43 Folders

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”What’s 43 Folders?”
43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

What next action?

Sometimes you reach a point with a project where you can't say that there's a single "next action." Or rather, if you can isolate a discrete "next action," it's one that's going to take several months.

One example: Writing a novel requires research, and so on, but there's a time when you sit down to write. What's your "next action" there? Write chapter one? But there's only an arbitrary mark dividing it from chapter two.

Or another: One of my projects is advancing my level of Japanese, and as part of that, I'm working on 6 characters per day. It'll take me several months to get through that, but every time I finish for the day, my "next action" is still exactly what it was before.

Is there something obvious that I'm missing?

sonia_simone's picture

10 + 2s can be...

10 + 2s can be useful NAs for these. I'm in the middle of a seemingly endless Web writing project. I work on the site in chunks throughout the day, but a 10+2 is a measurable thing I can tick off. My calendar (I like paper for these things) says 10 10x2 - Web. I make a hash mark for each one. When ten hash marks are made, I'm done. I don't write 10+2 Web ten times, but you certainly could if that worked better for you.

 
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