ActivityOwner.Com - Getting Things Done with MindManager, ResultsManager, and GyroQ » Next Action Analysis

Focusing in on One Area of your Life

ActivityOwner — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:59:27 +0000

A ResultsManager user asked by email:

"What template should I use for getting a dashboard just of high-priority projects and results that are tagged with Area X? Is that still the Next Actions by Area and Context? Or is there a better one?

For example, today I’m dedicated to working just on the Area X stuff, and I don’t care about any other big areas. I want to create a dashboard that just focuses on stuff I’m working on today so I don’t get distracted by other significantly more entertaining things.

In the Next actions by area and context, should I move the Area filter to the front and set it for "X"?"

You could use the next actions by area and context dashboard template in the way you describe but I would recommend a simpler approach (and minimize the risk of you falling into the rabbit hole of custom dashboard tweaking).

The workaround I would use for this is to follow the map central strategy I described earlier this year but go one step further and put the maps you care about in this area in 2010\AreaX.

Then create a map central that points only to that folder (or run dashboards on just that branch of a more general map central). That will enable you to use a vanilla daily action or review dashboard as is. The "Next Action Analysis" script run on daily action in this way will give you several breakdown lists (tasks by priority, time available, projects by priority, etc) that can be used instead of generating a separate custom dashboard to get them. The m2t (map2table) tag/macro run on these branches can give a nice tabular view of things.

Make sure you move any relevant items from your general daily capture map to a map in this folder first.

What is the Next Action for ActivityOwner.Com?

ActivityOwner — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:27:03 +0000

Reviewing my ResultsManager review dashboard this morning I found just a couple of projects related to my "blog" area and a long list of someday/maybes. I thought it might be useful to solicit reader guidance on where it would be most valuable for you to focus. Basically I'm wondering whether to focus on discussing, enhancing, or documenting MindReader, OutLinker, Mark Task Complete, Next Action Analysis, or Map2Excel or to focus on discussing my GTD workflow using these tools.

I would appreciate it if you could please click here to take a brief Survey Monkey survey or comment below.

I've recently cleaned up the layout of the site with a new site overview map and new "related post" links added to the entries. I hope it will help folks navigate around the posts on their topic of interest.

Put it in front of the door in 2010

ActivityOwner — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:50:44 +0000

Two of the biggest barriers to making good use of ResultsManager for Getting things Done (GTD) tend to be (1) the need to manually refresh dashboards and (2) the need to access to do list items away from your computer.

When you sit down to get too work, the last thing you want to do is to tie up MindManager with a several minute dashboard refresh as this is a perfect recipe for going off on some web distraction.

One way to get around this is to make use of your computer's task scheduler to automatically refresh your dashboards on a regular basis. This approach was first described 3 years ago in in the "Put it in front of the door" post.

I recently got this running again on my new Windows 7 computer and did some work to clean up the script and make it easier for others to implement. The script is now installed as part of the MindReader Setup program and can be run by running the "rfd.bat" file in the "My Maps\AO" directory. MindReader and Mark Task Complete have also been updated to work better with multi-computer synchronization.

The script also does several other things now such as running next action analysis and a recently added capability of saving the dashboard in html format. If you are a hard core ResultsManager user, this script is for you.

For more information, see the "Put it in front of the door" page on the wiki..

Please comment below with questions/suggestions/problems.

Happy New Year,

MindReader 2.0

ActivityOwner — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 02:16:53 +0000

After a few weeks of shakedown and clean-up, it seems the setup.exe program created to install MindReader, Mark Task Complete, and Next Action Analysis and their associated Gyronix GyroQ tags is just about ready for prime time.

If you are a MindManager user and have wanted to give these tools a try in the past, but prefer your software installations to be "two-minute actions" instead of "projects", now might the time to give things a go. If you have used the tools, but haven't kept up with the incremental improvements over time, this also provides an opportunity to get caught up and keep up to date.

A big thanks goes to Hans, who developed the installation program using Inno Setup, and to Reenie, Marco, Stefan, Ron, Mike and others for testing out the early versions. The installer has performed well, with most of the glitches related to my overhaul of the tools themselves in preparation for use with the installer.

