{"id":7216,"date":"2016-01-06T21:44:44","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T21:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/?p=6447"},"modified":"2017-08-09T10:52:12","modified_gmt":"2017-08-09T09:52:12","slug":"are-your-next-actions-causing-you-to-do-house-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/2016\/01\/06\/are-your-next-actions-causing-you-to-do-house-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Are your next actions causing you to do house work?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"iStock_000017883595_Small\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the 1st<\/sup> of January and I\u2019m cooking and cleaning; which can only mean one thing\u2026 I\u2019m procrastinating and I have something more<\/em> important to do.\u00a0 Believe it or not when you have some thing big or difficult to do and you end up doing house work instead it can actually be a self-sabotaging mechanism to stop you having to deal with complexity whilst still getting closure on a task.\u00a0 If this is you and you want to change the cycle, read on. You\u2019ll find, as I did, the answer lies more in learning to clarify than in making shepherd\u2019s pie.<\/p>\n

When I did my first GTD course I skipped over the \u2018clarify\u2019 piece, I wanted to get to the exciting bit \u2013 the lists!\u00a0 Soon, a bit like a man with new shelves in his garage I now had places to put all my stuff, so I got busy filling them \u2013 with, it would seem, anything that came to mind.<\/p>\n

I soon found that I was indeed busy\u2026 looking at my lists! But\u00a0I still wasn\u2019t really getting any more stuff done than when I was using my old single to-do list.\u00a0 Confused, I turned to GTD guru Lee Chalmers for support.\u00a0 She pointed out that the problem wasn\u2019t with my system but what I was putting into it, causing me more distraction than action.<\/p>\n

\u2018None of your actions are, well\u2026 really actions\u2019, Lee explained. \u00a0\u2018They\u2019re a mixture of random thoughts, which, with some work, could be turned into actions, and the others are actually projects.\u00a0 So rather than steering you towards progress, your system is really just turning up the juice on your procrastination problem.\u2019<\/p>\n

More evidence follows from Neil Firoe, author of the \u2018Now Habit\u2019 \u2013 often when we procrastinate our problem is the complexity of the task.\u00a0 In my case, I\u2019d look at the [action] sic, and simply not know where to start, and as such, I\u2019d end up doing nothing.<\/p>\n

Well not exactly nothing. Often I\u2019d tidy the house, clean my car, or cook; but I wondered why this was the case?\u00a0\u00a0 Again, there\u2019s some science at play here \u2013 master tidier Marie Kondo explains that we have such a need for closure that when we can\u2019t find it in one place we\u2019ll look for it in an another \u2013 by rearranging our sock drawer for example. Have you ever found yourself looking despairingly at a particularly complex task only to find that you\u2019ve subconsciously picked up a tin of Mr Sheen and started dusting? Now you know why \u2013 the problem lies in how you\u2019re writing your next actions.<\/p>\n

Alex Ferguson, one of the world’s most successful football managers, seems to know this intuitively and has some advice on why he\u2019s<\/em> been so successful.\u00a0 He claims it lies in his ability to \u2018see the top of the mountain, the big goal (or project, in GTD terms), e.g. win the European cup, yet at the same time break that down to the simple actions required at this week\u2019s training session i.e. work on our passing.’<\/p>\n

David Allen puts it best though. He asks us simply \u2018whether our next actions repel us away from or attract us to them?\u2019<\/p>\n

Do you have a few next actions that have been on your list for a while? If so let\u2019s revisit how to write those so that you beat the procrastination problem:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Make sure that there\u2019s a physical verb being used, e.g. call<\/strong> my accountant and schedule a meeting<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    1. If you feel yourself drawn to use words like \u2018think about, or decide\u2019 then, to get a concrete next action ask \u2018how would I see myself doing this\u2019 –\u00a0that will get you your action verb. E.g,\u00a0‘I’ll decide where to.go skiing’, becomes ‘I’ll search Amazon and buy a book on skiing in Austria’<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \n
      1. Keep it small – one, simple, complete task\u00a0that you expect to do in a single sitting<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Following Lee\u2019s coaching I started to get my actions written correctly.\u00a0 And not only was I now getting more done, I\u2019m happy to report it had a huge impact on my personal life \u2013 I was able to stop doing so much housework (only kidding!).<\/p>\n

        Next time we\u2019ll apply Lee\u2019s advice to how to write projects – ’till then, be productive!<\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

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         <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        It\u2019s the 1st of January and I\u2019m cooking and cleaning; which can only mean one thing\u2026 I\u2019m procrastinating and I have something more important to do.\u00a0 Believe it or not when you have some thing big or difficult to do and you end up doing house work instead it can actually be a self-sabotaging mechanism […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":4458,"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":[18,310,313,311,940],"tags":[308,69,491,1592,162],"yst_prominent_words":[504,488,713,1399,1693,1692,1129,1691,1127,802,496,1690,453,1586,910,1026,506],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7216"}],"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\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7216"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}