Final Version Perfected: An Underused Execution Algorithm
TLDR * Final Version Perfected (FVP) is a highly effective algorithm for deciding which tasks from your To-Do lists to do in what order. * The design of the algorithm makes it far more efficient than exhaustive ranking, while (in my experience) far more effective than just reading through the tasks and picking one out. * FVP is most useful when you have a large number of tasks to choose from, don’t have time to do all of them, and are initially unsure about which is best. * I find FVP very effective at overcoming psychological issues like indecision, procrastination, or psychological aversion to particular tasks. * Currently there are limited online tools available, and I mostly use FVP with paper lists. Ideas (or tools) for better online execution of FVP would be very valuable to me. Introduction Execution is the Last Mile Problem of productivity infrastructure. You can put as much effort as you like into organising your goals, organising your To-Do lists, organising your calendar, but sooner or later you will be presented with more than one thing you could reasonably be doing with your time. When that happens, you will need some sort of method for choosing what that thing will be, and actually getting started. Most people, I think, face this problem by either just doing the thing that is top-of-mind or looking through their To-Do list and picking something out. This works fine when the next thing to do is obvious, and you have no problems getting started on it. But when you have many potential things to do and aren’t sure which is best, or when you kind of know what the best next thing is but are avoiding it for one reason or another, you need a better system. That system needs to be quick to execute, easy to remember, and effective at actually having you do the best next task. It needs to be robust to your psychological weaknesses, minimising procrastination, indecision, and ugh fields. It needs to be efficient, requiring as little work as possible to id
That's the old limit; it was changed last year. See e.g. this figure from Blatchley et al.