Action Items

At the COSE Small Business Conference last week I sat in on a workshop dealing with effective meetings and time management. One of the significant “take aways” from the workshop is to always end each meeting with specific action items.

“Let’s think about it” is not an action item.

“Buy a new computer” is not an action item – it is a decision, or perhaps a project. A project consists of many action items. Decide on the first action item and it will get done. Additional action items will fall into place.

“Call Dell on Thursday for pricing on a laptop computer for Joe” is an action item.

This is good personal as well as business advice.

Will Limkemann