Top all-time · #2904
Mark Forster
Personal blog · markforster.squarespace.com/blogproductivity
Mark Forster's personal blog at markforster.squarespace.com covers productivity. Since 2012, 27 different Hacker News readers have linked it 39 times, most often “The Final Version Perfected (time-management/productivity)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-10-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (29) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Mark Forster's blog on to-do list and productivity systems such as Autofocus and Final Version, plus procrastination and resistance. HN readers link it as a source of simple, intuitive list methods.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 29 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
time management, personal organisation, self development, final version, autofocus, superfocus, fv
Most-linked posts?
- The Final Version Perfected (time-management/productivity)6 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2015-07-03
- Resistance: How to Make the Most of It – The Resistance Zero System3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-01-25
- Autofocus time management system3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-01-03
- /3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2012-10-05
- /final-version-faqs/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-07-17
- Final Version Perfected (FVP) Instructions2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-12-24
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-03-15
- /tm-systems/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-02-21
What Hacker News says?
For those who have struggled as I have with the Zeigarnik effect attempting to do David Allen's GTD or other list-based systems, there is an answer: http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-final-... More on Zeigarnik here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeigarnik_effect
Comment linking /blog/2015/5/21/the-final-version-perfected-fvp.html
on “Productivity”Submitted Autofocus time management system as a story · 6 points
HN discussionJust my testimonial for the book The Now Habit. I found it on the library shelf at work. Was skeptical but interested. Borrowed it. Loved it. Told people. Endured their jokes about how long I would take to finish reading it, if ever. Started using some of its exercises and remedies. Ran out of renewals. Returned it to work. Wanted a hardcover but couldn't find one. Bought it from the Kindle store instead. Just finis…
Comment linking /
on “Procrastination is Not Laziness”Submitted Rest in Peace Mark Forster as a story · 4 points
HN discussionVery interesting. When I need to make myself work on something (which creates a new problem: deciding to force yourself to do something) I have 2 main techniques (I just realized you could probably do both methods together.) Method 1. Incrementing time boxes (the first step is similar to yours actually). Set a timer for 1 minute and do it for one minute. Then 2 minutes, then 3, and so on. (At some point you'll be wo…
Comment linking /forum/post/2713432
on “Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs”Submitted Resistance: How to Make the Most of It – The Resistance Zero System as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> How do you envision you’ll work through all of the captured notes? Do it all at the end of the day? Not entirely sure yet. My current setup involves an Apple shortcut that sends a text blob to my email inbox with the subject "Note to self", where I have a filter set up to send emails with that subject line to a specific folder. Once the notes are in my inbox, I go through them whenever I get around to clearing my…
Comment linking /blog/2022/6/14/resistance-how-to-make-the-most-of-it-the-resistance-zero-sy.html
on “Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain”Submitted Resistance: How to Make the Most of It – The Resistance Zero System as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI used GTD religiously for a while, but I ran into the same issue of having difficulty deciding what to do right now . After trying a bunch of different approaches to how to set up 'contexts', I eventually came across Mark Forster's 'AutoFocus', which after a bunch of adjustments turned into this: http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-final-... Key paragraph that explains why this worked better for m…
Comment linking /blog/2015/5/21/the-final-version-perfected-fvp.html
on “A Beginner´s Guide to Getting Things Done”Submitted Final Version Perfected (FVP) Instructions as a story · 2 points
HN discussionPlainorg is awesome. Keep up the great work. The app has enabled me to use the org-mode based plaintext productivity system I've found most effective on my phone. Super useful. Incidentally, the system I use is from Mark Forster's 'Autofocus' constellation of productivity experiments. Unfortunate that his work is not more widely known because it's quite effective (for me at least). Here's a link to the version I use…
Comment linking /blog/2021/11/16/the-final-version-perfected-fvp-instructions-reposted.html
on “My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)”Submitted The Final Version Perfected (time-management/productivity) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThis is basically this auto focus system I was introduced to. I use Google Sheets so I can have a few columns. I can print it out if needed, and easily accessible on my phone and desktop. http://markforster.squarespace.com/autofocus-system
Comment linking /autofocus-system
on “My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)”Submitted Simple scanning – a simple long-list productivity system as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThe prioritization tip reminded me of "Final Version" productivity system that I personally like. It's just one big-ass list of everything and you pick and do stuff at random (more or less). Yes, it sounds silly, but I found out that it works better than constantly re-ordering goals. :-) http://markforster.squarespace.com/final-version-faqs/
Comment linking /final-version-faqs/
on “How To Do Less”Submitted The Final Version Perfected (FVP) – Get Everything Done as a story · 1 points
HN discussionA simple todo list system that I love, and that is built on the idea of structured procrastination, is Mark Forster's "Final Version Perfected" system. It is described here: http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-final-...
