web, etc.

These days I'm trying this:

[https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Workday-Now-
Strategies/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Workday-Now-
Strategies/dp/097493044X)

I think it works better than GTD, and fills the gaps in it. If you do not want
to buy the book, a condensed, down to Earth version is available as the 1
Minute Todo List:

[http://www.michaellinenberger.com/TheOneMinuteTo-DoList-
Eboo...](http://www.michaellinenberger.com/TheOneMinuteTo-DoList-Ebook.pdf)

Personally, I feel the book is better than the PDF at explaining the rationale
behind the 1 minute todo list. Reading it was very calming. It explained all
the problems I had had with GTD and similar techniques.

Basic ideas:

1\. If you cannot examine your todo list inside of a minute, it is too long.
So spend a lot of effort ensuring your _daily_ todo list is not long.

2\. Urgency and importance are not the same. We're hard wired for focusing on
_urgency_ , so do not try to make a TODO list purely based on _importance_.

3\. Every week, identify everything that _must_ be done in the next 10 days
and put it on your list that you'll examine daily. Things you decide not to do
in the next 10 days, keep in your "list to examine weekly".

4\. Every day, multiple times of the day, look at the short list and do tasks
from among them. If new tasks come in, add them, but keep the list short (no
more than 20-25 items). If your list is getting too long, identify things to
move to the "list to examine weekly" and get them out of the way.

5\. If something needs to be done today, put it on the top of your list!

6\. You'll also have "the list to examine monthly" as well as quarterly.

Very simple idea - works a bit better than GTD.

I think my biggest problem is that I need to reduce the goals in my life and
focus on only a few. I have more goals than time in my life, and I keep
jumping from one to the other. No task management system will work until I do
this. Tough decisions need to be made!

