Use the ‘Action Method’ to Get More Done

When you’re jumping into a complex project, it can be hard to know where to begin—but not if you’re using the “action method,” a productivity technique that requires you to view everything you do as a project. A “project” could entail cleaning your house, presenting in a meeting, or answering all of your lingering emails. The aim of this change in your mindset is to provide a structure for every task you need to complete, so you spend less time battling disorganization.

Here’s why it makes sense to reframe your thinking around projects and how to make the action method work for you.

What is the action method?

As noted, the action method seeks to help you increase your productivity and work more effectively by organizing your daily tasks, as well as your longer-term goals, into projects and then breaking those projects down into actionable steps. The basic framework comes from Scott Belsky, who laid out the method in his 2010 book Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality.

The action method was born when Belsky, a co-founder of Behance, sought to help creative professionals tackle inefficiency, disorganisation, and the overall chaos of careers being controlled by bureaucracy. The intent behind it is to not only organise your ideas, but to develop a plan of action to execute them.

How does the action method work?

The “action” part of the action method comes after you organize your projects into three categories: Action steps, references, and back-burners. A good way to do this is to make a spreadsheet with three columns, one for each category and a different spreadsheet tab for each project.

• Action steps are the specific tasks you need to get done, and ones that have actions behind them—like the steps it takes to prepare a presentation or clean the living room.
• References covers any extra information you need to accomplish those tasks, like articles that provide background research, emails detailing what needs to be done, or tutorials you plan to take; paste in or drops links to these materials here.
• Back-burners are more nebulous goals that don’t need to be accomplished right now and can be lofty, but should use the action items as a foundation. For instance, if the goal of the presentation in your action column is to secure a new client, a back-burner can be to secure 10 new clients by year’s end. Cleaning the whole house and keeping it clean can be a back-burner, too.

You can take the method offline if you’re a person who works better using a physical daily planner, but your spreadsheet will suffice as long as you check it every day and use it as motivation to get started and keep up with your action items. You can always add more tabs as you get things done, plus add new references and back-burners related to the goals on each existing tab, but the key is to monitor your actionable tasks and get moving on them right away. If you need additional motivation, the spreadsheet provides an easy summary of how they relate to your bigger-picture goals.

The strength of this method is that it shows you both the exact steps you need to take immediately to cross an item off of your list, and illustrates how to ladders up to your larger goals. There are drawbacks, however. For one, it doesn’t help you prioritize between projects. For that, use a prioritization technique like the ABC Method or Forster’s Commitment Inventory, which can help you determine which projects and steps to tackle first.