Final Version a great success!
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The occasion of the 5,000th person signing up for the Final Version is a good time to send out the second edition of the newsletter. This has an alternative version of the Final Version, which is extremely powerful but is not for the faint-hearted.
The feed-back received so far for the instructions in Issue 1 has been uniformly good. Here is a small selection of the comments from the new FV Forum on my website:
"Many thanks to Mark for the new system, the two words that come to mind are 'powerful' and 'elegant'. It's the Rudolf Nureyev of systems!" Spangles.
"Loving FV. Simple, fast, easy to explain to others, instantly useful... I believe Mark has created a work of genius." Scott Moehring. "It truly is an elegant and ingenious system. It is a great achievement. Congratulations!" Mike D. "The new system is awesome." Christopher. You can read many more comments at www.markforster.net If you've received the instructions and haven't tried them out yet, what are you waiting for? You can't afford not to! |
An Alternative More Powerful but More Difficult Version of FV
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If you're up for it, try this alternative version of Final Version. It's not intended to supplant the standard FV described in Issue 1, but is an interesting alternative for those who are exceptionally self-motivated individuals, or for all of us when we have some particularly heavy tasks to get through. Be warned - it is not for the faint-hearted!
The only change to the rules is the question. Instead of "What do I want to do before I do x?", the question becomes "What am I resisting more than x?"
Note that there should be a definite step up in the amount you are resisting each task for every link in the chain. Don't string together tasks for which you feel much the same amount of resistance.
If you do this properly the last task in your chain will be the task you are resisting the most. This is important because a generalized feeling of overwhelm or paralysis often comes from your having high resistance to one particular task or project. No matter how much you try to deal with other work, the feeling of overwhelm will only go away when you tackle this highest resistance task. Once you have got this moving, so much energy is released that you can start getting everything else moving as well.
In this method the smaller tasks are left to fend for themselves. That's fine, because if you get the big things done, the little things will look after themselves. In fact a lot of them will drop away because they are no longer needed to avoid doing the difficult stuff.
Unlike "standard FV", this method works on the "cycling downhill" principle. This means you do the most difficult thing first then each successive task in the chain gets easier and easier.
When you try this method, remember you may need to use every trick in the book to get that most difficult task started. Identify the first step, however small, and do that. If you can do more, do it. But if you can't don't worry - you've made a start. Everything after that is cycling downhill. |