Peace of Mind Organizing

Getting things done with Autofocus

17 September 2009

I’ve written quite a bit about Autofocus, the task-management system invented by my favorite time-management guru, Mark Forster. The original Autofocus debuted on January 5, 2009. I was an eager beta tester and became an enthusiastic user.

After about seven months, Mark issued a revision of AF. (He called it AF2.) I found this a bit jarring, because the original was working well for me. But I was game to give the new version a try. Just when I got used to it, about a month later, Mark issued a third version (Revised Autofocus). After another month, on September 5, Mark issued instructions for a new, fourth version (AF4).

Now, I would have been happy with the first version never changing. And I’m under no obligation to try the revisions. But of course, I’m finding it irresistible to try them.

My main challenge with the original Autofocus system was that it didn’t handle urgent items well. I think that’s been the main focus of the revisions. Yesterday, I put AF4 into motion on my post-Australia to-do list. It had 69 items on it. I got through 25 of them yesterday, quite effortlessly. I have to admit, I was feeling overwhelmed by the tasks before starting, but once I dove into my list, that anxiety started to vanish.

Here are a few of the things I love about Autofocus (this applies to all the versions):

• It gives me a place to capture my tasks, so I don’t have to rely on my memory
• It doesn’t require me to prioritize or categorize my tasks
• It works with my intuition
• It’s easy to implement
• It’s free
• There’s tons of support available for it on the discussion forums of Mark’s website
• It helps me be productive
• It helps me stop procrastinating
• Thanks to Mark’s ingenuity and perseverance, it continues to improve

If you haven’t tried Autofocus yet, I encourage you to give it a shot. Mark’s kindly consolidated the links to instructions for all four versions. It’s easy to try out—all you need is a notebook and a pen.

If you do try it (or you have), I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Tagged with: autofocus, mark forster, productivity, task management, time management

Comments