As part of this effort the wiki documentation for using and customizing the tools has been cleaned up with the help of Reenie. I'd recommend browsing the pages for MindReader, Mark Task Complete, and Next Action Analysis. In particular you might want to have a look at using the MindReader m tag in order to familiarize yourself with the full capabilities of MindReader.

For detailed instructions on downloading and installing the software, visit the Setup page on the wiki. Note that OutLinker still needs to be installed manually and should be updated as part of this upgrade if you are a legacy user.

If you do run into any issues, post comments below so they can be addressed.

Six Components of a GTD Review

ActivityOwner — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:46:51 +0000

Things have gotten a bit quiet in "gyrospace" lately. Perhaps this is because folks have given up on their new year's resolutions or moved on to other tools. I'm hoping it is because we are all successfully focusing on Getting Things Done rather than tinkering with our systems and surfing blogs.

After three years of exploring and tinkering (I bought ResultsManager in May 2005) and collaborating with many of you, I feel I've finally developed a balanced "trusted system" approach that works for me utilizing OutLinker, MindReader, Next Action Analysis, and Mark Task Complete. These macros have finally allowed me to fully leverage the MindManager, ResultsManager, and GyroQ applications.

The Next Action Analysis approach has been pivotal in proving a look at things in a more balanced and comprehensive way. The "game" of trying to empty Outlook inboxes and raise my NAA score has provided just enough incentive to get me to plug my GTD leaks and attack those lingering "high cringe factor" items clogging up my dashboard.

Previously I would spend all my dashboard and review time at the top of the Daily Action Plus Dashboard trying to empty in-trays and deal with items past their deadlines or targets, and neglecting other aspects. Now I feel like my focus shifts appropriately to the 5F that needs the most attention.

After using this set of tools for four months, this week I finally hit a perfect 10.0 on my personal maps and also got my work maps up over 9. If only I had got here during the contest :-).

A trend of my score over time is included at the bottom of the post based on the data collected in the NAALog.mmap. I tend to work with my personal maps on the weekend while doing chores and errands and paying bills :-(. Along the way I spent a lot of time fighting back the tide on each of the 5F's in turn. Once the macro gave me my "perfect score", the question became "what is the next action"?

To celebrate I took a break this evening to create the diagram above, which captures the NAA framework concisely and graphically. This may be helpful to you whatever GTD system or tools you actually use. What makes the next action analysis macro useful is that it generates quantitative metrics for these components and links out to the items that impact each of them (e.g. overdue or aging tasks) rather than requiring separate dashboards for these purposes.

The figure adds a 6th component to the five covered by the NAA tool, which is asking whether you are capturing the "Full Picture" of your work. You can't automate that, although GyroQ can be used to run a full "MindSweep". The other aspect captured in this component is the need for a regular review of "someday/maybe" lists to see what deferred projects merit activating. You might implement this by using a weekly repeating task reminder and then ensure that it stays fresh!

Of course for me what really remains now is finally giving more attention to "non squeaky wheel" projects and actions not currently in the penalty box. I won't be at 10.0 for long if I don't attack the 60 next actions on my home list and 80 on my work list. Unfortunately blogging isn't on either of them :-).

All the best,

Logging Next Action Analysis Results

ActivityOwner — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 02:04:00 +0000

The Next Action Analysis macro has been updated to log your scores into comma delimited notes on a mindmanager log map each time you run it on your ResultsManager daily action dashboard. The central topic note contains the date/time stamp, the overall score, and each dimension's score. The branches contain tables with the actual values of each metric. You can paste the results into Excel and generate a trend of your overall score or of any of the 11 metrics.

Note that the scoring has been adjusted to encourage more context assignment. For background on the tool see previous posts or its wiki page.

2008 GTD Challenge Results

ActivityOwner — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:48:27 +0000

Back on New Year's day I proposed Five Metrics for assessing the state of your GTD system. The idea was to assess the Freshness, Focus, Feasibility, Foresight, and Finishing (5F's) of your current next actions and combine these into an overall score.

The Next Action Analysis macro calculates and sorts these metrics for ResultsManager users by harvesting information from the Daily Action Dashboard. It also creates lists of actions and projects associated with the various components (e.g. aging tasks) as well as provides targeted advice on how to attack and improve your situation.

