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You are here: Home / Archives for 1 - Productivity / e Plan (Review & Reduce)

Defining the Purpose of a Project Clarifies Focus

February 25, 2009 by Matt Perman

Yesterday I blogged on the six benefits of defining the “why” on a project that are discussed in Getting Things Done. One of those benefits was “it clarifies focus.” Here is more that Allen had to say on that:

When you land on the real purpose for anything you’re doing, it makes things clearer. Just taking two minutes and writing out your primary reason for doing something invariably creates an increased sharpness of vision, much like bringing a telescope into focus. Frequently, projects and situations that have begun to feel scattered and blurred grow clearer when someone brings it back home by asking, “What are we really trying to accomplish here?” (p. 65)

Filed Under: Project Planning

Why to Define the "Why" on Your Projects

February 24, 2009 by Matt Perman

As we mentioned the other day, the first step in the natural planning model is to “define purpose and principles.” Defining your purpose is basically asking the “why?” question. “Why are we doing this? What are we seeking to bring about through this?”

Why is it so important to ask the “why” question on your projects? Getting Things Done discusses six benefits:

  1. It defines success
  2. It creates decision-making criteria
  3. It aligns resources
  4. It motivates
  5. It clarifies focus
  6. It expands options

As Allen writes, “almost anything you’re currently doing can be enhanced and even galvanized by more scrutiny at the top level of focus.” That probably seems pretty evident to most of us.

The problem is that, although this is common sense, it is not commonly practiced:

I admit it: this is nothing but advanced common sense. To know and be clear about the purpose of any activity are prime directives for clarity, creative development, and cooperation. But it’s common sense that’s not commonly practiced, simply because it’s so easy for us to create things, get caught up in the form of what we’ve created, and let our connection with our real primary intentions slip.

The challenge, then, is to practice what we know. Don’t let solid common sense about managing your projects just sit on the shelf. Make it your common practice.

Filed Under: Project Planning

Natural Planning, Unnatural Planning, and Reactive Planning

February 19, 2009 by Matt Perman

In addition to the 5 stages of workflow and 5 horizons of workflow, another critical insight in Getting Things Done is the natural planning model.

The Natural Planning Model

The natural planning model can be summarized in five steps:

  1. Defining purpose and principles
  2. Outcome visioning
  3. Brainstorming
  4. Organizing
  5. Identifying next actions

The purpose is the “why.” Principles are the standards and boundaries of your plan. Outcome visioning clarifies the “what.” Brainstorming generates the “how.” Organizing puts it all together in a manageable form. And identifying next actions gets you going.

As David Allen writes, “these five phases of project planning occur naturally for everything you accomplish during the day” (Getting Things Done, 58). However, when most people go about formally planning something, they end up doing the opposite — what Allen calls the unnatural planning model.

The Unnatural Planning Model

In the unnatural planning model, you try to come up with a “good idea” on this or that issue before defining purpose and vision. This almost always creates more ambiguity and increased stress because it is artificial and unnatural. And since this is most people’s typical experience with planning, they prefer not to plan at all.

(Or, as Allen discusses, they create the plan “after the fact” just to please those who want to see a plan — like in elementary school when you’d create the outline to your paper after writing the paper.)

The Reactive Planning Model

But Allen points out that the result of not planning is often crises. When this happens, urgency takes over and people decide to plan after all. But in this case, they reverse the natural planning model and slide into the reactive planning model. So instead of defining purpose and principles first, you hear a “call to action” first — to work harder, get more people on things, get busier.

Instead of resolving things, that usually just creates a mess. So someone says “hey, let’s get organized.” When this doesn’t solve the problem, someone then says “let’s brainstorm.” So everyone gets gathered into a room and the leader says “who has a good idea here?” When not much happens, finally someone asks “so, what are we trying to do here again?” — which gets to vision and purpose.

“The reactive style is the reverse of the natural planning model. It will always come back to top-down focus. It’s not a matter of whether the natural planning model will be done — just when, and at what cost” (p. 62).

Save yourself and your organization time and frustration. Start with the natural planning model!

Filed Under: Project Planning

When You Can't Get Your Email Done: Get Up Earlier

December 15, 2008 by Matt Perman

My standard practice is to clear out my inbox as one of the first tasks in my daily routine, first thing in the morning.

Today I started at 7:30 and then had some appointments start at 9:00. I wasn’t able to get through all of my email. I think I will be able to make some time later this afternoon to get the rest of it taken care of, but by then there will be a lot of new messages.

I prefer to get all of it taken care of right at the beginning of the day, and then maybe continue zeroing out new email every hour or every four hours. This always works best when at the very first round, first thing in the morning, you can get everything dealt with.

So what do you do when you aren’t able to get through everything the first time? You need to get up earlier.

Sometimes you do need to do seasons where you have to let things build up in the working folders, as I’ve blogged on previously. And sometimes you need to take “email vacations,” as I’ve also blogged on.

But as a standard practice, which is my plan for this week and most weeks, you need to zero out your inbox every morning at least — without having anything leftover for later in the day (except new stuff that comes). When the time that takes doesn’t fit, get up earlier.

You have to deal with those emails at some point. Whether you deal with them now or in three days, they are going to take the same amount of time (nuance: though sometimes email creates more email, which is the rationale behind email vacations).

The other thing you can do is implement strategies to reduce your email volume (discussed in How To Get People to Send You Less Email). But if you are going to be keeping up with your email, at root one of the basic things you need to do is make time for it.

Filed Under: Daily Planning

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What’s Best Next exists to help you achieve greater impact with your time and energy — and in a gospel-centered way.

We help you do work that changes the world. We believe this is possible when you reflect the gospel in your work. So here you’ll find resources and training to help you lead, create, and get things done. To do work that matters, and do it better — for the glory of God and flourishing of society.

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About Matt Perman

Matt Perman started What’s Best Next in 2008 as a blog on God-centered productivity. It has now become an organization dedicated to helping you do work that matters.

Matt is the author of What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done and a frequent speaker on leadership and productivity from a gospel-driven perspective. He has led the website teams at Desiring God and Made to Flourish, and is now director of career development at The King’s College NYC. He lives in Manhattan.

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