The 10 Drawbacks to One-Size-Fits-All Thinking in Task Management


You are someone who pays attention to your task management. Like most people, you make many of these micro-commitments each day…to yourself.

You are managing more than ever, feeling accomplished, but also a little concerned. As the load increases, you wonder if others are also in the same boat. Here is some good news…we are all looking for answers, but now and then we look to simple one-size-fits-all answers.

Sidebar: It’s not that one-size-fits-all thinking is wrong. In the beginning, it’s actually quite useful…

Sidebar: In the penultimate slide, you’ll see why the early success is a drawback.

Sidebar: This is only to be expected. As you manage a certain number of tasks effectively, life hands you more. Unless you aggressively shut them down, your task load increases. Eventually it surpasses your capacity…so the “old problems” or “unwanted symptoms” return, or show up in new forms.

Sidebar: As you near the limits of your capacity, you try to do the same things better.

Sidebar: Along with the practical challenge of completing tasks, you may become entangled. Your ego becomes involved and you don’t want to be shown that your one-size-fits-all solution was incorrect.

Sidebar: Now you are trying to handle more tasks than your personal system can handle. Your growth stops, and you see more mistakes. Now you accept that there might be a better way.

Sidebar: A few become bitter. The fuel turns into complaints via posts, tweets and even entire books.

Sidebar: Going “inside” versus “outside” for answers is a major turning point.

Sidebar: Few make it to this transition, but it’s transformative!

Sidebar: But just before a victory is announced, a final temptation arises. You latch on to another one-size-fits-all solution.

Sidebar: Now you have found your independence. The path is yours and you can choose to shape it. All you need are some skills.

Sidebar: Now that you “know better” the world is your oyster…everyone who develops a system of practices, app or device if your friend.

Our early indications are that this summit will be like no other we have done in prior years. The presenters are stepping up to the challenge in unprecedented ways to have some unique conversations.

If the thought has even crossed your mind that one-size-does-not-fit-all, don’t miss this opportunity to make progress.

Free etickets available — https://timeblockingsummit.info

Summit dates: March 2–4, 2023. 24-hour access to content.


The 10 Drawbacks to One-Size-Fits-All Thinking in Task Management was originally published in 2Time Labs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Have You Outgrown Tips and Tricks?

Leave them for beginners and craft personal solutions in an efficient way, in just three days. For free.

As a productivity enthusiast, you yearn to find advice that just doesn’t just fall into the usual bucket of bromides, memes and truisms. You want to continue making solid progress and find personal growth, but most of the advice that’s floating around is aimed at beginners. You’ve either heard it before, or can’t use it.

Here’s a possible solution. From March 3–5, 2022 over 30 of the world’s best thinkers will be gathering at the third annual Task Management & Time Blocking Virtual Summit to share their ideas for new habits and innovative apps. And you’re invited to participate.

Their goal? To help set the agenda for the next 12 months of growth and development by the event’s participants. To make this happen, there will be free registration, plus 24-hour a day access to pre-recorded videos and lots of informal chances to interact with all attendees.

These supplement the live panel discussions, Q&A’s and interviews which give you and other summitteers a chance to quiz the experts in an efficient, online format. Plus, there will be a GTD Track for the first time to help recognize the contribution of David Allen’s seminal book, Getting Things Done. Published twenty years ago, it remains the cornerstone set of ideas most people consider first.

If you can’t make it to the summit, or know that you’ll miss some of it, we’re offering you the purchase of an All Access Pass. It gives you the convenience of replaying, rewinding and rewatching the event at your own leisure. This also means that you’ll be able to attend preferred sessions of the event without the stress of trying to see everything.

How does this help? As an opportunity to consume advanced ideas, much of what you hear is likely to be nuanced…so it deserves a careful look.

Registration is now open! Find out more here.

Francis Wade

Host / www.timeblockingsummit.info


Have You Outgrown Tips and Tricks? was originally published in 2Time Labs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Part 16 — Psychological Objects and Tasks


Part 16 — Psychological Objects and Tasks

Why You Must Separate Psychological Objects from their Physical and Digital Counterparts in Your Task Management

Problem

You want to manipulate future, incomplete tasks effectively, hoping to improve the way you manage them so you can become more effective. However, they seem to have a life of their own!

