{"id":5758,"date":"2015-04-02T16:09:31","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T15:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/?p=5758"},"modified":"2015-04-02T16:09:31","modified_gmt":"2015-04-02T15:09:31","slug":"where-is-your-thinking-taking-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/2015\/04\/02\/where-is-your-thinking-taking-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Where is your thinking taking you?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Infographic<\/p>\n

\u201cGo ahead, tell me about your project.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

I make that kind of request regularly in my client work.\u00a0What follows is generally lots of thinking (and talking). Background to the project. Considerations. Worries about the team or the client. Planning thoughts about the sequence of things that need to be done. Often, lots of enthusiasm. Sometimes, quite a bit of dread.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Take a minute now and try it yourself. Think about some project or issue you have, either in your professional life or at home. Now just talk about it for a few minutes. (You might want to find a private space to avoid having your colleagues or family think you have a screw loose).<\/p>\n

How did that go? I\u2019m guessing that you didn\u2019t struggle to come up with a bit of a monologue on that project. Probably quite a lot of it was unstructured or lightly-structured thinking that ranged far and wide across the plains of the project.<\/p>\n

Our bread and butter is productivity, of course, so it\u2019s worth asking the question, \u201chow productive is all of that thinking?\u201d<\/p>\n

This is where the key GTD clarifying questions come into their own.<\/p>\n

Given everything you know about the project, what\u2019s the very next action you need to take to move it forward? And ultimately, what is the outcome that you\u2019re trying to achieve?<\/p>\n

Zap. All of those earlier considerations become laser-focused on productivity. How do I get started on this?\u00a0 Where ultimately am I headed?<\/p>\n

Of course that\u2019s not to say that the brainstorm about the project you did earlier wasn\u2019t at all valuable. In fact, it\u2019s because you have wide knowledge of the project that you can make good next action and outcome decisions.<\/p>\n

The poet Yeats wrote about bringing the \u201cballoon of the mind\u2026into its narrow shed.\u201d He was talking about writing poetry, but the <\/span>same metaphor works for these clarifying questions. We\u2019re focusing, concentrating, directing our thinking to ensure it enhances our productivity.<\/p>\n

So go on, let your mind range far and wide about the project. Run a brainstorming session with the team.\u00a0 Have a good think about everything that\u2019s relevant.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re ready, bring out the big guns. What\u2019s the next action? What\u2019s the desired outcome?<\/p>\n

Now you\u2019re ready to get moving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGo ahead, tell me about your project.\u201d I make that kind of request regularly in my client work.\u00a0What follows is generally lots of thinking (and talking). Background to the project. Considerations. Worries about the team or the client. Planning thoughts about the sequence of things that need to be done. Often, lots of enthusiasm. Sometimes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_eb_attr":"","gtp_columnspro_styling":"{}","gtp_paragraph_styling":"{}","gtp_heading_styling":"{}","gtp_spacer_styling":"{}","gtp_video_styling":"{}","gtp_group_styling":"{}","gtp_cover_styling":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5758"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5758"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}