How to Brainstorm Next Actions at the Start of a Project

This week, we’re looking at David Allen’s quote: “what does doing look like?”

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Episode 241 | Script

Hello and welcome to episode 241 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host for this show.

In his book; Getting Things Done, David Allen uses the term: “What does doing look like?”. Now for those of you who have read the book, this quote probably washed over you in the excitement of learning about contexts, next action, ticklers and someday maybes. 

However, these five words connect perfectly to a common issue many people face. We know we need to do something, and we have a reasonable idea of what the finished something is, but we are not clear on what we need to do in order to accomplish it.

This results in tasks that are unclear or seemingly too large to do, and we end up stalling and postponing the task. 

So, this week, we’re going to look at this and see where we can get some clarity. And that means it’s time for me now to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. 

This week’s question comes from Joseph. Joseph asks, Hi Carl, I find I am avoiding doing a lot of my tasks because I am not sure what exactly I need to do. I might have a task to contact someone about something, but when I sit down to do it, my mind is blank, and I procrastinate and then don’t do it. How do you make your tasks doable?

Hi Joseph, thank you for your question. 

That’s a good question, and it reminded me of David Allen's quote about knowing what doing looks like. 

Essentially this means when you write a task, you need to be very clear about what action needs to be taken in order to complete the task. 

I see this problem a lot when people are working on listing out their core work. One of a manager’s core tasks would be to manage a team of people. But what does managing a team of people actually mean at the task level? 

You will see this also with a project manager’s role. “To facilitate successful conclusions to projects and to report progress to the responsible director”. Great, but what exactly does that mean at a task level? 

This is an important area for all of us when it comes to getting our work done. If we are not clear about what our roles are within the company at a task level, we will find our most important work is neglected, and that can lead to all sorts of problems with our career. 

The first step to breaking these tasks down into simple, actionable steps is to look for the verbs. For instance, if you manage a team of, say, ten people, perhaps one of your roles would be to have regular meetings with your team members to see how they are getting on and to make sure they are clear about their responsibilities. 

Now there are two ways of doing this. The first is to have regular recurring tasks that say: “set up a meeting with Joanne” or “set up a meeting with Joe”. These tasks are clear, and it’s obvious what you need to do. 

Alternatively, you could arrange to meet with Joanne on the first Tuesday of every month and Joe on the second Tuesday. And spread out meetings with your other team members throughout the month. Fix these meetings in your calendar, and you have clear tasks.

To write a blog post, I have four tasks. Plan this week’s blog post, write this week’s blog post, edit this week’s blog post and finally, post this week’s blog post. These tasks are spread out over three days. 

I’ve been doing this every week for seven years, and I know precisely what needs to happen with each task. The planning takes around twenty minutes; writing will take an hour, editing thirty minutes and posting fifteen. Each task is clear, and that means I never procrastinate. When I plan my day, I will see the task, and all I need to decide is when in the day I will do those tasks. 

And that’s an important part of making sure your tasks are clear—when a task is clear, you can anticipate the total amount of time required to complete the task without guessing, which will help you with your time management. 

But how do you know what doing looks like?

This involves thinking about what you have to do. “Contact important customers”, might sound like a well-written task, but how will you contact your important customers? Email, telephone, text message? And who are you contacting? Where’s the list of names? Without establishing these two simple parts to the task, you will procrastinate when you see the task on your list. 

The verb you use is “email” or “call”. And you make sure the list of important customers is accessible. Perhaps link the list to the task in the notes section of the note or turn the task into a clickable link (as you can do with apps like Todoist)

Now, this is the same with projects. Most projects begin with an abstract idea that is not as clear as we would like it to be. Even something as clear as update my Time And Life Master course”. Okay, I know I need to update it, but what do I need to do at a task level to update the course? 

I know the first step would be to list out all the updates I want to make to the course first and to do that, I will need to find time to go through the course class by class, so I can make notes on any changes I want to make. 

So, a simple “update Time And Life Mastery course” might seem clear, but at a task level, there are a number of things I will need to do. So, in this example, in my This Week folder, I do have “go through Time and Life Mastery Course and make notes on new update ideas”. I have this task set to recur every day this week, and I know if I spend an hour a day on it, I will have gone through the whole course by the end of the week. 

I don’t need to add the next task to my task manager because, at this stage, all I need to do is go through the course. When I do my weekly planning session on Saturday, I can add in the next step. Which at this moment would be to outline the updated course, although that could change as I am going through the lessons. 

This is why I don’t like to plan out projects in minute detail at the start. Too many things can change—and often do—and so all that planning time was a waste of time. I know what my project outcome is: a completed update to the Time And Life Mastery course, and I know my deadline. So, now all I need to know is what needs to happen at a task level this week. 

Brainstorming next actions at the start of a project might seem like a good idea; in practice, though, all this is guessing what needs to happen and often leads to an overwhelming task list. Instead, look at the project’s objective, and decide what you need to do to get the project started. 

From there, the “real” next steps will occur to you as you are working on the project, and they can be added to the project note. 

A lot of the work we do is recurring work. Whether you are a salesperson, dentist, doctor or teacher. 

Salespeople need to be communicating with their customers and potential customers. What does that look like at a task level? 

It could involve getting a list from your company’s CRM system every morning and giving yourself time each day to contact people on that list. 

A dentist or doctor perhaps needs to know what patients they will be seeing that day so they can prepare any equipment they need prior the seeing the patient. For instance, if you have a patient returning for a crown fitting, where is the crown? Is it ready for when the patient arrives? 

And teachers will need time to prepare classes as well as teach their classes. How much time do you need to prepare your classes, and what tasks are involved in preparing them? 

These types of tasks are recurring tasks—they are part of your core work. If you set them up as recurring tasks and ensure you have time in your calendar for doing them, they get done. 

It’s no good saying I don’t have time to do these tasks. They are your core work—or part of it—you will have to do them at some point in time. Making them fixed recurring tasks takes the decision-making out of it because you know you must do them. Plus, your colleagues, students and customers soon work out your routines and are much more likely to leave you alone so you can get this work done. 

Understanding what doing your work looks like prevents procrastination because each task is clear, and you know precisely what needs to be done. It’s when we are not clear about what exactly needs doing that we procrastinate and reschedule tasks. 

And here’s a great tip for you. If you find you are repeatedly rescheduling a task, stop and ask yourself what doing that task looks like. The chances are, as the task is written, it is not clear, and that is why you are not doing it. Rephrase the task, and make it crystal clear what you need to do. That’s the way to ensure the task gets done. 

I hope that has helped, Joseph. Thank you for your question.

And thank you to you too for listening. It just remains for me now to wish you all a very, very productive week.