1. Basics of
productive To Do
lists and Action
plans

2. Hello!
I am Sam Asadi
We are here to see how we can have a productive
To Do list and action plan

3. TO DO lists

4. What is to do list?
They are list of task that are prioritized and list
everything you need to carry out.
They have the most important tasks on the top
and the least important ones on the bottom.
(not a surprise if your to do list is not
prioritized, most people don’t prioritize them)

5. Steps to a
productive To-Do
list

6. 1.
Write down all of your
tasks

7. • Write down every task you have
• Break down the large tasks to small ones
-If a task take more than 2 hour is large and
you better break it into small tasks
• You can have different lists for you personal,
work, study etc. tasks

8. 2.
Define their priority

9. • You can use A-F technique in which A is very
important and F is not important at all.
• Order them based on their priority
• Review them again and make any necessary
change (for example if you have too many tasks
with high priority change them based on which
are more important)

10. Eisenhower
principle

11. “I have two kinds of problems: the
urgent and the important. The urgent
are not important, and the important
are never urgent

12. The difference between important and urgent
Important
Activities that have an
outcome that leads to us
achieving our goals, whether
these are professional or
personal
Urgent
activities that demand
immediate attention, and are
usually associated with
achieving someone else's goals.
They are often the ones we
concentrate on and they
demand attention because the
consequences of not dealing
with them are immediate

13. Based on the paper you have there are 4 types of
tasks
1. Important and Urgent
2. Important but not Urgent
3. Urgent but not Important
4. Not Important and not Urgent

14. Important and Urgent

15. Why is there a paradox?
These kind of tasks are the important ones that
you either:
left them until the very last moment and now they
are urgent (procrastination)
Or:
You couldn’t foreseen them

16. Non of us are future tellers but we can avoid
procrastination

17. “procrastination occurs when
there’s a temporal gap between
intended behavior and enacted
behavior
-Professor Clarry Lay

18. The signs of Procrastinating
• Filling the day with low priority tasks
• Waiting for the right time and the right mood
• Sitting down to do the important task and
immediately leave to make a coffee
• Leaving an important task on your To-Do list for
far too long even though you know its important
• Reading emails multiple times while you have
no clear understanding what should you do with
them

19. • Saying yes to every single un-important tasks
other asks you to fill the day while you have your
own important tasks on your To-Do list
• GENERALY: MAKING EXCUSE MEANS
PROCASTRATION

20. Reasons behind becoming a procrastinator
• Unpleasant task or job
• Disorganization
• Feeling overwhelmed with the task

21. Techniques to
overcome
procrastination

22. Eat an
Elephant beetle
One everyday morning

23. Other techniques:
• Set goals both for your personal life and work
life (both long term and short term) we will talk
about how to set goals later!
• Use Eisenhower principle!
• Use Prioritize To-Do lists!
• Master scheduling and planning skill
• Use action plans!
• Count your cost of work and be honest with your
self

24. Important BUT not
Urgent

25. • These are the tasks that help you achieve your
goals, both personal and professional
• They are THE one tasks that make you do the
important work.
• Dedicate plenty of your time to do these sort of
tasks
• Leave some time for unforeseen tasks
• Don’t leave them until they become urgent as
well

26. Urgent BUT not
Important

27. • These are the tasks that keep you from
achieving your goals
• Try to either reschedule them or delegate them
• You can schedule regular meetings with those
who interrupt you often
• You might want to learn to say NO to the task
and YES to the person

28. Not Urgent not
Important

29. • Ultimate distractions
• Try to cancel or delete them if possible
• These tasks are normally one of those that
others need you to do
• If you define your work boundaries and let
everyone know them, you probably will have a
shorter list

30. Advantages and
Disadvantages of To-Do
lists

31. Advantages
• You wont forget your tasks
which will lead others to
rely on you
• You tackel the important
jobs first
• You wont get stressed
because of large amount of
jobs left to do
Disadvantages
• To-Do lists are only good
when there are not too many
tasks
• For the situations that there
are huge amount of tasks
you should use action plans
and action programs

32. Steps to a
productive Action
plan

33. Why do you need an
Action plan?

34. There are some disadvantages to To-Do lists:
Disadvantages
• To-Do lists are only good when there are not too
many tasks
• For the situations that there are huge amount of
tasks you should use action plans and action
programs

35. For those disadvantages of To-Do lists we have to
use Action plans which are more advanced and can
scale to higher level of planning.

