Action Plan 101: Create The Perfect Strategy To Become More Productive And Successful

The title seems a bit exaggerated, right? Well, let me assure you, it is not. Most people are unfamiliar with the term ‘Action Plan’ while some might have heard it in academic talks on project management. Let’s start with a brief introduction just so we are clear. Action Plan is a structured objective-focused strategy that contains small individual tasks or actions, often executed sequentially. Here’s an example: Say you have a task: “Complete an assignment”. The Action Plan for this vague and broad task would be: pick a topic, do research, collect and analyze data, create your draft, and then submit. A list of step-by-step executable actions that completes the task or goal. Pretty straight forward, right?

Now let me elaborate the second half of the title ( I’ll be honest. This bit does feel a bit exaggerated.) What do I mean by “The Prefect Strategy”? Most people have difficulty when completing a task or some goal to get their desired result. Often, it’s not because they do not try, but because they do not have a clear strategy to do that. They lack the Action Plan. Not knowing where to begin or what to do causes one to feel overwhelmed, confused and lost. This is a common pitfall for many of us (Well, it was for me.) We decide on something, run into it headfirst without a strategy and then do not even know how to start or finish, struggling and almost giving up at every difficult step. A strategy is something that provides direction and stimulates action; this in turn produces progress i.e. makes us productive. An Action Plan is that strategy. It prevents overwhelm or confusion or fear by outlining a clear path for one to follow, to complete an objective. Let’s get back to our example. Had I not fragmented the vague, broad and difficult task “complete your assignment”, do you think most people would even get past the first stage? Even those that do, would get stuck after each step, feeling overburdened by the very task. Unless we know which route to take in a journey, we are most likely going to get lost.

Now let’s get to the main part of our article, the fundamentals and the how-to of creating a good Action Plan i.e. the engine of productivity:

• Action Plan is objective based

Every action we do has some outcome, right? Small or big, an action produces results. However, we should be careful in ensuring that those results are in line with our desired objective. The very nature of a strategy is to achieve an objective and actions that are not in line with the objective only pollute the entire strategy. The very purpose of an Action Plan is to prevent wasting valuable resources like time, money, effort, etc; Avoiding detours or distraction is what produces quick results; this is what boosts and maintains willpower and motivation i.e. the fuel to productivity.

Let’s use an example to get a better grasp. Say you have a task: “Get a (or a new) job” (A vague one. Be specific when you set your goals). The Action Plan for this would be “Update/Prepare Resume”, “Get on LinkedIn”, “Make a list of job types and positions”, “Make a list of companies to apply to”, “Apply to 5-10 vacancies in this month”, and so on. Here, every action is in line with the final objective, hence necessary and meaningful. All of them have an outcome that brings you closer to the final objective. It is important that we are careful to avoid any action or task that will dilute the entire strategy by creating unnecessary load or distraction. Had I included “Create a headshot for Resume“ (Strangely, a lot of people do this) above, this would create extra work which has no real impact on our progress.

• An Action Plan is clear and detailed

Being clear keeps things simple. However, I bet most have no clue why (I do see a lot of people setting vague goals.) Keeping things simple means less mental load which in turn means less distractions, doubt, and procrastination. You know what to do, how to do it and when to do it. Makes you ready and confident. There is no room for second thoughts or confusion.

So how do we keep things clear and specific? Details. Have as much info as possible. Do not be vague. Nothing should be maybe or could be. These three things must be clear, specific and always present: Action (what needs to be done), outcome (what is the final output) and Process (how to do it). You can add other things like time, resources, requirements, etc. But these things can change along the way so they can be optional.

Let’s use our previous example, the “Get a (or a new) job”, to understand this better. For the “Prepare/Update Resume” bit, the action is making the resume itself (that’s clear), the outcome is a paper/digital copy of your resume and the process can be ‘Choose a template, collect relevant data about yourself and then use a google docs or even a web app service to create a resume”. For the “Make a list…” bit, the action is, again, task itself, outcome is a paper/digital list of all companies with their url or email and the process can be “Search on google and LinkedIn for relevant companies with vacancy open”. See, not that difficult.

