Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management

I have been following the precepts laid down in this book for the last three weeks. By adopting Forster's methods, I have seen my productivity soar 30-40%. By accomplishing more, I am experiencing a qualitative improvement in feelings of well-being and contentment.There is no magic to improved productivity. You have to do the work. No system will do the work for you. But there are experimentally validated, proven tricks for getting oneself motivated to do things instead of procrastinate. Forster is a master of these tricks and he lays them out in clear, simple language in his book.The key insights are almost laughably simple. So simple, it's all too easy to reject them as childishly simplistic. But they work if you give them a try. And if you have substantial, difficult, and complex goals that still remain to be accomplished, you owe it to yourself to give Forster's method a test.The fundamental fact of human nature that underlies Forster's system is that we crave completion. Forster criticizes conventional to-do lists because we can add new items to them throughout the day, impeding us from ever completing them. Forster's solution is to create a list of items to do tomorrow, and then draw a line under those items. If you complete everything above the line, you've succeeded.Of course you never know exactly what will come up tomorrow. Things are going to demand your immediate attention and you will have to do them as well. But those new things are things you add below the line of the list you made up yesterday. As much as possible, you try to avoid doing today incoming new tasks that came in today. Your goal is to complete today all the items that you wrote down yesterday for today.You can't imagine how powerful a motivator it is to complete today's list until you try it. The mind does crave completion. If it's getting near the end of the day and I still have a few items remaining on my list, I will move heaven and earth to get them completed. If there are still two hours left in the day and I am almost done with my list, I will complete those items. Then I will spend those two hours doing whatever I want. Maybe I'll do some more work. Or maybe I'll goof off. If I choose to goof off I will do so totally guilt-free. I know that I've done what I've set out to do and I know that I deserve the time off.I've been following David Allen's Getting Things Done system for more than five years. I have found that adding Mark Forster's list-making system to Getting Things Done has been a boon to my productivity.

The strategies in this book are very practical and build upon other time management strategies I have been exposed to before. In addition to explaining those strategies better, the author offers some useful insights about how the brain works and tips on how to leverage that to be productive. Finally, there are somenew strategies that are also useful in being orgnized and productive. I found the recommendations in this book to be more practical and effective then Getting Things Done.

Yes, I've tried a lot of time management advice and still was overwhelmed and miserable. Luckily, Mark Forster's "Do It Tomorrow" is more about teaching you to manage how you approach your at-work work and life work than about managing time. Time takes care of itself. Those of us who struggle to get things done (yes, I know ... been there) need a better approach to work so that we can give ourselves time and mental energy to complete projects and tasks.I find his description of our innate reptilian-brain resistance very telling, and I have been helped by the suggestions he offers to get unstuck. I learned a lot about my job and how I was handling the random things that get added to my To Do list by doing his exercises for one week, and I now have notes that are helping me better schedule the amount of time I really need to do the most complex and creative parts of my job. The parts I love most. Among other things, I learned that I way overschedule myself and then descend into a spiral of misery over being behind.I'm two weeks into the post-exercise keeping up with the program now, and I think it's proving workable over the long haul.I finally found what really is my backlog (the pile that everything undone goes in when you start with a clean slate keeping up with the things you've learned you need to keep up with) and he is right: I am able to build in time to address the backlog and already it is smaller. And I'm caught up with everything else.Forster's advice addresses what needs to happen in your head and with your basic work processes so you become able to get your work done. Like I said, time takes care of itself.

The main takeaway from this book is the idea of the closed list. I love it. Once you have planned out a day's work, all new actionable items get dealt with "tomorrow", preferably in the morning during the planning stage of your day. You don't stop whatever you are working on to respond to an email, or to fill out a child's field trip form, or to make that phone call you've been meaning to make that is still on your mind. You capture all these little interruptions -- he says write it below the line, but I just put everything on a post it or index card and toss it in my inbasket, and then empty it first thing every morning.The other thing I loved was his whole lizard on a rock analogy, and how a lizard on a rock is just responding to life events (danger, I'd better move, tasty bug, I'd better stick out my tongue and eat it) This was just the right pep talk for me at this point in my life. It suddenly made the whole idea of having goals, large and small, critically important to me. The lizard might live to a ripe old age and be perfectly content, but I really recoil at the idea of being so reactive to the world. And yet, all these goals I had ten years ago, I haven't got any where with them because I haven't actually worked on the goal.Finally, he talks about how people THINK they need will power, and the ability to force themselves to muscle through their tasks, but actually they need to design systems that are effortless and that support them in achieving their objectives.Anyway, this book combined with Getting Things Done by David Allen can really transform your life.

This book has blown my mind. Quite seriously, I nearly didn't read this because I didn't have time to read a time management book. From stressed out, spread thin, fire fighting, non progressing, overwhelmed, frustrated mum, wife and wanna be success, to calm, strategic, effective and efficient individual who can even cope, nay, feel excited about planning her new website while making huge progress in all other areas AND close the lid on her laptop and hang out with the kids. If you knew me, you would appreciate the magnitude of change and happiness this book has given me. An absolutely incredible book and thank you SO much Mr Mark Forster!!!

For years I have desperately been reading books on how to manage my time and stop procrastinating, and this is the best one I have found so far.It gives practical exercises that are easy to follow, and also gives advice for when you 'fall off the wagon' and slide back into old habits, so that you can get back to the organised version of you again.I finally feel like I am evolving into a proper grown-up, and can get on top of all of my work, emails, chores, and social/family commitments.

I was fortunate enough to qualify for one toone coaching through work, and this book was recommended reading by the coach as I often struggle with time management. I would say there are some pertinent points made, and advice gratefully received.

This book is excellent, having read other reviews before I purchased when I started to read read it I was couldn't understand why it had got such good reviews. It does time a few chapters it get into the flow, but is well worth the wait.By adopting the recommended approach and changing your mind set in less than a week I have restored order to my working day.The self test questions at the end of each chapter are really good as they help emphasise the key points covered in each chapter.The methods recommended simple, but do require an open mind and a commitment to change, but then so do most things that help you improve. If your willing to give it a go through suddenly you realise how much you can achieve but 'doing it tomorrow'.I can't stop recommending this book and the approach this book offers to enough people.

I don't normally leave feedback and I don't recall the last review I did but I was so impressed with this book that I thought I would share it.This book seems to have been written about me. Starting to do list after to do list and constantly finding that I was actually doing very little apart from writing out lists. I get to the end of the day and try to figure out why my jobs for the day were not done and where all the time went. I have read the first 40 pages of the book so far and could not put it down. There are lots of time management books out there but this one seems to actually understand why things are not getting done. There are principles in the book which clearly set out what you need to do and why. Exercises clearly demonstrate the principles and give you a good idea of what is going wrong and what you can do about it. I have registered on Mark Forsters website for news letters and I am putting some of the early exercises to the test.Well worth adding this to your reading list.