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December 27, 2005

Project actions

One of the questions that often comes up in seminars is about how to keep project actions moving forward. For example, when the action step for a project is done, when do I choose the next one and where do I go?

First off, consider your projects to be the "game" you are playing and action steps as the "next play". All of my project names are listed together in one list called "Projects". By the way, I've also seen it work really well to have 3 separate lists for Projects-Work, Projects-Personal and even Projects-Delegated. It's entirely your choice. My work and personal life is so intertwined it just makes sense for me to keep them all on one list.

All of my next actions (some are moving parts of projects and some have nothing to do with projects), all go on the action lists separated by context (anywhere, calls, computer, errands, home, office, waiting for). Each project could have several next actions that can all be done now so each of those can get listed on one of the action lists based on where I need to be to take the action as long as they are independent of each other. Any actions that are dependent on one of those actions happening first would not go on the action lists yet--those would be captured wherever I am keeping project plans for that project (such as any project management software, manilla file folder, digital folder, notes field for the project where it's listed on the projects list etc.) As soon as I complete a next action from an action list I can either go back to my project plans if I need to grab another next action or sometimes the next action is just obvious to me and I don't need to go back to anywhere else to figure that out. I will then either do the action or put it on an action list if I need to shift gears and come back to the project at a later time. Sometimes figuring out the next action will happen as soon as the other one is done or as a safety net it will get figured out in my weekly review.

A big key is that the action lists are for current next actions only. In the right context, I could do whatever is on those lists. Anything that is considered a dependency (meaning something needs to happen first before I can take that action) goes into project planning, or back to our sports analogy, it sits on the sidelines until it's ready to come into play.

A nice way to pull your actions related to projects back together is to use some kind of key word in every entry for that project. For example, if I've got a project called "ACME" I would use that keyword in all of the actions I create, so if I'm on an electronic system a quick search on ACME will show me all of the related entries. Even if you are on a paper system, a keyword system can be handy for visual clues to see how things are related.

Posted by Kelly at December 27, 2005 02:53 PM

Comments

Posted by: Matthew Cornell at December 28, 2005 06:21 AM