Otherwise, I consider things like entering contact information too mechanical to consider them “planning.” Of course, I’m using a smartphone with a qwerty keypad, so there’s less overhead. On a feature phone a an E.61 (12-key) keypad, it might not be worth the effort.

I wouldn’t refer to this as an action “chain,” because it’s a single action with a clear boundary — once you’ve written down “Call Susan re Project X,” you just enter the number into your phone, and you’re done. But I do agree that we need to be careful with actions that might lead to serial digressions.

Assuming that I didn’t already have Susan’s number in my cell phone, I would program it into the phone at the time of writing the next action. So “Call Susan at 422-111 about Project X by Wednesday.” Becomes “Call Susan about Project X.” (I reserve deadlines for calendar entries, but that’s a personal preference). The same principle applies to email: write down the action action, but enter the email address in your mail client right then. The less verbiage an action item contains, the more responsive you’ll become to it.

If I need to research something online, I’ll bookmark it in del.icio.us the moment it occurs to me — unless it’s a two-minute action, in which case I’ll get the information right then. Sometimes with two-minute actions, I’ll bookmark the relevant site, look up the needed info immediately, then put the info in the bookmark’s Notes field.

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