Everything we do, both mental and physical, or a combination of both, is an action. A human life is ultimately composed of actions, hundreds of thousands of them. Some are pleasurable, some are painful. Some are easy, some are hard. Some cost money. Some earn money. Some can be done alone, some require other people. Many involve structures and processes: modifying a structure, following a process.
To maximize happiness, you must find a balance between many categories of action. Imbalance leads to unhappiness. For example, if all you did was work, then your relationships would suffer. If all you did was play, then you would probably run out of money. If you just accumulated knowledge via learning, but never applied or shared any of it, then you would likely feel unfulfilled.
In the developed world, many people feel their lives are out of balance. They feel like they never have enough time to do everything they should and want to be doing. Many feel like they spend too much time working, while other areas of life are neglected.
The central problem of Action Management is answering the question “What should I do next?” The creative mind is capable of thinking of far more possible actions than there is time to carry out. How to select from among the dizzying array of possibilities?
One strategy is to reduce the number of options to a more manageable size by grouping them into categories. But because actions have so many attributes, there are many possible ways of grouping them. Here are several:
Categorization Scheme 1
– Life Improvement
– Life Sustainment (Loss Prevention and Recovery)
– Enjoyment
– Contribution/Assistance
Life Improvement actions are those that tend to increase your happiness level somehow, above its current level. These often take the form of learning and applying new skills, but can also include improvements to your relationships, your home, and your community.
Unlike Life Sustainment, Life Improvement requires a change of some kind–an elevation from the current baseline. You need to make or buy or learn something. You need to develop a skill. If it’s buying something, you need to make a decision. That means researching different options, the differences between those options, and their relative importance. In other words, evaluation is needed. So Life Improvement almost always requires more mental effort than Life Sustainment.
Finally, within the category of Life Improvement, most actions can be further categorized into specific life areas, such as Investing, Relationship, Health, Fitness, and so on.
Life Sustainment actions are those that tend to preserve some pleasant state or condition in your life. For example, brushing your teeth preserves a state of good oral health and allows you to keep your teeth throughout your life. Work is essentially a sustainment action, since it provides income that, in turn, is required to complete other actions, both sustainment and improvement.
A common characteristic of sustainment actions is that must be done over and over (that is, they recur), often at a regular frequency. And this recurrence happens at different levels of time scale: some must be done daily, some weekly, some monthly, and so on. Because they are routine, Sustainment actions often do not require much mental effort, though they do require physical effort.
Enjoyment actions are those that are intrinsically pleasurable in themselves and do not necessarily cause a lasting improvement in your life or prevent/recover from loss. For example, seeing a good movie, eating a good meal, visiting a museum, or listening to good music. While it is possible for a Life Improvement or Life Sustainment action to also be enjoyable, this category is reserved for those actions that do not generally improve or sustain something in your life.
Contribution/Assistance actions are those that primarily benefit others rather than yourself. Contribution connotes a longer-lasting effect of the action, while assistance has a shorter-lived effect. For example, creating a work of beauty or usefulness would fall under contribution, while doing someone a small favor would fall under Assistance.
While most actions fall neatly and exclusively into a single category, there are also those that span one or more categories. For example, the practice of yoga could be categorized into Life Sustainment, Life Improvement, and Enjoyment. This is because it prevents the loss of muscle tone (Life Sustainment), increases strength, balance, and flexibility (Life Improvement), and also feels good while you are doing it (Enjoyment).
For me (excluding actions related to developing this website), the action notes I create fall into these categories according to the following percentages:
45% – Life Improvement
28% – Life Sustainment (Loss Prevention)
17% – Enjoyment
10% – Contribution/Assistance
One advantage of grouping actions in this way is that helps with action sequencing. Many people are happiest when they strike a balance between these four categories. By grouping actions this way, you can easily alternate between each category as you select the next action to execute.
Categorization Scheme 2
– Learning
– Working
– Playing
Categorization Scheme 3
– Contributory
– Creative
– Career/Work/School
– Personal
– Utilitarian
– Ideological
– Recreational
Categorization Scheme 4
– Intrinsically Pleasant
– Intrinsically Unpleasant
– Intrinsically Neutral
Categorization Scheme 5 (by Type of Activity)
– Create/Update/Delete
– Post
– Watch/Read/Listen
– Search/Research
– Exploration/Investigation
– Purchase
– Email/Text message
Phases of Action Management
- Action Planning
- Action Execution
- Action Retrospection
Book Excerpts
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. By David Allen. 2001.
Observations
For me (excluding actions related to developing this website), the action notes I create fall into these categories according to the following percentages:
45% – Life Improvement
28% – Life Sustainment (Loss Prevention)
17% – Enjoyment
10% – Contribution/Assistance