To have some fun with this, and provide readers with a framework for "climbing back on the GTD horse" in the new year, we initiated the "Next Action Analysis 2008 GTD Challenge". The goal was to get an initial assessment in the 1st half of January and then work to improve it by the end of the month.

Thanks to everyone who entered. It isn't easy to share the state of your "system". I think it was helpful to everyone to see that others are in the same boat. The entries and results are summarized below (Courtesy of Map2Table):

	Initial Score	Final Score	Improvement	Current Score
Juan	2.00	6.07	4.07
AO	6.40	7.50	1.10	9.59
Arkadiy	6.77
Bill S.	7.60
DW	7.95
Jose-Miguel	8.20	9.82	1.62	9.41
Mal	7.00
Renaldostheold	7.40	9.22	1.82	9.96

And the winners of the 2008 GTD challenge….

Highest Final Score: Jose-Miguel
Biggest Improvement: Juan
Random Drawing: Renaldostheold

I think a few of these folks may have already claimed their prizes :-).

Here are some random thoughts and advice on use of the tool…

Context is King
In general it felt like the revised scoring was well balanced, and put me on the areas needing focus, but the one area that probably merits more weighting is the penalty for actions lacking context. The "no context" list is always with ripe with "blobs" that need more thought and review. Eliminating items from this list tends to help several others scores. For example sending them to someday/maybe, defining a new/younger physical next action, marking already complete items done, can be impactful on several dimensions. I am looking at raising the weighting here but need to decide where to steal the points from. Thoughts? My guess is "project proritization" or "Target Dates".

My Favorite?
If I personally had to give up using all but one tool from this site, this would be the one that I would keep. I have found it has kept me focused on all aspects of my system and forced me to address the stale tasks that were bogging it down. The delay in getting this contest entry posted is a testament to that as the "game" of improving your score can keep you focused on your important projects (rather than your blog :-).

How Many Next Actions are Too Many?
In order to get 10.0 on the "feasibility" scale, you need to knock your next actions down to 80. You'll only get a 5.0 on that dimension if you have 150 actions. That's a pretty stiff penalty, but the purpose is to reinforce the concept of actually doing the items on your list rather than carrying them around for weeks or months at a time. The scoring make your next action list expensive real estate that you want to populate with things you are committed to doing in the near term.

Do you Trust your Trusted System?
I've found the key to using tools like GyroQ, MindReader, and OutLinker to capture commitments into MindManager, is knowing that you maps are not black holes. If you don't trust it, you'll tend to keep "important" items piled up on your desk or in your OutLook Inbox. Keeping your NAA score up, and reviewing the flags it raises regularly, can help you build that trust into your system such that it become closer to 100%.

Are your Projects Projects?
It is very easy to fall into the trap of throwing all your tasks under "area" buckets (e.g. "Home Repair") that last forever rather than defining specific projects. The project priority and target date metrics are there not so much to yield benefits to your dashboard, but to help you decide whether a project should go to the someday/maybe list or be broken out as a smaller/more specific project.

Are your Targets Targets?
As mentioned above, the purpose of the target date assignment metric is not so much for the value of setting targets, but for forcing as many items as possible into defined/do-able projects. One thing you want to avoid is perpetually setting unrealistic targets such that you spend your time discouraged by them or postponing them.

If you use "Mark Task Complete" to set up routine "good habit" reminders, try setting just the start date rather than both the start and due date. For example, if you have a daily reminder called "empty in-tray", set it as a "daily" with just a start date. That way it will show up on your next action lists, and you'll take satisfaction in checking it off, but it won't clutter your "overdue" lists.

How to Deal with In-trays?
Based on my experiences with this tool, I've begun setting up my in-tray's with a "project" icon, particularly on "map central" maps. The key advantage of this approach is that it ensures that its parent "project" flags as needing next actions if it becomes empty. It also helps you avoid letting random "bits and pieces" actions find there way in under a map central map. I'll blog more about this later. You can also remove a central topic from the project list by giving it a category of "mc*", but this option should be used with care.

Have you tried it?
The script has improved quite a bit over the last month, so if you haven't done so recently I would recommend downloading the latest copy. Recent versions provide the option of opening a wiki page dedicated to providing advice on improving the weakest aspect of your score. If you are a routine dashboard user, or have ResultsManager, but have "fallen of the GTD horse", give this a try. It doesn't require that you have any other "AO" tools. All you need is ResultsManager for generating Daily Action Dashboards.

