Making Ideas Happen (5 page)

Use design-centric systems to stay organized.
The color, texture, size, and style of the materials used to capture Action Steps are important. People who have successful y developed personal systems for productivity over the years claim that their designs make their Action Steps more appealing (and thus more likely to be taken).

Organize in the context of projects, not location.
These days, your work doesn’t necessarily always happen at the office. Productivity is not about managing a single in-box or keeping different lists of what should be done “at work” or “at home.” Rather than using a location-centric approach to work flow and scheduling, we have found that a project-centric approach to productivity is a best practice among leading innovators.

The Action Method was developed taking al of these principles into account.

Breaking Projects into Primary Elements

If you know anything about magic, you know that the best tricks are the ones that are the most simple to perform. Levitation relies on pul eys, floating dol ars need thread, and the disappearing coin depends on hidden pockets; al of the most remarkable tricks have the most “obvious” explanations. Similarly, the best methods for managing projects are simple and intuitive. They help you capture ideas and do something with them—no more, no less. This simple efficiency keeps you engaged and on task with as little effort as possible.

The Action Method begins with a simple premise: everything is a project. This applies not only to the big presentation on Wednesday or the new campaign you’re preparing, but also to the stuff you do to advance your career (a “career development” project), or to employee development (each of your subordinates represents a single “project” in which you keep track of performance and the steps you plan to take to help him or her develop as an employee). Managing your finances is a project, as is doing your taxes or arranging the upcoming house move.

Like most creative people, I’m sure you struggle to make progress in al of your projects, with the greatest chal enge being the sheer number of projects before you! But once you have everything classified as a project, you can start breaking each one down into its primary components: Action Steps, References, and Backburner Items.

Every project in life can be reduced into these three primary components.
Action
Steps
are the specific, concrete tasks that inch you forward: redraft and send the memo, post the blog entry, pay the electricity bil ,
etc.
References
are any project-related handouts, sketches, notes, meeting minutes, manuals, Web sites, or ongoing discussions that you may want to refer back to. It is important to note that References are
not
actionable—they are simply there for reference when focusing on any particular project. Final y, there are
Backburner Items
—things that are not actionable now but may be someday. Perhaps it is an idea for a client for which there is no budget yet. Or maybe it is something you intend to do in a particular project at an unforeseen time in the future.

Let’s consider a sample project for a client. Imagine a folder with that client’s name on it. Inside the folder you would have a lot of References—perhaps a copy of the contract, notes from meetings, and background information on the client. The Action Steps—the stuff you need to do—could be written as a list, attached to the front of the folder. And then, perhaps on a sheet stapled to the inside back cover of the folder, your Backburner list could keep track of the nonactionable ideas that come up while working on the project—the stuff you may want to do in the future.

With this hypothetical folder in mind, you can imagine that the majority of your focus would be on the Action Steps visible on the front cover. These Action Steps are always in plain view. They catch your eye every time you glance at the project folder. And, as you review al of your project folders every day, what you’re real y doing is just glancing over al of the pending Action Steps.

We cal it the “Action Method” because it helps us live and work with a bias toward action. The actionable aspects of every project pop out at us, and the other components are organized enough to provide peace of mind while not getting in the way of taking action.

Personal projects can also be broken down into the same three elements. If you take some time to look around your desk, you might find some notes or reminders that you’ve left for yourself. Perhaps you see a household bil that requires payment (an Action Step in the project “Household Management”), or a copy of your car insurance certificate (a Reference in the project “Insurance”). Maybe it is a cutout of a great vacation spot you want to visit someday (a Backburner Item in the project “Vacation Planning”).

Consider a few projects in your life—some work-related and some personal. The components of these projects are either in your head or al around you—sentences in emails, sketches in notebooks, and scribbles on Post-it notes. The Action Method starts by considering everything around you with a project lens and then breaking it down.

Perhaps you have an idea for a screenplay that you’d like to write someday. If so, make it a Backburner Item in the “New Screenplay Ideas” project or perhaps in a more general “Bold Ideas” project that you may review only a couple of times every year. While some projects realistical y won’t get much of your focus, they wil help store the Backburner Items and References that you generate.

Of course, your hope is that someday a few of these Backburner Items wil be converted into Action Steps—which wil , in turn, lead to a new and more active project, like producing your screenplay. Action Steps are the building blocks of accomplishment.

But sometimes, at certain periods of life, you can’t afford to take certain actions. For this reason, it is okay to have dormant projects fil ed with References and Backburner Items.

The time wil come when some of these projects return to the surface with some Action Steps.

As you go about your day, you should think in terms of which project is associated with what you are doing at any point in time. Whether in a meeting, brainstorming session, chance conversation, article, dream, or eureka moment in the shower, you are generating Action Steps, References, and Backburner Items at a fast clip. Everything is associated with a project. Sadly, much of this output wil be lost unless you capture it and assign it properly.

In the sections ahead, we wil explore the three primary components of projects in more detail and how they should be managed. But the key realization should be that everything in life is a project, and every project must be broken down into Action Steps, References, and Backburner Items. It’s that simple.

Of course, in the digital era, information comes to us in many forms. Projects are not always kept in folders. In fact, projects are managed across many mediums. And the components of projects come to us in the form of e-mails, status updates, files as downloads, and a barrage of links that we save daily. Nevertheless, the Action Method stil applies; everything belongs to a project. With the Action Method in mind, we can make better use of online and offline tools that organize information.

