How fast do you choose the next action to do?

S

Soland

0
My @Work list has 43 items. My @Waiting list has 128 items. The lists is separated further into @Iphone, @MacOnline, @MacOffline and @Office. Though they are separated I can do any of them while at work. It's a rare case when I don't have access to internet or I'm not in the office.

I decided to schedule doing time in the morning. Now when that time comes I need to choose what Next Action to start with. Then I start to scroll through 43 Next Actions. It takes time. Tell me the trick David Allen uses to speed that process up.
 
Use your gut to choose what action to do

Once you've evaluated your context, time and energy available then the final criteria in choosing an action is deciding which one provides the biggest personal payoff at the time. That can mean different things at any given moment. Perhaps you might choose to do some small lingering actions just to clear the decks. Other times it may be a mission critical / high priority in the grand scheme of things.

The answer always comes from your intuition and your gut instinct. The system can't tell you what action to choose; you have to decide. The system just makes it easier for you to decide and trust that your decision is the best thing you can be doing with your time right now. Without a complete, up-to-date list of your commitments you'll never fully trust your decision and tend to get hooked into latest and loudest.

Good luck.
 
Definitely agree with the above post. Don't take too long pondering over what you'll do though - I've found that it is very easy to have 'staying on top of my lists', 'working out my next action', etc to become activities that I legitimise procrastination in. If it helps, I'd suggest that if you are blocking out a couple of hours just to 'do', scan your list and start by picking up 3 or 4 items that jump out, allowing for the decision tree in the above post, so then you have a level of comfort that your instinct won't let you down. If you knock them off and have time to spare, do it again.
 
Important things first! Agent things first!

Whatever you do a manual list or use the online project schedule tool, I think important things first, agent things first. I t is always such case.
 
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