Even though you have set up a system of lists, schedules, reminders, apps, etc. to pin them down, they seem ready to slip away at a moment’s notice. Tasks are unlike physical objects like desks and chairs, or digital objects like documents or email messages. Instead, they are invisible and intangible.

Left untended, they have the unfortunate ability to disappear from view, never to be recalled ever again. Pus, they fade behind our other commitments, only to reappear suddenly when it’s too late, long after a problem has arisen.

Our problem is that we don’t treat them as if they have a special, unique nature. While we know that they are born when we make a specific commitment, and die when a task is completed or intentionally voided, what should happen in between remains a mystery. Even academic researchers barely understand!

Why Is This Important?

Someone who understands the distinction between psychological objects and physical or digital objects can manage each of them according to their unique properties. Given the fact that your task management system probably includes all three, this knowledge can help you make better quality improvements.

What’s the Link to the Rapid Assessment Program (RAP)?

In the RAP you see how it’s possible to make improvements which are in line with the ephemeral nature of tasks i.e. psychological objects. You are more likely to be effective with this insight, especially as you move forward to implement a plan of Pareto Improvements.

Find out more about the MyTimeDesign Rapid Assessment Program in this webinar.


Part 16 — Psychological Objects and Tasks was originally published in 2Time Labs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Part 15 —Why You’ll Need Systemic Task Management

Why You Must Focus on Your Whole Task Management System Rather than its Parts

Problem

When you want to find a way to improve the way you manage your tasks, it’s tempting to do a Google search or visit a Q&A forum like Reddit or Quora. You’re looking for something important — probably a way to retain your peace of mind while accomplishing more.

But the answers you find at first probably look like small bits and pieces of something much larger. For example, someone who tried a particular practice or started using a new app may have made some gains. If task management were simple, this would be all the advice you’d need.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Our self-made systems are combinations of practices and apps we engage in each day. However, these elements are intertwined.

As such, like any complex system, you can’t simply focus on improving a single piece at the exclusion of the bigger picture. You may, in fact, make things worse if you tweak one aspect, but ignore the ripple effect which is created.

Why Is This Important?

It’s only natural to become frustrated when you attempt to make an improvement that only makes things worse. Some give up at this point, but they don’t need to.

Instead, they need to educate themselves about the inner workings of the task management system they use each day. This knowledge can lead them to make Pareto Improvements which have an outsized effect.

What’s the Link to the Rapid Assessment Program (RAP)?

The best way to learn how your task management system works isn’t to listen to a lecture. Instead, the RAP gives you self-diagnostic tools that help you craft a plan of improvement based on the fact that you need to take a systemic approach.

Find out more about the MyTimeDesign Rapid Assessment Program in this webinar.


Part 15 —Why You’ll Need Systemic Task Management was originally published in 2Time Labs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Part 14 — The Law of Diminishing Returns in Task Management


Part 14 — The Law of Diminishing Returns in Task Management

Why it becomes harder to make improvements as your task volume increases

Problem

When you only had a small list of tasks, it was easy to make improvements. You took your productivity in this area seriously and made some good changes, expecting to continue in the same vein indefinitely.

However, as you moved to the next level, and the next, it seemed harder to keep up the pace of improvements. In fact, it may have felt like you were stalling.

Why did this occur?

To put it simply, you benefited from “beginner’s luck”. When you bring sound practices to a self-taught system of any kind, the effect is generally positive.

However, the reason it becomes harder to make the same progress has everything to do with the easy changes you have already made. Now, you just cannot grow as quickly, and you must shift your methods.

Why Is This Important?

The fact that you are managing more tasks is a sign of success, a fact to be celebrated. Unfortunately, you now need to accept that it will take more knowledge and effort to continue to make changes. As such, your expectations need to shift as well. To maintain the thrill of continuous learning, you must now make an investment in yourself.

You need to add to your knowledge, skills and awareness, enhancing your ability to self-diagnose your task management.

Fail to do so and you’ll get stuck. The Law of Diminishing Returns may lead you to quit.

What’s the Link to the Rapid Assessment Program (RAP)?

Within the RAP, you’ll learn the art of making progressively more sophisticated self-assessments. This takes patience, and a trained eye. But you’ll be more satisfied bythe end as deeper improvements become accessible.

Find out more about the MyTimeDesign Rapid Assessment Program in this webinar.


