David Allen popularized[^1] the term "Next Action", which he generalizes into a mindset he calls "*Next Action Thinking*". Next Action Thinking is when you internalize the habit and view tasks or [[Defining Project|project]]s through the lens of: > What is the next physical action I can take towards the outcome needed? This puts us more in the driver's seat of our productivity. It makes what would otherwise be big, daunting chunks of scope seem more approachable. After all, [[Action Relieves Anxiety]], and it's much easier to "Google well-reviewed tire shops" than it is to "Get new tires." A hidden benefit of capturing tasks as *next actions* is that it front-loads the cognitive effort necessary to actually accomplish the thing. When you have a spare moment and you're looking at your task list, you're not assessing one-by-one each task considering "what does this actually entail me doing right now?", instead you're able to more quickly realize whether or not you're in the right state to take the action necessary to move yourself forward. After all, when you're bored on your computer it's pretty easy to realize that "Get new tires" is *actually* a computer task. Some folks tag open actions with a *context* like "on phone", "at store", "on computer", "low energy", "high energy", or "kill time". I'm not great at *next action thinking*. It's meant to make things simpler, but I cannot help but overcomplicate it. "Get some milk" turns into "drive to the store", which turns into "locate keys", which turns into "move around the house". Obviously there's a threshold as to what constitutes a meaningful chunk of "doing stuff" to consider it a "next action". My next action right now is **t**yping that letter "t". Which really means moving the muscles in my fingers. Blah blah. It's a dumb thing to get stuck on. I need practice. Also viewed in the context of "" **** ### Source - [[Getting Things Done The Art of Stress-Free Productivity]] - Some Thomas Frank video from a while back ### Related - [^1]: I *believe* this to be true, but maybe it's not. Who knows.