Next Steps?
Any interest in further contests? Are there any other aspects of the DA dashboard that could be assessed? I'd write more, but I need to get going on some procrastinated "next actions" so I can improve my "Freshness" score :-).

Next Action Analysis Updated

ActivityOwner — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 02:12:17 +0000

The Next Action Analysis tool's report has evolved quite a bit over the last two weeks (see picture below) since the initial post (5 metrics for assessing your GTD System).

Here is a summary of the changes:

Added more targeted recommendations for the specific metrics with the most room for improvement along with wiki links that provide GTD advice and ways to use MindReader to address problem. Please add your advice.
Metric subtopics now list the projects or actions that need to be addressed (e.g. activities needing context, projects needing actions, etc). I particularly like the "You have the most work to do in the X context". On those days where you have your choice of "contexts", this can tell you where to go. Having these lists close at hand can be a catalyst for review and action.
The scoring was changed so that absolute metrics (e.g. #tasks, #overdue, etc) are scored on an exponentially declining scale rather than with a minimum cutoff. For example, you get 10.0 if you have no overdue tasks, 5.0 if you have 2, 2.5 if you have 4, 1.25 if you have 6, etc. That means if you have 300 next actions and pair that down to 200, you will see your score improve a bit rather than stay flat at 0.0.
The 5F's reported is now sorted so the worst dimension is listed first.
A new metric measuring the percentage of the projects that have had prioritized was added.
You can exclude "map central"-like central topics from the projects list by assigning a category of "mc*" to them (deactivate after adding the category). Use cautiously as you don't want stray action items living under one of these excluded projects. This category is intended for the central topic of a map where the project(s) are not in the central topic.
A status summary is shown during report generation so you know the macro is moving along.
Three random "activities of the day" are now included at the bottom of the report. For those days where you just don't know where to start.

Here is a sample output of the macro:

You can compare this to the old version.

Phase I of the 2008 GTD Next Action Analysis Challenge is complete with seven entrants vying for "Most Improved" over the next two weeks. There is still two weeks left to get your entry in for top score and/or the random drawing. I can think of several ResultsManager Power Users who have yet to submit an entry (that is unless they are one of the anonymous entries :-).

If you are a ResultsManager dashboard user, I recommend you download the macro and give it a try whether you want to enter or not. It includes several snippets of code that were previously shared separately including Next Action Roulette, Fire the oldest 10% of your tasks, Are your Next Actions eligible for Retirement, and "percent complete". No other a software is required. I recommend assigning it to your topic context menu to make it easy to run on your Daily Action Dashboard.

Note that I use the wiki to transfer programs from my home to work PC. This helps me avoid lagging too much in getting updates on the site. The downside is that sometimes undiscovered bugs creep in for a few hours. This particular script has has more than its share and probably a few remain. If you run into a problem let me know or just circle back in a day or so for the corrected version.

READER SURVEY
From a scoring point of view, I've found the "Feasibility: Number of Next Actions" metric to be the most difficult to evaluate. I initially assigned "70" as a 10.0 score but I'm wondering if that is unrealistically low. How many actions should a 10.0 dashboard have? How many is too many as to constitute a red-flag 6.5? Ditto for projects — Please comment below.

The blog will be quiet for the next 2 weeks as I hunker down and vie for the top score prize!

Next Action Analysis 2008 GTD Challenge

ActivityOwner — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 03:17:44 +0000

2007 was a year we largely focused on improved capturing and staging of tasks with tools like MindReader, Mark Task Complete, and OutlLinker. Perhaps 2008 can focus on improved weekly review and action? To kick it off and to provide some group moral support for getting things done, I'd like to propose the following contest:

Run the Next Action Analysis macro on your ResultsManager Daily Action dashboard sometime over the next 11 days.
Submit your NAA score in the comments below (anonymously if you choose) or by email to info at activityowner.com. The deadline is midnight your time Sunday January 13th.
Work on improving your dashboard's 5Fs as you do you weekly reviews and plan for 2008.
Submit a 2nd (hopefully improved) score before the end of the month.

