Hi guys -

I devised the system (over more than twenty years) because I am the ultimate excitable multi-tasker. I am not happy unless surrounded by piles of paper (and three keyboards) that I can put my hand on instantly and switch from one thing to another. I first sketched it out when I had a job as Deputy Director of Operational Control for a large group of hospitals. Half my job was strategic planning over a ten year time scale: the other half was operational and included running a payroll of 15,000 staff. People who didn’t get paid properly wouldn’t sit down and write polite letters and wait a few weeks for a response - they turned up outside my office with a brick in their hand. So metaphorically I had to devise a method of clearing my desk instantly before it was covered with shards of glass from the window. At the end of each day I am buzzing with ideas and find it difficult to wind down for even the few minutes that the end-of-day review requires, but I have trained myself to think of it in the same light as cleaning my teeth. It’s a chore, but hell, it makes the next morning taste better.

Very happy to receive correspondence: there are many other aspects to the system that I have refined for my own specific purposes that may be of interest.

Kind regards