Productivity: Completing Large Projects with “Next Actions” (Part 1)
Do you have a large project that you're having trouble getting started or moving forward with?
A common time management situation is to be faced with an overwhelming project that's not time-constrained or high-priority, but that's important to do eventually to prevent a crisis. Perhaps it's something that is slowly taking up more and more physical space, or something that is becoming obsolete, or something that requires increasing time and/or money unless you automate or eliminate it. The project is important, but not urgent.
Some past projects like this that I've dealt with were:
- digitizing old journals so I could search and index them
- purging an entire cabinet of paper files
- wanting to start this blog but being intimidated by the effort of setting it up
- signing up a new ecommerce provider
- redesigning an entire website
- transferring all my data and software to new hardware
In each case, there was no urgent reason to attack the project, but the underlying problem grew and began asserting more pressure. I had to start moving. But how to find the time? I had other, higher priority tasks and no spare time to start a new time-consuming venture.
Perhaps you have a garage with shelves that are running out of space. Perhaps your web host provider is getting too expensive, but setting up a new one will be complicated with unknown effects on your website. Or you want to digitize an old film photo collection so you can easily view the pictures again, but you're overwhelmed by all the old albums and boxes.
So you keep procrastinating...
The Lesson of the Magazine Pile
I realized long ago that if you're patient, you can complete huge non-urgent projects a teeny bit at a time. It started with a tall pile of old magazines that I wanted to get rid of. But I knew there were useful bits and pieces in there — articles and tips that I wanted to keep. I didn't want to just throw them away.
So I sorted them by date, and I chose the oldest one, and I set it by my desk. I read it in little bits of "found time" — while downloading, cooking, listening to "on hold" music, waiting for something — rarely more than five minutes in a single stretch. I often read no more than a paragraph at once, and slowly but surely, I finished the first magazine, then the second, then the third...
Years ticked by, but eventually I went through the entire stack... without ever setting aside a moment of dedicated time for the project.
The Principle of Next Actions
The take-away lesson is that you can get through a huge project simply by attacking it one tiny piece by piece, consistently over time. The key is consistency. Don't be overwhelmed by the size of the project. Just do one bit at a time consistently and continually.
This magazine processing consisted of obvious to-do items without much variation. But you can apply the method to any large project using the simple principle of "Next Actions".
The "Next Action" concept is usually attributed to David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) system. Other productivity systems have incorporated similar concepts. The idea is to always know what the next actionable to-do item is, and you can easily use this principle alone if you don't have the time or inclination to adopt the entire GTD system.
“Have you heard the question, "How do you eat an elephant?"... The answer is one bite at a time, and this is one secret to increased productivity. If you take the time to break down larger, more complex activities into manageable and detailed tasks... you will increase your personal productivity...” ~ Kerry Gleeson, The Personal Efficiency Program (1994)
The only rule for this system is: Whenever you do a step, you also decide what the Next Action is.
The Next Action should be self-contained, doable in a very short block of time, and unintimidating. Step by step, tiny bits of time can add up to significant measurable progress.
If you don't decide the Next Action when finishing the previous one (for example, in case you were interrupted), then the Next Action is exactly that: To decide the Next Action.
In the next post, we'll talk more about determining your next step and letting yourself work more slowly, not pressuring yourself.
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