Chapter 9 Response

Shobna Khunkhun
Chapter 9, Doing: Making The Best Action List, primarily focused on the structure of action list items and how to handle incoming surprise additions to that list. The two sections I found most intriguing where the “four-criteria model for choosing actions in the moment [and] the threefold model for evaluating daily work.” The four criteria [categorizing actions by context, time available, energy available and priority] in choosing what action to take in any given moment really brought structure in how to implement an action list. I think context is highly important because it allows you to keep your already proceed open loops closed. Organizing by context helps avoid the reassessment of what actions to attach to certain tasks. At first I started contextualizing  my action list with “school” and “errands” but after reading this chapter I started sub-contexts under these to categories. For instance under errands I set up categorizes of “bills”, “tasks for thesis”, “car”, “job applications”, etc. The process just leaves less stress on the my mind because my actions items are not just out of my head but organized so that when the time allotted task related to bills comes, everything I need to do in that context is in one place.  In the threefold model for evaluating daily work section, the notion I found most helpful was by defining your task, doing work as it shows up in surprise form is alright. A major concept in the chapter was when decided what to do on your action list, its’ best to go with your gut/intuition. In cases where urgent surprise tasks come up, it’s okay to focus your attention on those as long as you know what you’re not doing. The ability to manage the surprises comes from having defined your work (the surprises and prescheduled tasks). It seems like a lot of information to take in at first, the whole structure of Allen’s methodology but hopefully with practice it will be comes second nature and intuition.