Saturday, September 30, 2006

GTD: The Next Action

One of the crucial elements of Getting Things Done is getting the right "Next Action". It's amazing how, even for simple projects, we can get the wrong next action.

For months, I've been meaning to but some plastic bins for the kitchen cabinets to hold spices and other stuff on the higher shelves. We have some temporary bins that are a little too big to let the doors close, so I needed to get some different ones. But the job just wasn't getting done. On my "@store" ToDo list on my Treo I have "bins for kitchen cabinets". So early in the week I stop at the selection of plastic bins and I realize I have no idea if what I'm looking at will fit. I'd hoped to find the same bins we already have and just buy something a little smaller, but no luck. So I had to go back to my ToDo list and add "measure cabinets for bins" to my "@home" list. Now that I've got them measured, the project is back on my "at the store" list and should go pretty easy. As long as I can find a ruler in the store...

It was such a simple project, but by getting the right steps down and getting them set up on the right contexts, it all flows smoothly.

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