The Surfacing Method
The Surfacing Method
A practical guide to task management for people with too much to do.
Start with the introduction
54 pages · about 2 hours to read end to end
Contents
Introduction
Something Feels Off
7
min
Part
1
Why Every System You’ve Tried Has Failed You
1.1
The work changed. The tools didn’t.
2
min
1.2
Failure Mode 1: The fat list
3
min
1.3
Failure Mode 2: Selective entry
2
min
1.4
Failure Mode 3: Due date inflation
3
min
1.5
Failure Mode 4: Plan rigidity
2
min
Part
2
The Core Loop, Getting Good Data In
2.1
Capture: Close the loops
4
min
2.2
Exercise: The full capture
1
min
2.3
Turn stuff into actions
5
min
2.4
Exercise: Clarify your capture list
1
min
2.5
Sources and further reading
2
min
Part
3
Cleaning It Up, Giving Each Task Its Shape
3.1
Organize: Describe, don’t decide
2
min
3.2
Ranking, part one: Grouping
5
min
3.3
Ranking, part two: own impact
1
min
3.4
Timing, part one: is this even actionable yet?
3
min
3.5
Timing, part two: is there a real deadline?
3
min
Part
4
Setting Up Your System
4.1
Why you can’t do this by hand
4
min
4.2
Two ways to get there: a process or a computation
3
min
4.3
Setting up your spreadsheet system
7
min
4.4
Setting up your paper system
5
min
4.5
Building the Hot List (paper)
3
min
Part
5
Living With It, Running the System Day to Day
5.1
The catch-point: capture now, shape later
4
min
5.2
The morning pass
2
min
5.3
The one use of a calendar
3
min
5.4
Working the list through the day
4
min
5.5
Following up on other people
1
min
Part
6
When the System Does the Work
6.1
The wall I hit first: everything was frozen the moment I looked away
1
min
6.2
The wall of depth: two levels was never really enough
2
min
6.3
The wall of tags: one context per task was never quite true
1
min
6.4
The wall of dependencies: things are blocked by more than one thing
1
min
6.5
What it asks you to trust
1
min