I’ve already talked about the importance of writing everything down immediately to maintain a peace of mind. I’ve also talked about the importance of consolidating your to-do lists and keeping everything in one place. These two things indeed are the key – but once you master them, there is another thing you can do to make your to-do lists super-useful and empower you to take more action.

Tasks are actionable items. They are actions that need to be taken. And it’s too easy to forget this when writing your tasks down. The words you use to write a task matter a great deal.

You should always use actionable task names, which contain specific actions – verbs.

In the task name, always write the action you need to take to move the task forward, and be as specific as possible.

Two rules of naming tasks are:

1. All task names should contain an action (begin with a verb, and ideally describe the next step).
2. All task names should be as specific as possible

So, for example, don’t just name a task “Report”. A slightly better way to name it could be “Finish the report”, but it’s still not the best wording because it’s not specific enough. It’s vague. It doesn’t tell you exactly what to do to finish the report, and which report.

Here’s a better task name: “Write the final summary in the Q4 Report to finish it”. That’s pretty specific and actionable. You know exactly what to do to move the task forward, and exactly which report the task relates to.

Or, you could name it like this: “Finish the Q4 Report” and add a subtask named “Write the final summary” – the subtask still contains the next action.

Why is this important?

When we look at our list and see just “Report”, we have no idea what to actually do or even a hint on how to start. We have to stop and figure it out, which is very inefficient, but also demotivating and creates a friction between us and the task.

It is much harder to get going when the task names are not actionable and not specific. All our brain sees when we look at vague task names is “This task is huge! Too much work! Too much thinking! Let’s do something else!” In such situations, we spend too much valuable energy trying to get started on the task. This opens the door for procrastination (social media, news, web-surfing and pointless busywork).

Try to use specific, actionable wording right when you first write the task down. In that moment, you probably know what the actual specific action is. So write it down. Don’t force yourself to figure it out later, when you don’t have all the relevant information on your mind anymore. When you start using specific actionable task names, you will save yourself a lot of time and energy. It’s just smart.

Task names which are specific and contain the action you want to take are:

• More motivating and less intimidating
• Easier for you to get started on
• Saving you valuable time and mental energy
• Less likely to be procrastinated on

Best of all, it takes you just a very little effort in the moment you are writing the task down for the first time. By writing the task in a way so it’s obvious what the next specific action is and what precisely needs to be done, you will get all the benefits above.

Here are a few examples of good and bad task names:

 
Here’s how you can apply this right now to experience the difference yourself: Open your to-do list, and re-word some of your most important tasks, so they contain the next action, and are as specific as possible.

(This post is an edited excerpt from my new e-book Swift Mind Freedom).

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2 rules of naming tasks correctly is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Next tasks

Next tasks are tasks that you are currently working on. You should always know what tasks to currently work on. At any given moment, you should be able to easily pull a list of these “next tasks”.

There are two main approaches that work well for me personally:

1. The “Next” priority: I’ve created a new priority called “Next”, and I’ve set it a bright green color. Now I always assign this priority to tasks that I want to complete today or in the next couple of days. I usually have around 5-20 tasks with this “Next” priority.

The downside is that these tasks are in various to-do lists, so I need to use the “View All To-Do Lists” view mode to view all tasks. Then, I either sort the tasks by priority to see what’s next, or use filter to display just the tasks with the “Next” priority.

2. The “Next” To-Do List: This is an alternative approach. In this case, I create a new to-do list called “Next”, and I drag & drop tasks that I want to work on now into it. The rest of my to-do lists act as a database (or library) of tasks that I pick tasks from.

The downside is that the tasks moved to the “Next” To-Do List will lose their original to-do list categorization. However, the upside is that it is ridiculously easy to display the list of next tasks, and I can also reorder the tasks in the list. Also, I usually delete the completed tasks anyway, so the loss of the original to-do list categorization is no big deal for me.

Next actions

Every of your tasks has a certain sub-tasks (or steps, or actions, however you call it). GTD (Getting Things Done) uses the term “Next action”.

It is very important to know the next step necessary for completion of any of the tasks you are currently working on.

Task notes are usually the most efficient way of recording the next actions. Simply write mini to-do list into the notes of the task you are currently working on. You can be very specific and write lots of details and thoughts. Once you complete any step, simply delete it from the task notes.

Since Swift To-Do List 9, you can create subtasks. You can now have the next steps in form of sub-tasks directly in the task-view. This is probably the most powerful approach.

Prioritizing in fast-paced environment

The above techniques of managing next tasks and next actions work pretty well in majority of cases. However, there is one exception.

Some complex tasks (eg. software development) are in constant shift, and you can complete literally over 50 small steps (sub-tasks) every day while working on such major task or project.

In such cases, I simply create a new memo for any complex task that I am currently working on. The large text area works great for “chaotic” and complex tasks that require a lot of thinking and are changing constantly. Memos give me a great deal of freedom and flexibility in these cases.

How about you?

Please don’t hesitate to share your own approach to prioritizing in the comments below.

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The next actions and prioritizing is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog