Update on Do It Tomorrow - Part One

So I've been into "Do It Tomorrow" (DIT) for almost a month now.

What have I learnt?

• You get out of it what you put into it
• I have now cracked my email management issues!!
• I now know what a work diary is really for
• This is not a "read once" kind of book...

I bought a Filofax last year in response to having dropped one too many PDA's and wanting something that wouldn't reboot itself wiping clean all the pages. To be honest I was carrying this flash looking, leather bound thing around with me everywhere looking like a Mormon swinging a bible, but I wasn't really getting any great value out of it.

Well after reading DIT I finally feel I have harnessed the value of my filofax.

1. Each day in my diary has my daily routine listed on the bottom of the page. This includes the standard email, voicemail, paperwork and also some systems I need to check/input into daily. There are also some of my 'little and often' tasks that could do with a little attention each day.
   
2. All time-fixed arrangements (meetings, calls etc) get entered and become the things I have to work around to complete my daily list.
3. On the top of my page I have a double ruled margin to show my task diary for the day.
4. At the end of the previous day I draw a line under my task diary list and this becomes the space for any immediate and same-day tasks.
5. Not shown on the diagram, but I can work out how much 'Unscheduled' (aka free) time I have to tackle my jobs for the day. I can also estimate how much time each activity on my list should take and reconcile the two to see if I have enough time in the day to tackle all I have committed to. If not, then I need to slide things onto future dates.

So then as I go through the day I tick off things as I complete them. I sometimes pencil in big tasks to make sure I have a decent space for completing them. If at the end of the day I haven't completed something I put a circle, rather than a tick, against it to show that is missing the big tick.

But really, how has it gone?
Well I started strongly...
I found myself diving back into the book; initially to check things like "What does it mean when you 'DO' email?"; but then I was looking at the chapters around "Am I committed to doing this activity?" because I found I had too many things in my day and activities were starting to slip.
So far I have only declared my initial 'backlog' and am contemplating whether I ought to declare another one.
One of the difficulties I had was identifying my Current Initiatives (CI) - some of the things I had on my list of CI's were pipedreams at best and the moment I gave them some time in my day found that I wasn't really ready to bite off more than I could chew. I have found it an interesting exercise to say the least.
Overall I feel I really do have a system for dealing with my day and I am yet to fully master it.
One thing about DIT and my filofax - it really does need to be attached to my hip if I am to capture tasks and schedule them properly.

In Part Two I am going to rub people's noses in it by telling them how I have mastered email and will never again be ruled by such a cruel and heartless waste of time!