{"id":652,"date":"2011-09-14T19:03:42","date_gmt":"2011-09-15T00:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/?p=652"},"modified":"2011-09-13T15:25:21","modified_gmt":"2011-09-13T20:25:21","slug":"decide-on-the-next-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/2011\/09\/decide-on-the-next-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Decide on the Next Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve mentioned before that I can be a procrastinator, haven’t I? Now, I’ll admit that I have piles of books that need to be dropped off. We’ve had various ideas about what we want to do with them. Yet the piles continue. Then I got fed up and decided to take one box each week to Half Price Books<\/a> – at least with most of them. One day I headed to the pile, ready to grab a box and go. Only they’re not all in boxes, a bag was the easiest to reach, and the bag disintegrated in my hand. Guess what, none of those books made it to the car, nor did I go to Half Price Books.<\/p>\n

Often when we’re stymied by our stuff, we’re undecided about what we need to do with it. Sometimes when we procrastinate, we’re reluctant to tackle this or that item. These things require us to make a decision. Too often we aren’t even aware of what decision we need to make.<\/p>\n

Decisions, decisions. Life is filled with them. Too often, we’re racing through life just trying to get everything done and not stopping to think about how and where we are spending our time and energy. Some piles of books on the three-season porch were frequently the least of my worries. You\u2019ve probably heard the saying \u201cWhen you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.\u201d (by William James)<\/p>\n

Most of the time we need to consider what the next step we need to take is, specifically. It\u2019s great that you can identify the things you want to do. You want to clear out the basement, or spend more time with loved ones. Sometimes we are talking about a \u201cproject,\u201d whether we realize it or not. A project is typically any task that takes multiple action steps to complete.<\/p>\n

Regardless of what you need to do \u2013 ask yourself \u201cWhat is the next action for this item?\u201d If you can do this, you will have clarity about your to do list. It also amazingly can motivate you to start tackling items you might have been procrastinating.<\/p>\n

In fact, an extreme statement (especially from me) \u2013 never make a to do list that includes anything except those specific and concrete next action items. If you don\u2019t write out to do lists \u2013 when you\u2019re deciding what you\u2019re going to do next, figure out the action.<\/p>\n

If you can consistently take a moment, yes that\u2019s all it takes \u2013 just a moment, to ask yourself what the next action is for each task you have, you can reduce the amount of time you spend on tasks and work through your tasks.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the piles of books are still there. When I decided to deal with the piles of books, my next action was to take one box in. Lately when I look at my to do list, I see \u2018take a box to Half Price Books,\u2019 I avoid it. In my current situation, the piles of books moved from an action to a project, since I need to box up the books that I want to take in before I can take them in. I also cannot tackle my to do item immediately \u2013 the books aren\u2019t ready to take anywhere. I can see how I\u2019m procrastinating it since it\u2019s more than this easy step. Now the to-do list is modified, my next action item is to box up the books.<\/p>\n

What will your next action be?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To-do lists can be a critical way for us to make sure we don\u2019t forget what we need to do and just as much, it can be a source of being overwhelmed by all the items on it. Whether you use to-do lists or not, when you\u2019re trying to figure out what you\u2019re going to do \u2013 decide on the next action required.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,8,18,5,9,25,7,22,4,16],"class_list":["post-652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organizing","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-goals","tag-household","tag-motivation","tag-postaweek2011","tag-procrastination","tag-productivity","tag-routines","tag-to-do-lists"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-aw","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions\/654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}