Action Programmes
Becoming Exceptionally Well Organized:
You are probably familiar with the idea of “To-Do Lists.”
To-Do Lists are great for managing a small number of tasks. The problem is that, for most of us, our To-Do List is not really a planned, focused action list. Rather, it is a sort of a catch-all for a lot of things that are unresolved and not yet translated into outcomes.
Specific entries, such as “Call Tina,” exist along with vaguer aspirations, such as “Get started on house painting project.” Often, the real actionable details of what the list-maker has “to do” are actually missing. (Take, for instance, the house painting project: more precise entries would be choose color scheme, buy paints, and so on.)
What this means is that you tend to do the specific tasks, and fail to make progress with the big, important projects. And even if you do get beyond the quick actions, having a complete project as a “to do” can lead you to focus all of your attention on it. This makes multi-tasking difficult.
This can be a serious problem in a job where you need to make progress on many different projects at the same time – and this is exactly the situation most senior managers find themselves in.
This is where Action Programmes are useful. Action Programmes are “industrial strength” versions of To-Do Lists.
Because they incorporate short-, medium- and long-term goals, they allow you to plan your time, without forgotten commitments coming in to blow your schedule apart. Because priorities are properly thought through, you’ll be focusing on the things that matter, and not frittering your time away on low value activities. And because they support delegation, they help you get into the habit of delegating jobs where you can. All of this lets you save time – and get away on time – whilst also significantly increasing your effectiveness and productivity.
Follow this four-step procedure to create your Action Programme:
Step 1. Collection
First, make a list inventory of all the things in your world that require resolution. Try to collect and write down everything – urgent or not, big or small, personal or professional – that you feel is incomplete and needs action from you to get completed.
To an extent, this collection is taking place automatically. E-mail requests are getting stored in your email account, memos demanding attention are being delivered to your in-tray, mail is reaching your mailbox and messages asking for action are accumulating on your voice mail.
But there is other stuff – stuff that is idling in your head, projects you want to run, things you intend to deal with lying at the bottom of the drawer, ideas written down on stray bits of paper – that need to be gathered and put in place too. Bring all of these actions and projects together and inventory them in one place.
And – this is really important – make sure that your personal goals are brought onto this list.
Step 2. Pruning
Now, process the list you made in step 1, by looking carefully at each item.
Decide whether you should, actually, take action on it. A lot of what comes our way has no real relevance to us, or is really not important in the scale of things. If that is the case, then delete these things from your inventory.
Step 3. Organizing and Prioritizing
This comes in three parts.
First of all, review your inventory of items. For any which are separate, individual actions that make up part of a larger project, group these individual actions together into their projects.
For example, at home, you may want to improve your bathroom, and repaint your living room: these can go into a “Home Renovation” project. At work, you may be providing input into the requirements for a new computer system, and may be expected to test and then train your team on this system at a point in the future: all of these go into a “computer system” project.
What you’ll find is that once you start, items will almost seem to “organize themselves” into coherent projects.
You also need to make sure that your personal goals are included as individual projects.
Second, review these projects, and allocate a priority to them (for example, by coding them from A to F) depending on their importance. Clearly, your personal goals are exceptionally important projects!
Third, insert your projects into a formatted Action Program.
The Action Programme is split up into three parts:
- A “Next Action List,” which shows the small next actions that you will take to move your projects forward.
- A “Delegated Actions List,” which shows projects and actions have delegated to other people.
- A “Project Catalogue” that shows all of the projects you are engaged in and the small individual tasks that you have identified so far that contribute to them.
The great news is that, by this stage, you’ve already created the largest part of this: the Project Catalogue! This is the list of prioritized projects and activities that you’ve just completed.
Typically, the Project Catalogue is at the back of the Action Program, as it’s often only referred to during a weekly review process.
Next, create the Delegated Actions List by working through your Project Catalogue, and identifying tasks that you’ve delegated. Record these under the name of the person who you’ve delegated the activity to, along with the checkpoints you’ve agreed.
Typically, the Delegated Actions List sits in front of the Project Catalogue in your Action Program document, as it’s referred to quite often.
Finally, create your Next Action List by working through the projects to which you’ve given the highest priority – the projects that you want and need to move forward on straight away – and extracting the small, logical next actions for these projects.
The Next Action List goes on the front page of your Action Programme, as you’ll refer to it many times a day.
Now review the Next Action List. If it is too cluttered, move some of the less urgent/important jobs back into the project catalogue. If it is thin and under-challenging, pull up some more Next Actions from the Project Catalogue.
Also, it makes sense to prioritize the items (for example, from A-C) in the Next Action List so you know what to focus on (it’s unlikely you’ll have any Actions with a priority lower than C on your Next Action List).
Step 4. “Working” Your Action Program
An Action Programme is typically fairly long. But you don’t have to run through the entire Programme every day!
Usually, you’ll only be dealing with the top page or pages. Some activities may be day-specific or time-specific. Depending of the way you work, these can be either maintained as the top page of your Action Programme or marked on your calendar.
In effect, these pages are just a new form of your old To-Do List. It is just that only specific short actions are outlined here, while the major projects to which the actions belong are stored in your Project Catalogue.
What you must do, however, is review your Action Programme periodically, for example, every week (put time for this in your schedule). Delete or archive items you’ve completed, move items from the Project Catalogue to the front pages as you make progress on your project, and add any new actions that have come your way.
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