To be eligible your dashboard must have at least 30 tasks in it.

The three contest winners will be the entries …

with the highest score
with the most improved score
chosen at random (only one reported score required)

As "prizes" I am offering to build each winner a (moderately-sized) custom ResultsManager dashboard, GyroQ tag, or MindManager macro to address a problem of their choosing. In the case of ties the winner will be chosen at random. Beware this commitment might linger on my someday/maybe list for a period of time :-).

If you are not a ResultsManager user, you are welcome calculate your submitted score manually based on the status of whatever paper or computer-based GTD system you are using. I will compile a statistical summary of the results. Along the way we can assess the applicability of scoring model.

Let the "transferring to someday/maybe lists" begin….

Next Action Analysis: 5 Metrics for Assessing your GTD System

ActivityOwner — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:01:54 +0000

I stood by the side of the road a few weeks ago waiting for AAA to show up to change my flat tire. In my PDA I had "Identify day I can get to dealer to replace balding tires" on to do list, where it had sat for several weeks. Here I am with a GTD-related blog and I'm experiencing the classic story that Dave Allen uses to motivate the use of the "Getting Things Done" paradigm. Clearly it was time for a reality check.

I had my "schedule tire replacement" next action on my list for many weeks and had elevated to priority 1 and given it deadlines during my weekly review, but it hadn't happened. Why? Among other things it was drown out by the 140+ other action items call for attention on any given day. It also probably had to do with lack of a "scheduling" context to focus on things like "find a time to do this".

In any case, it caused me to reflect on how effective my weekly reviews were. One downside of computer-based GTD systems is that they lack the tactile "copy onto a fresh page" review that a paper system provides.

During my reviews I try to get my in-trays emptied and push less urgent/important projects into the future or onto someday/maybe lists. The projects I have on my "committed" list all seem worthwhile and needing to be done at some point. Most have been reduce to a key next step to advance them. The problem is that all those "key next steps" still add up to much more than can be done in a 1-week horizon. The result is a "Hot Daily Action Dashboard" that Nick Duffill describes in his "Migrating from doing to reviewing" essay and as discussed by Mike W. in "Mind on Fire" and "Fighting Fire with Fire"

I decided I needed to review my "trusted system" in a way that get the daily action dashboard de-cluttered and under control. I thought it would be useful to propose a scorecard and some quantitative metrics to assess different attributes of the state of a GTD system. I came up with 5 dimensions to assess (5 F's):

Next Action Analysis Dimensions (5Fs)

Freshness	Are my next actions lingering for months?
Focus	Am I trying to advance a reasonable number of projects? Do they have target dates? Are your projects projects?
Feasibility	Do I have too many next actions?
Foresight	Are my actions on context lists and have I identified next actions for all my projects?
Finishing	Are my deadlines and targets slipping?

In order to assess these dimensions, I identified several metrics such as "average task age", "number of next actions", "number of projects", etc. that could be calculated and combined for each dimension. These five metrics can then be combined to calculate an overall "NAA Score" on a 10.0 scale, with each dimension contributing 20% according to the table below. 100% is given for metrics at the "goal" level and declining amounts down to the "0% level"

Next Action Analysis Scorecard

Dimension	Attribute	Goal	0%	Weighting
Freshness	Avg Age	14 days	60 days	10%
Freshness	90th percentile Age	60 days	360 days	10%
Focus	Projects	30	80 days	10%
Focus	Dated Projects	50%	0%	10%
Feasibility	Next Actions	70	170	20%
Foresight	Actions on Context List	95%	50%	10%
Foresight	Projects w/o next steps	0	4	10%
Finishing	Overdue tasks	0	4	10%
Finishing	Overdue to you	0	4	5%
Finishing	Past Target	0	7	5%

[NOTE: The scoring metrics have been updated -- see wiki for updated table]

This approach can be used on any automated GTD system. I have implemented a macro (ao_next_action_analysis.mmbas) for analyzing a ResultsManager daily action dashboard. Sample output of the Next Action Analysis macro is shown below:

Note that the macro calculates the "percent complete" for your dashboard. Although not included in the Scorecard, this metric provides some incentive to keep your dashboard in place over the course of the day as you complete items rather than refreshing it constantly. This metric includes repeating items that have been marked complete with a red check icon.