The Importance of Action Steps

Action Steps are the most important components of projects—the oxygen for keeping projects alive. No Action Steps, no action, no results. The actual outcome of any idea is dependent on the Action Steps that are captured and then completed by you or delegated to someone else. Action Steps are to be revered and treated as sacred in any project.

One action-obsessed leader I met during my research was Bob Greenberg, chairman of the world-renowned digital agency R/GA, which works with clients such as Nike and Johnson & Johnson. Greenberg is admired by his col eagues and industry peers alike.

Among the traits used to describe Greenberg, “productive” and “compulsive” top the list.

Greenberg has used the same morning ritual for managing his Action Steps every day since 1977. Using only certain types of pens and a certain type of notebook, Greenberg reserves time every day to process the day’s Action Steps and schedule.

Greenberg shared with me that he uses two fountain pens (only Pelikan brand fountain pens)—a larger one with blue ink and a thinner one with brown ink—to write his Action Steps, and uses a highlighter to place a series of diagonal strikes to the right of each Action Step to indicate priority. “Three marker strikes and a black dot mean most important,” he explained. He also sketches his schedule for every day on the top of the page with a pencil—and then, again with a pen, he writes the names of each major pitch that R/GA is working on that day.

“I have a two-page system with multiple lists of actions,” he explained. “Starting from the left-hand side, I have stuff that I can have my assistant do, then—to the right of that list—I have stuff that I need to do personal y. Then to the right of that . . .”

As Greenberg continued, it became clear that he gained the most utility from the consistency and great sense of loyalty he felt for his quirky, home-brewed system.

“I believe if you don’t write it down, it doesn’t register,” he told me. “I know it sounds painful, but it helps me know exactly what to do. I do a new version every day, I transfer the old items every morning, and I’ve been doing this for over thirty years.” Greenberg confides that his approach is “admittedly obsessive,” but it works.

The details of Greenberg’s approach—the materials he uses, the symbols he assigns to each item, and the regular time at which he organizes his actions every morning —keep him engaged with his system. After al , a methodology is only effective when it is practiced consistently. While every person’s system is different, the most productive people pay attention to the finer details of their rituals to keep themselves engaged. As you develop your own system to manage Action Steps, you wil want to make it “sticky.”

Action Steps are specific things you must do to move an idea forward. The more clear and concrete an Action Step is, the less friction you wil encounter trying to do it. If an Action Step is vague or complicated, you wil probably skip over it to others on your list that are more straightforward. To avoid this, start each Action Step with a verb: Cal programmer to discuss . . .

Instal new software for . . .

Research the possibility of . . .

Mock up a sample of the . . .

Update XYZ document for . . .

Address issue of . . .

Verbs help pul us into our Action Steps at first glance, efficiently indicating what type of action is required. For similar reasons, Action Steps should be kept short.

Imagine you and I are having a conversation in a meeting. I describe to you what I want to accomplish and show you some diagrams that further describe the idea. You reply by saying, “I see what you’re trying to do. There’s a guy I know who designed a great Web site with the same type of functionality.” Upon saying this, I record an Action Step to fol ow up with you regarding that Web site: Fol ow up with [your name] re: guy’s Web site w/ similar functionality.

A col eague might say, “Let’s revisit that old draft and consider the initial plan that we had—maybe it was better? Let me know what you think.” In that case, your Action Step would be:

Print out old draft, fol ow up with [col eague’s name] re: alternative plan.

Sometimes you wil find yourself waiting for a response to an e-mail or a phone cal . It is easy to forget something when it is in someone else’s court! To trigger yourself to fol ow up if you don’t hear back, you may want to create a separate Action Step.

Action Steps arise from every idea exchange. Even the smal est of Action Steps, when captured, wil make a big difference because they create momentum. A missed Action Step can cause miscommunications, more meetings, and could be the difference between success and failure in any project.

Here are some key practices:

Capture Action Steps everywhere.
Ideas don’t reveal themselves only in meetings, and neither should Action Steps. Ideas come up when you are reading an article, taking a shower, daydreaming, or getting ready for bed. If you think of someone that you met with a month ago regarding a certain project but have not yet fol owed up with, create an Action Step to “fol ow up with XYZ regarding . . .” If you are opening your mail and come across a wedding invitation, your Action Step is to RSVP.

Think of Action Steps expansively—as anything you should do (or delegate)—and capture al of them, not only the ones that arise during meetings.

Having some sort of pad or recording device handy wil enable you to capture actions as they come to mind. Our team developed the iPhone version of Action Method Online because users wanted a quick and “anytime, anywhere” way to capture Action Steps and assign them to a project. Whatever medium you choose to use for capturing Action Steps, it should always be readily available. Your system should also make it easy to return to your Action Steps at a later time and distinctly recal what you were thinking.

And, most important, you must always be able to distinguish Action Steps from References—the regular notes and nonactionable ideas that you may have also written down.

An unowned Action Step will never be taken.
Every Action Step must be owned by a single person. While some Action Steps may involve the input of different people, accountability must reside in one individual’s hands at the end of the day. Some people who lead teams or have assistants wil capture Action Steps and delegate them to others. However, even when the onus to complete an Action Step has been delegated to someone else, the Action Step must stil be owned—and tracked—by the person ultimately responsible.

The reason comes down to accountability. The practice of simply emailing someone a task to complete does not provide any assurance that it wil be completed. For this reason, Action Steps that you are ultimately responsible for should remain on your list until completed—even when you have delegated them to others. Simply marking that the Action Step has been delegated and to whom is sufficient: Print out old draft, fol ow up with Alex re: other plan (Oscar is doing).