• An Action Plan is flexible

This is a vital feature of a good Action Plan. What do I mean by “Flexible”? Not rigid, in terms of alternative options, process, time, resources, etc. From my personal experience, this is a very common pitfall. A strategy that can’t adapt to changes is a bad strategy. Let me elaborate that a bit. When we do things step-by-step, each step or action is reliant on the one preceding it. If step two was a failure or takes too long or becomes unable to complete at the moment, then moving on to step three is impossible and the entire plan either comes to a halt or fails. You can not rely on such a rigid system in the real world where things can change very rapidly. The real world is unexpected and unpredictable, and your strategy may not go as smoothly as you hope for. Same thing with time and resources. You may not always have enough of both. One thing that you can always expect to happen is that things don’t go as planned (Read more about that here: ‘Things Never Go As Planned: How To Deal With It’). Hence, you need to have a strategy that is flexible.

Let’s go over our previous example. Most of the steps were not dependent on each other, except for the resume part since we need a resume to apply for a job. But everything else can be done at random. Let me give another example: “Get a license”. This can include “Join a driving school”, “Practice on a friend’s car/bike”, “Read for the written exam”, “Research about maintaining cars/bikes”, “Fill the form for the test” and so on. You can do any step at any moment or even skip some. Very flexible.

• An Action Plan has checkpoints

Think of the Action Plan like a path or route to follow. A single task is like a checkpoint. A point to take a break and think about your next move, make adjustments and find flaws or weaknesses. If you start blurring things, then it can cause mental or even physical overload. Most importantly, what do checkpoints represent? Achievement or Progress, right? Each action must have real tangible results that will bring you closer to your success.

Again, let’s go over our “Get a job” example. Here, each action, from creating a resume, a LinkedIn profile, a list, etc. is like a checkpoint. You do one, pause and continue. And also make improvements or adjustments, if needed, to deal with any unexpected changes. Checkpoints give you clarity, sense of progress, chance to take breaks, and more.

• Action Plan are executable

The very nature of a task is that it is executable i.e. something we can do and not something you hope for i.e. expectation. The thing that makes a task so great is that it relies on your action. Expectations on the other hand, are beyond our control and rarely achieved.

Had I included something like “Do 10 interviews per month” in our “Get a job” task, that would have been disastrous (Most people do include this btw.) Applying for an interview is one thing, you can do it. Being selected and called for it, this is completely beyond your control. This is an expectation that you hope for. If we pollute our Action Plan with such expectations, we’ll only have disappointments. This harms both willpower and resolve.

• Action Plan are prioritizable

Ok this is quite straight forward. You want to have actions that can be prioritized based on their urgency and outcome. If not, you will just get stuck with menial tasks. How? People do not like hard things, we all know that right? Basic human nature. Things that are urgent and important are hard. Avoiding difficult things and just being satisfied or finding some sense of achievement in menial tasks becomes quite common when things are not prioritized. This can stagnate real progress and worse, it can waste your time, effort and resources without you realizing as you seek quick gratification through easy tasks.

For the sake of consistency, let’s see another example. Say you have a goal “Make 5 friends this year” (quite realistic, right?) You might have this strategy: “Join a club”, “Get on social media”, “Talk to strangers on the bus or cafe”, “Attend more functions” and so on. Now, joining a club and talking to strangers seems like two  most difficult tasks with real impacts. But the thing that most get satisfied with is using social media, since that is by far the easiest thing. Again, it’s fine to do that first (we want to be flexible), but if you do not prioritize the two others over this easy one, you will stagnate as you delude yourself thinking you're making progress. Here’s what I would recommend, do the hard thing but also do the easy one on your extra time.

• Action Plan have deadlines

Note that I am not talking about an individual task here. Time needs to be flexible since things do not go as planned in the real world. However, the entire strategy, i.e. the Action Plan, needs to have a set deadline. Deadlines create urgency and sense of action; I have already mentioned how important that is. Things that have no real deadline just turn into a wishlist (might or might not happen.) Deadlines are a great mechanism to stimulate action as they create mental pressure which forces you to be accountable since you are always mentally aware of your tasks. If you ignore that, you might suffer some emotional damage. As humans, we hate pain and try to avoid it, this alone makes us a bit productive. I do not think we need an example for this one, so I’ll end this here.

In conclusion, an Action Plan will not only boost your productivity but also your chances of success. Everything I have written has been based on my own personal experience. You can do further research and find some more technical info too. Again, I can’t stress enough how greatly they boost your productivity. And, if you need help, feel free to use this web application I created, blueprint . It is carefully designed and based on these very guidelines and principles. I assure you it will help you boost your productivity and improve your skill of goal setting and achievement.