In Getting Things Done, a next action is the next visible, physical activity needed to move something forward.
That might mean:
- email the completed proposal
- telephone the garage
- book the appointment
- proofread the final chapter
These actions move us towards completion. But in an uncertain situation, we may not yet know which route will produce the outcome we want.
Sometimes the next action needs to help us learn.
Acting to learn
Cynefin distinguishes complex situations from those where the relationship between cause and effect is predictable or can be analysed in advance.
In a complex situation, thinking harder will not necessarily reveal the correct plan. We need to try something small, observe what happens and use what we learn to decide what to do next.
The next action might be to:
- speak to three potential clients
- try a new routine for one week
- publish a short article and observe the response
- create a rough prototype before committing to the full solution
These are still concrete actions. But their immediate purpose is not to complete the wider project. It is to generate useful information.
In Agile terms, this kind of next action resembles a ‘spike’: a bounded piece of work undertaken to reduce uncertainty before deciding what to do next.
A different kind of progress
This changes how we understand progress.
If I publish a short article to discover whether a subject interests my readers, a limited response does not necessarily mean that the action failed. It may tell me that the topic, timing, title or audience needs to change.
The experiment has still moved the project forward because I now know something that I did not know before.
This is especially useful when we are:
- exploring a business idea
- developing a new service
- changing a personal routine
- tackling a problem with no obvious solution
- making a decision shaped by other people’s responses
In these situations, learning is progress.
Give the experiment a boundary
An experiment should not become an excuse for indefinite activity.
A useful next action needs:
- A specific action: what will you actually do?
- A learning question: what are you trying to discover?
- A boundary: how much time, money or effort will you commit?
- A review point: when will you examine what happened?
For example:
I will try working on my book for 30 minutes each morning for one week so that I can learn whether mornings suit my energy better, then review it next Monday.
The experiment is small enough to be manageable. It has a clear purpose and a defined point at which to reconsider the next step.
Rewrite one uncertain next action
Look through your projects and find one where you keep hesitating because you do not know the best way forward.
Instead of asking, ‘What action will solve this?’, ask:
What small action would help me understand this situation better?
Then rewrite the next action using this structure:
I will try [small action] so that I can learn [learning question], then review it on [date or trigger].
Not every next action needs to bring you closer to a predetermined destination. Sometimes its most valuable purpose is to reveal where you should go next.
Photo by Sam Barber on Unsplash