36. What is an Action Plan?
If you ask google you will get this answer:
- An action plan is a document that lists what
steps must be taken in order to achieve a specific
goal. The purpose of an action plan is to clarify
what resources are required to reach the goal,
formulate a timeline for when specific tasks need
to be completed and determine what resources are
required.

37. As you noticed, action plans are documents and
not lists of task, they contain a list of task but
that’s only one side of them, they will give you more
information on who should do what and which task
should be done before others.
Action plans are more useful when you are
managing a small project and the deadlines are
not that important.

38. Steps to make an
Action plan

39. 1.
Identify the tasks

40. Identify the task
You have to sit down with your team and identify
the tasks.
For identifying the tasks you can use different
kinds of techniques two of the most know and
useful techniques are:
1- Brainstorming
2- Group decision making

41. Before that…

42. Groupthink
When groups are supporting shitty ideas

43. Groupthink
Groupthink is a term coined by Irving L. Janis at
1972.
He had a research which showed in some groups
there is a lack of opposing viewpoints and conflicts
which leads to poor decision.

44. Examples of Groupthink
1. Bay of pigs invasion
2. Challenger space shuttle disaster

45. Identifying groupthink
These are groupthink signs:
1. High level of group cohesion
2. Really high amount of pressure on the group to
make the best decision
3. Persuasive group leader

46. Avoiding Groupthink
You can use these tools to avoid groupthink:
1. Brainstorming
2. Six thinking hats
3. The Delphie Techniques
4. Modified Borda Count

47. A glance on 6 thinking hats

48. Brainstorming
Brainstorming is one of advertising industry
children.
Alex Osborn, Madison Avenue advertising
executive came with the idea of brainstorm
sessions. What we have today as brainstorming
sessions are developed version of what he had
come up with at 1953 in his book. (Applied
Imagination)

49. Brainstorming
During the brainstorming session:
• Someone should write down the Ideas
• You can use mindmaps
• Write down your ideas to avoid blocking (waiting
for your turn and meanwhile forgetting your
idea)
•

50. Brainstorming
You can use these techniques too:
1. Delphie method
2. Stepladder method
3. Reverse brainstorming
4. ROUND-ROBIN BRAINSTORMING

51. Group Decision making
Group decision making is a normal brainstorming
session + a voting for the ideas!

52. 2.
Analyze and Delegate

53. Analyze
Analyze the tasks that you identified in the
previous step, decide which one has a higher
priority and which has to be done first.
Based on your analyzes you have to start
delegating and assigning within your team.

54. Delegate
Delegation is essential since we cant do
everything, on the other hand we are not perfect in
doing everything, so we have to delegate.

55. 3.
Add the task to your
Action plan template

56. Action plan template
An action plan is a table with containing the
tasks, time, people, schedule and dependencies.

57. 4.
Closing and Learning

58. Closing and learning
Closing is one of the most important steps in any
project, small or big…
In closing you have document whatever you have
done and what ever you had to do but you didn’t,
what went wrong what was the benefits and etc.
These documents will create something we call
Organizational Process Assets.

59. Aide Memorie
If you are going to do the same project again and
again later you better create an Aide Memorie
An Aid Memorie is a document listing tasks that
should be done with their priority
You can update and evaluate your list through
each project in order to create the best and most
productive list.

60. Thanks!
Any questions?
You can find me at @sam-asadi and @SamyAsady