Comment linking /blog/2015/5/21/the-final-version-perfected-fvp.html
on “Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term”There are other approaches that don't involve self-deception but instead work on your intuition about what you're best equipped to deal with at the time... http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-final-...
Comment linking /blog/2015/5/21/the-final-version-perfected-fvp.html
on “Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term”I find Mark Forster's FV (Final Version) to be a great synthesis of structured procrastination as well as a way of creating the feeling that I got stuff done. Plus it's so minimalistic. http://markforster.squarespace.com/
Comment linking /
on “Marc Andreessen’s Productivity Trick to Feeling Marvelously Efficient”Mark Forster has written some very interesting ideas about todo lists (and the management thereof). http://markforster.squarespace.com/ One thing that's very cool about Mark Forster's approaches is that they have always had the notion of going with your intuition on what you should be working on and they've also had a mechanism of throwing stuff away from the list. I totally agree about todo lists generally becoming…
Comment linking /
on “Todon't”> " …here’s the method I am using at the moment with great success. You need a random-number generator to work it." http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2014/1/22/random-tim...
Comment linking /blog/2014/1/22/random-time-management.html
on “Could a randomness machine help you fight procrastination?”I read the FVP post [1]...I'm slightly incredulous: it's just a list. That you scan and pick things from. I'm not sure if I should be impressed or underwhelmed at the simplicity. There are no categories, no contexts, no markers, no due dates... I'm not sure what makes this is a "system". What's odd is that the author seems to have had previous incarnations/systems, that were actually more complex, e.g. had separate…
Comment linking /blog/2015/5/27/a-day-with-fvp.html
on “GTD sucks for creative work. Here’s an alternative system”I've spent years applying GTD, but at some point I realized that 1) I failed at implementing it more often than not, and 2) it seems optimized for management-type situations, and doesn't work as well for, say, artists or even programmers. If it works for you, of course that's great! And I think there are tons of individual elements in GTD that are valuable even if the whole system is not applied. But for me it didn'…
Comment linking /blog/2015/5/21/the-final-version-perfected-fvp.html
on “Guide to Personal Productivity Methods”I've definitely found that if I can trick myself into getting started, I often end up looking back on a productive day. The Pomodoro approach has been somewhat successful in making this happen. Another approach that works well for me is the 'Final Version' productivity 'system' by Mark Forster [1]. The key trick is that it's okay to just do 'a bit' of something on your list and then mark it as completed (and re-add…
Comment linking /blog/2015/5/21/the-final-version-perfected-fvp.html
on “Fire And Motion (2002)”I really love autofocus for this: http://markforster.squarespace.com/autofocus-system/ It gives you the permission to "just" work on something for five minutes. I like to look at it like this: time management systems and practices, at the personal level, are stacking lego blocks. You find the pieces that work for you and combine them - there's no one true system. Calendar stacking solves one particular problem - tha…
Comment linking /autofocus-system/
on “What I Learned About Productivity by Writing About Productivity”Wow. What I haven't tried before... One html file wiki (tiddlywiki i think). Something like 3 self written web task editors before DropBox happened. Mori (kind of evernote from the past), Google Wave (still missing it), made couple of money tracking apps with couchdb, remotestorage and other offline capable but syncing apps for personal use on mobile. Currently Notes: Plain text notes with markdown elements synced v…
Comment linking /blog/2009/1/6/autofocus-system-instructions.html?printerFriendly=true
on “Ask HN: What do you use to organize your knowledge?”For me, simplicity and reduction of resistance [0] were the most effective improvements. Mark is always kind enough to explain the psychological underpinnings of productivity, or its absence. [0] http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2022/6/13/resistance...
Comment linking /blog/2022/6/13/resistance-the-key-time-management-concept.html
on “Ask HN: How to be productive without making lists?”I got this book [0] by Mark Forster [1], tried the techniques and found out what works for me. It is a gold mine. The author describes in his blog [2] many more of his ideas and experiments about productivity. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26171733-secrets-of-prod... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Forster_(author) [2] http://markforster.squarespace.com
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: How to be productive without making lists?”I use Mark Forster's "Final Version - Perfected" algorithm for tracking and selecting what to work on next. http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-final-...
Comment linking /blog/2015/5/21/the-final-version-perfected-fvp.html
on “Ask HN: Share your best personal productivity tips and tricks”I've always liked his "Final Version" method better, where you select tasks you want to do, and then do them in reverse order. http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-final-...
Comment linking /blog/2015/5/21/the-final-version-perfected-fvp.html
on “Autofocus System (2009)”
