Overview
Next action lists only hold your next actions.
David Allen defines a “next action,” as “the next physical, visible activity that needs to beengaged in, in order to move the current reality toward completion.”
For example, a classic old-school to-do might be something like “Plan Tom's Surprise Going-Away Party,” “Clean out the Garage,” or “Get the Car Fixed.” But, as Allen cannily notes, these are each really small projects since they require more than one activity in order to be considered complete.
Learning to honor that distinction between a task and its parent project may, in fact, be the most important step you can take toward improving the quality and “do-ability” of the work on your list.
By always breaking projects of any size into their true constituent next actions--and it's definitely okay to have several at once per project--we're making it fast and easy to always know what should be happening next.
Instructions:
Select a project from your list and write its name at the top of a sheet of paper.
Break the Project down into “Next Actions” for the project. Keep the following in minid.
Articulate your to-dos in terms of physical activity--even when they require only modest amounts of actual exertion. To do so ensures that you've thought through your task to a point where you can envision how it will need to be undertaken and what it will actually feel like once you're doing it.This means you can easily visualize the activity, the kinds of tools you'll need, and perhaps even the setting where the work should take place.
Try phrasing your task in a form like:“verb the noun with the object.” Not “Year-end report,” but “Download Q3 spreadsheet from work server.” Not “Meet with Anil,” you'd probably want to “Email Anil on Monday to schedule monthly disco funk party.” Whittle the task down to one activity that you can accomplish completely at a sitting.“A sitting” will vary for you, but I try to never plan a task that would take more than ten minutes (your level of busy-ness might command even smaller-sized tasks).
Publish and Flourish Workshop
3. Get the verbs right. Notice how we're breaking these Big Nouns into little verbs?That's deliberate.With that original to-do for your presentation, you might theoretically just keep “preparing” your presentation until some arbitrary alarm bell goes off in your head, saying “Yeah, okay, that looks like a fully-prepared presentation, so you can stop.” But a better-defined chunk of activity suggests a task with clear edges; it has a beginning and an end.
This enables you to keep putting one foot in front of the other, ensuring that you always know what to do next, instead of half-assing your way through a badly-defined pile of fuzzy nouns. This physicality and functional piece-work act in concert to make the planning and execution of your tasks as stress-free and unintimidating as possible.
Knowing that every item on your to-do list is a familiar task that can be accomplished before lunch can be wildly empowering. It's just up to you to ensure that all your work is segmented, shaped, and stacked into units that can fit through the windows that are available to you.
Next Action Trigger List
Annotate
Assemble
Complete
Contact
Design
Ensure
Finalize
Handle
Implement
Identify
Inventory
Install
Look into
Organize
Maximize
Read
Resolve
Review
Revise
Roll out
Set-up
Skim
Submit
Update
Next Action Trigger List
Advisor
Annotations
Chart
Citations
Co author
Committee
Compose
Data
Design
Draft
Graph
Index
Illustration
Library
Map
Notes
Outline
Proposal
Research
Revision
Section
Source
Table
Table of Contents