Part 14 — The Law of Diminishing Returns in Task Management was originally published in 2Time Labs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Part 13 — The Switch Away from Persisting with Old Lessons


Part 13 — The Switch Away from Persisting with Old Lessons

Why, in task management, you’ll need to switch from approaches that worked for you in the past

Problem

As a productivity enthusiast, you have made a number of positive changes to your task management. These were gratifying, and you want more of them to retain that thrill of learning. But have you reached the point where it’s difficult to make noticeable improvements? If so, it may be time to give up on the approaches that have worked so well up until now.

Most of the learning for beginners in task management tends to be easy to follow. It’s usually prescriptive, made up of precisely detailed behavioral rules compiled by a thoughtful guru. They make a difference quickly, in what some call “beginner’s luck”.

The temptation is to keep doing what you have always done. To follow the same advice that gave you the early gains.

However, you may find that it becomes more difficult to continue your personal growth. Why? The easy fixes have all been made. The next round won’t yield the same gains, and they are harder to uncover. At this point there are a few strategies you can pursue.

  • A few people double down and try harder to implement their initial lessons. For example, some folks who picked up Getting Things Done by David Allen are urged to double down on his advice by others who are more experienced. They explain where the new follower isn’t actually implementing his advice correctly, with predictable results.
  • Some look for a different prescription from a new guru. They still want to be told what to do, just by someone else.
  • A handful make the switch. Sometimes without knowing, they follow the example of gurus who craft their own improvements, becoming self-coaches in their own right.

While it’s clear that the first approach doesn’t work, some find it difficult to give up their success formula. After all, most gurus don’t advise their followers to look for signs that it’s time to move on. They don’t talk about the switch — it’s no good for business.

Why Is This Important?

If you’re like most people, you stick to methods of learning that worked in the past, trusting them to deliver in the future. These tend to be pedagogical rather than androgogical lessons, meant for novices rather than experienced learners.

Now that you have some task management knowledge, it’s better to jump straight to a heutagogical approach, in which you drive your own learning.

What’s the Link to the Rapid Assessment Program (RAP)?

The RAP is designed for those who have already made the mental switch, but need tools to conduct their first systematic self-diagnosis of their task management methods. With pre-made tools and concepts, you can discern slight nuances which enable you to make Pareto Improvements. Now you can plan for the future.

Find out more about the MyTimeDesign Rapid Assessment Program in this webinar.


Part 13 — The Switch Away from Persisting with Old Lessons was originally published in 2Time Labs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Part 12 — Coping with Your Hunger for Capacity


Part 12 — Coping with Your Hunger for Capacity

Why productivity enthusiast aren’t satisfied “managing just so many tasks but no more”.

Problem

You’re a top performer who is a lifelong learner; someone who sees a future of personal growth. But you seem to be like a hamster on a treadmill. The last improvement you made to your task management wasn’t enough and you’re not sure why. Neither was the one before. Why don’t your improvements endure forever? Why do you care so much about getting better in this area when the average person doesn’t?

In a prior article (#8) in this series, we established that there’s always a limit to your ability to manage tasks effectively. In other words, even if you are insanely productive, an invisible cap exists. Whenever you attempt to add more tasks beyond the limit, you instantly experience unwanted symptoms. It’s as if there’s always a camel’s back waiting to be broken.

You may be lured into the belief that human beings should find and settle down to their current level of task performance, and forget about further improvements. But this doesn’t match my observation of trainees and coachees. They always want more. And maybe it applies to you, given that you have read this far.

But why do you keep tempting fate by adding one more straw to your camel’s back? And then another? Why does the realization that the camel’s back has gotten a bit stronger make you look forward to increasing the load?

Is this bad? Should you stop?

Well…join the club. My research shows you and other productivity enthusiasts have an unquenchable appetite for more tasks. Consequently, as soon as you find a way to increase your capacity, you can’t help yourself…you add more tasks.

If you’re lucky, you discover that your appetite grows more slowly than your capacity increases. Most experience the opposite. Why? Too many productivity enthusiasts are high-performers or Type A personalities.

Why is this important?

Understanding this innate tendency can be freeing. It’s just part of your nature…a good thing.

As you drive for amazing results, it’s natural to wish to increase your capacity to manage tasks.

So…you can relax and commit to a career of steady improvements. You can also know that unwanted symptoms are not a sign of failure, but a signal that alerts you to the need to increase capacity.

What’s the Link to the Rapid Assessment Program?

