At the heart of the timeline system, there's one constant mantra, and a standout modus operandi: the persistent practice of pushing everything to the next logical, reasonable or opportune time on the timeline.

This is the one, relentless protocol for anything that you want to keep alive on your timeline – anything that you want to see, remember, touch, act upon or think about.

By now, you've seen this phrase at least 30 times. Right about now would be a good time to briefly expand on it.

Pushing everything to the next logical, reasonable or opportune time on the timeline, is both a concept and a workflow. This is the driving force behind the timeline. You don't need a manual or a checklist or a set of instructions to work this system or to maintain it.

1. Logical

We're always going to push something to the next logical time:

a. To the next time it repeats on the timeline. That's logical enough.

b. To the next time something requires our attention. We're not going to push something directly to the date of its deadline or due date… but rather to a time prior to the deadline. We need enough run-up time, enough leeway to work on anything before its deadline. So if your deadline is next Friday, you might push it to Wednesday. That would give you two-and-a-half days to work on something before the deadline or the day of an event. You could then set aside blocks of time for that task (maybe a proposal or a pitch) and spend an hour or two working at it on Wednesday and Thursday, and then finish it off on Friday.

c. You'll want to cancel a subscription before the next billing cycle, or purchase more cellular data before the expiry date, so that you're not caught unawares. The latest time you would push those items to is the day before.

d. It's a piece of cake figuring out preparation time. Let's take birthdays, for instance: you'll need to do some thinking about a gift or an activity prior to a birthday. You can then order something online with plenty of time for the gift to arrive before the big day.

We always push items to the next time that makes sense. That's the question we ask ourselves. It may take a split second or more to decide… but the next logical time on our timeline is rather clear.

2. Reasonable

We need to push any item to the next reasonable time on our timeline when we choose not to deal with it right now. We may need to clear out our schedule to focus on an important activity… but the thing that we're pushing forward will also need to be taken care of at a reasonable time. Maybe a month from now would be too late or cutting it too fine… so we might push an item to the same day next week. This would create space to focus on other things that need focusing on right now… but it'd also give ample time to deal with that item that's been pushed ahead, in a reasonable time frame before its deadline.

We need to ask ourselves how far from now it would be reasonable to push something. We can only make our best estimate, and then push it to that spot on our timeline. The next reasonable time takes into account the workload we have right now and what is reasonably possible to deal with. This will mean limiting our work in progress for the sake of focusing on certain important things now (à la Kanban)… and pushing what can be pushed forward in the timeline to a reasonable place.

I need to make a phone call to the South African Embassy in Brasilia to get information about my passport renewal process… but right now I'm doubly focused on writing this book (and diplomatic protocols stress me out) – and so I ask myself when the next reasonable time might be to push this task to. I figure, to about a week after publishing this book. It seems reasonable to me.

3. Opportune

Often, we need to take advantage of strategic days or moments. With a little forethought, it's easy to see when the next opportune time will be. I could send another WorkFlowy Academy newsletter out in about a month… but I wouldn't be taking advantage of the opportunity between now and then. The next opportune time would be at the launch of this book, just a couple of days away, at the time of writing. That's an opportune time. I'm going to hustle and take advantage of pivotal moments.

The next opportune time for me to go birdwatching would be tomorrow – Saturday morning. I can head out early and get back mid-morning. I don't have to take the girls to school or sports practice. They'll sleep in, while I get to go on a trail in an urban forest.

Perpetual motion

Pushing things to the next logical, reasonable or opportune time is our perpetual motion machine. It keeps everything moving forward. It is both the act of scheduling as well as maintaining our system, one micro decision at a time. It's one and the same thing. When you schedule or reschedule something, that right there takes care of the timeline's maintenance.

It's like using a set of logs or poles to move a small fishing boat up onto the beach. By placing the poles in front of the boat and rolling the boat forward over them, the boat moves up from the shore, further away from the breaking waves. As the boat gets pushed along, the poles come out the back… and they are recycled by placing them back at the front. With just one or two poles recycled to the front of the boat, you can keep the boat moving steadily forward.

Here in the Northeast of Brazil, I've often seen fisherman bringing their jangadas back onto shore, rolling them over cylindrical, rubber boat fenders or logs. It's a methodical, step-by-step process.

Micro decisions

Making micro decisions is the other side of the same coin. You make micro decisions when you push anything to the next logical, reasonable or opportune time on the timeline – and through making constant micro decisions, one is able to eliminate weekly planning sessions.

By making one micro decision at a time, and pushing everything to the next logical, reasonable or opportune time on the timeline, you're ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks. This is because everything lives ahead of you on your timeline. It's impossible to lose or forget anything, because the only place for things to go is ahead of you on your timeline – and one day at a time, those same items that you pushed out, will stream back towards you. You see something exactly when you plan to see it.

Your micro decisions, when pushing items ahead in your timeline, feed a system where you don't need to revise disparate outlines again and again, over time, so that you can identify and pull things out into some sort of consolidated to-do list for today. All the things you intend to do already live on your timeline, and they stream towards you one day at a time. You don't need to go and find them. There's a time and a place for them, and that time is moving towards you. You couldn't stop it, no matter how hard you try.

By micro decisions, I don't mean that you're making a million little decisions for every task in every project. It just means pushing any task or project to the next time you'd like to think about it, plan the next steps, or organize a project outline and determine a workflow. Not everything has to be pinned down. Not everything has to be decided upon. The best we can do—the most reasonable course of action—is to determine a time when we're going to think further on a project or an isolated task… and then push the item to that time or date on your timeline. A micro decision is making a decision in the moment, as to the next time you will see something on your timeline. Micro decisions have a cumulative effect. We'll be touching upon this again not too far from now.

A sneaky feeling

Nothing is going to sneak up on you and take you by surprise. Neither a birthday reminder nor an event, neither a project deadline nor an expiry date.

Before long, you'll get the hang of determining how much time you need to invest in a project before its due date. You can easily figure out how much wiggle room you need before an important event. Whatever preparation time you need, you'll take that into account when making your decision.

A really helpful thing to do—with any system really—is to plan your schedule for the next day, the night before. The timeline makes this incredibly easy: the only thing you need to do is pull the next day's items from your calendar into your daily-planner time slots. You don't need to go looking in different places. The timeline brings everything to you.

Prioritizing vs scheduling →