Note that in additional to calculating several metrics, the report also enumerates lists of your oldest and youngest actions along with projects that are dated/undated. It also provides a "Random Activity of the Day" for those times where you just don't know where to start.

As we enter this Olympic year and the season of New year's resolutions and annual goal setting, I'm hoping this can provide some fun and focus to the weekly review process. Treat the NAA score as an Olympic event and go for 10.0.

Let me know what you think of the assessment metrics and give the macro a try if you are a ResultsManager user. More information on the tool is available on the Next Action Analysis page on the wiki.

Next Action Roulette

ActivityOwner — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 12:34:14 +0000

My ResultsManager Daily Action dashboard has gotten a bit bloated over the past year with a subset of tasks and projects that are lingering. In theory a good GTD Weekly Review would help address these, but I've been playing with some alternative strategies to break the log jam.

I now use the GyroQ naaa tag each time I review my daily action dashboard to see what the oldest tags are. Note that this script now calculates a grand total age of your tasks (e.g. 120 30 day old tasks = 10 years!).

I try to force myself to address one of the oldest tags in some fashion or another by either…

Doing it
Adding a smaller more doable "next-action" to precede it or adding a relationship from an related task that needs to come first.
Pushing it to the someday/maybe list (if its old, that may be its rightful home)
Pushing its start date to the future
Delegating it

To augment the approach above, I added a new "rnd" tag which picks a random next action from the next action list. You can install it by pasting the rnd packed text from the GyroQ tag Library. A random task is also added onto the report generated by naaa.

When you have a block of free time and are struggling to pick an activity to work on, run this and either do what it says or ask yourself why you don't want to do it and then do something to change the situation

Fire the oldest 10% of your tasks

ActivityOwner — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 19:27:43 +0000

Is the "Review dashboards for aging tasks" action item you added to your list after reading a recent post becoming an aging task itself?

Even if you are capturing and completing dozens of tasks each week, a couple of them will invariably be "amorphous blobs" or have something about them that leads you to not complete them quickly. Over time those tasks with a high "cringe factor" can slowly accumulate until several dozen of them are bloating your next-action lists and making your whole system ineffective.

There are several ways to address aging tasks:

Do them
Realize you've already done them
Delegate them (better late than never)
Identify a shorter/more concrete "physical" next action to precede them (try using the new MindReader i tag)
Move the start date out into the future to a time that makes sense.
Banish them to the someday/maybe list for a spell.

If you have a lot of "blob" tasks, it can be difficult to determine which to attack first. In order to help address this there is now a simple GyroQ "naaa" next-action-age-analysis tag, which you can install in one step by pasting the naaa tag packed text into the GyroQ dialog box and then run on your Daily Action Dashboard. This tag uses a subset of the code in the more extensive "next-action-verb-analysis" macro and reports its results right on the dashboard rather than in a separate map. Note that this only works well if a large percentage of your actions have start dates associated with them.

The naaa tag analyzes the the next actions in your Daily Action dashboard that have start dates and calculates their average age. It then looks for the oldest 10% of the task and adds them to a new branch on the dashboard. You can use the goal of lowering your "average age" metric as a way to motivate yourself to address your aging tasks.

Are your next actions eligible for retirement?

ActivityOwner — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 03:34:24 +0000

If your ResultsManager activities typically have start date entered (e.g. if you use MindReader), then you might find an added feature of the "next-action-verb-analysis" macro useful.

The new version of the macro calculates the average age of your next actions and enumerates those stragglers that are more than twice the average. This provides a way to force yourself to face up to those stagnant items and either…

do them
realize you've already done them
delegate them (better late than never)
devise a shorter/more concrete "physical" next action to precede them, or
banish them to the someday/maybe list for a spell.

I'm embarrassed to say, but my (in-need-of-weekly-review) list started out with an average age of 35 days. One particular "sharpen the saw" item buried in my list was over 6 months old even though it was in the 15 minute category. My average is dropping now as this tool provides a metric to measure progress. At some point we'll need to reset the start date when someday/maybe or parent tasks hit the next action list for execution, but for now that's probably not what is causing our averages to run high.

Feel free to comment with your "average" as well as your frequent verbs.