Without a systematic way to make improvements, this continuous demand for improvement sometimes becomes stressful. In the worse case, you could feel trapped in a dead-end. However, the Rapid Assessment Program is one way to figure out the best improvements to make at any point in time.

This means you can accept your true nature; your tendency to increase task volume so that it nears the upper limits. And you can embrace the fact that continuous improvements are the price you pay for being a driven human being. This is a game you have unwittingly played for years. Making it conscious should make you a better player.

Find out more about the MyTimeDesign Rapid Assessment Program in this webinar.


Part 12 — Coping with Your Hunger for Capacity was originally published in 2Time Labs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Part 9 — Your 13 Self-Made Practices


Part 9 — Your 13 Self-Made Practices

The system you created when you were too young too care, but still use today.

The Problem

When asked, most people have no idea where their routines for managing future tasks come from. They realize they do something with them on a regular basis, and that it involves some memory plus other physical, digital and psychological components. But they don’t know its origin or the steps they use with precision.

Unfortunately, few productivity gurus shed a light on this mystery. Instead, they focus on telling people what they should do instead, in one-size-fits-all fashion.

The good news is that human beings all manage tasks in similar ways. It’s a bit like kicking a football: there are limited ways to do so based on our physiology. In like manner, our psychology shapes the way we manage tasks. However, within these limits, there’s lots of variation. Each person who is self-taught ends up doing things in their unique way.

These psychological limits cause people to turn to physical and digital affordances to gain some help. Their overall objective is common: to create and manage tasks (i.e. time demands) in a way that leads to successful completion.

During our teens, at some point, we teach ourselves most of the following 13 practices in order to reach complex goals. Later, we forget, but our routines reveal the lessons were learned.
Capturing — To save tasks you create for later execution in safe places called “capture points”.
Emptying — To remove time demands from capture points i.e. triage.
When we Empty we have five choices.
Tossing — To void time demands.
Scheduling — To add a time demand to a mental, physical or digital calendar.
Listing — To add a time demand to a mental, physical or digital list.
Storing — To save supplemental information required to task completion e.g. an address book.
Acting Now — To interrupt the act of Emptying to execute an action immediately.

These practices are meant to interact with tasks directly, hence the label “Essential Fundamentals.” However, there are other “Advanced: practices we teach ourselves.
Switching — To transition effectively from one task to another.
Interrupting — To use an alarm or alert to end a task and start another.
Reviewing — To proactively look over one’s system to find improvements or make adjustments.
Warning — To set up (and heed) early signs of impending problems with one’s system.

We engage in these meta-activities in order to complete future tasks with ease. However, during the act of completing these tasks, we can do so in one of two two ways. We use Executables:

Habiting — To complete a pre-designed, practiced routine which requires little or no cognitive attention to initiate or conduct.
Flowing — To enter the top quality flow state while completing a task with high stakes.

Why Is This Important?

If the claim is valid (that all human beings teach themselves these 13 practices starting in their teens) then we shouldn’t start with where we want to be, but there we are. Serious productivity gains in task management come from embracing these current behaviors as a starting point for making improvements.

While productivity gurus may point out how to perform each one with a high degree of skill, learners must still take the next step. They need to determine what level of combined skills they possess (low, medium, high), which level they desire, and how to reach their destination.

What’s the Link to the Rapid Assessment Program (RAP)?

In general, gurus teach beginners a few simple, high-level skills at a time. Due to their relative lack of history, in making such improvements, learners benefit greatly. Call it beginner’s luck.

However, there comes a time when such introductory advice stops working. Now, as a learner, you need to follow the gurus’ example, rather than their advice.

What do productivity gurus do? They use skillful diagnostic techniques before they attempt any changes. Some use their own version of the 13 practices. In the Rapid Assessment Program, you don’t need to craft your own improvement protocol, as these are handed to you on the first day.

Find out more about the MyTimeDesign Rapid Assessment Program in this webinar.


Part 9 — Your 13 Self-Made Practices was originally published in 2Time Labs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Part 10 — Unique Type A Task Management Tendencies


Part 10 — Unique Type A Task Management Tendencies

And if you’re a Type A, what you should do to be more productive

The Problem

Most productivity gurus treat all their readers or learners the same: as if they have the same personalities or needs. Their general advice works well at first, but after a while, a problem arises. Those who require the most help find themselves at odds with some gurus’ personalities, and their advice.

