Picking your next step

In the time management book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, David Allen emphasizes the importance of the very next action that will move you to completing each of your goals.  He points out that this isn't easy.  He suggests you take your time to make the right choice.

I took Allen's advice in the last couple of days with a staffing issue at work.  We're losing some corporate support for a computer system.  I think we need to create a new role to make up for the lost support.  But it's not my decision.  It's not my budget.  I'm not involved in the groups that make these decisions.

I was tempted to just e-mail my proposal to the people I know well who might be able to influence the decision.  Just start communicating to the first person that pops into my head.  But I decided, instead, to really think about the BEST people to talk to about this and the best way to reach out to them.  This led me to reach out to one person after another, all of whom were people I did NOT know well, people I am NOT comfortable with, but people who have turned out to be exactly the people I needed to work this with.  In just 2 days, I've built a lot of momentum to get this role staffed.  Had I not carefully picked each of my next steps, one at a time, had I just plunged ahead with the actions that came most naturally to me, I'm sure I wouldn't be this close this quickly to convincing the organization to staff this role.