If you’re working on any kind of long-term project, you’ve likely got a to-do list of some kind or another, keeping track of all the things you’ve still got to do.
Whether it’s an in-depth system like GTD, a 7-Habits or a Scrum Board, or you prefer to just keep a list in a notebook, a good To-Do list can be critical for planning out your success.
It can also be comforting and reassuring to have a solid blueprint, or at least a good starting point showing you where to go next.
But what happens far too often is we’ll come to a task that is more difficult, or takes far longer than we ever expected.
Instead of changing gears and moving on to another task, or instead of taking a step back and evaluating why we’re stuck and look for a new or better way to fix the problem we’re having – we stay stuck until we’re no longer regularly looking at our To-Do list, and progress slows to a crawl. Or a halt.
But no matter where you are on your project, there is almost certainly something you can be doing to keep yourself moving forward.
To get unstuck, or to prevent getting stuck in the first place, the first thing you should do is maintain clarity on what you can or should be working on right now.
Unlike with a traditional To-Do list, when you use Project Time Machines, and you open your Project Card, you’ll see a list of your most recent Completed Ops.
Tap on the last one you worked on, and it will open to your Actions Taken. These are the specific actions you took the very last time you sat down to work, whether it was earlier this afternoon, or several weeks ago.
Depending on the note you left yourself last time you worked, you should be quickly brought back to exactly where you last left off, and what you can be doing right now to continue.
You can always go back as far as you like to review the Ops you’ve completed in the past, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting what you were working on or where you left off at any point.
If you want to reach your goals, you’ve got to keep moving forward. Keep taking action.
Thinking isn’t doing. You can think about your project all day long, but nothing happens unless you put your butt in the chair and get to work.
Even if it’s just a little bit each day. Those little bits add up (which you will easily see on your Project Card under Total Time Worked).
Even if you don’t know what to do next, or even if you don’t have a To-Do list yet.
Simply open up the app, Start an Op, and set your Op Objective to Do Research or Write My To-Do List.
Then get to work. Otherwise, nothing happens.