Type A personalities tend to create more urgent tasks than their counterparts. As such, they feel impatient more frequently, demand more advanced tools than others. For example, as high school students, they often use adult techniques and technologies their peers would never touch.

Never heard of them? They are driven, goal-oriented, high-energy individuals who are extremely time-conscious. With these traits, it’s no accident they are often high-achievers in business, sports and academics. They prefer to focus on areas of expertise which reward clear winners…and losers.

However, when they lack self-knowledge of their task management, the worst can happen. With their energy and impatience, it’s easy to become overworked and imbalanced, leading to burnout, overwork and broken relationships.

Why Is This Important?

Due to their driven nature, Type A’s are the first to consume their discretionary time each week— their buffer against the problem of a full calendar. This habit produces a host of problems as their appetite for tasks increases and stays beyond their ability to manage them. After all, they are also subject to the same 168 hour per week limit as everyone else.

Remember the topic of defects in Part 2?

Type A’s go through periods in which they experience numerous defects; far more than others. It’s just a fact that they push their task management systems to the limits, much like a Formula One driver uses all the means at his disposal to shave a full two seconds off a lap.

But the first “Switch” Type A’s must make is from following the advice of others to becoming expert self-coaches. It’s the only way for them to achieve their high ambitions effectively. They don’t give themselves a choice.

What’s the Link to the Rapid Assessment Program?

Ultimately, Type A’s need to become as good at improving their task management skills as they are at executing tasks. This kind of meta-activity is a feature of all high performers who reach the heights of their disciplines. Serena Williams, Lewis Hamilton and Tom Brady are all great self-coaches. The RAP is designed to develop your meta-skills, by taking you through your first structured self-diagnosis at a slow enough pace to be able to do it on your own in the future.

By the end, you have a new level of self-knowledge that becomes the new floor for your learning. The fact that it’s based on sound, scientific fundamentals means that you can use the core ideas for a lifetime.

Find out more about the MyTimeDesign Rapid Assessment Program in this webinar.


Part 10 — Unique Type A Task Management Tendencies was originally published in 2Time Labs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Part 11 — Correcting Your System to Match Your Task Volume


Part 11 — Correcting Your System to Match Your Task Volume

This superpower will keep your system ever-evolving in the right direction

The Problem

If you have been adding more tasks than ever to your overall commitments, you may have noticed some unexpected changes. You have less unscheduled free time available. More defects (Part 2) occur.

But you don’t exactly know what to do about it. Some suggest you should reduce your task volume by cutting back on projects and commitments, but that’s not a viable solution for you. A more effective response is to add capacity, but that’s easier said than done, especially if you have some Type A tendencies in your task management.

Why Is This Important?

Ambitious people want more out of life than their counterparts, but this demand can turn destructive if it’s not channeled in the right way. In fact, a constructive response requires deliberate choices. It also helps to have knowledge of time demands (Part 1), Type A tendencies (Part 10) and task volume limits (Part 8).

Think back to when you first started to make task management improvements. You took a class or read a book, and picked up some new behaviors, which over time became new habits.

One way to explain your success is to say that you increased your capacity. To use the jargon of Part 8, you increased the size of the box containing your balloon full of tasks. Therefore, you could accommodate a bigger balloon.

So, the good news is that you have done this before…perhaps unconsciously. As a teenager, you used your budding time-awareness to make improvements to your task management that increased your capacity. And while you can’t go back in time and make the same changes, you can find comfort: most teens are able to figure out this transformation on their own.

Not so for adults. Instead, their amnesia on these matters leaves them confused. Now, they need to be reminded of progress they made, even if it was many years ago. Then they need to appreciate that their beginner’s luck has run out. Adult improvements require greater awareness.

The best place to start? Develop a personal baseline (a profile) of your current capacity. One method is to analyze your skills in each of the 13 fundamentals introduced in Part 9. Armed with this self-knowledge, you can decide which precise Pareto Improvements to make (Part 5).

What’s the Link to the Rapid Assessment Program (RAP)?

The RAP creates the opportunity to determine which improvements to make, and a plan to make them. But these aren’t random changes.

Instead, they are based on a very quick self-diagnostic, and a new understanding of how task management works in real human life. This approach sets you up to make corrections to your task management system at any point in the future.

Find out more about the MyTimeDesign Rapid Assessment Program in this webinar.


Part 11 — Correcting Your System to Match Your Task Volume was originally published in 2Time Labs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.