As said before the Action Plan is the Time Management System's operational planning resource, as such, its syntax will differ from the Master Plan's syntax. Also, as the Action Plan can be used as a "control panel", its syntax will have to enable us to make quick assessments of our situation at any given time, and easily introduce modifications when needed.

For the above reasons, the Action Plan is the right place to use the shapes discussed in Interface. The Interface elements recommended for the Action Plan are the following:

Ovals: highlight items that require immediate attention

We should start out by asking the question: what objectives or action items should be included in the Action Plan?. The answer to this question is, all those that -considering our current situation- are achievable within the Action Plan's time window (1 to 10 weeks), and are aligned with one or more of our Master Plan's objectives. However, items on the Action Plan do not necessarily have to be exactly the same as the ones on the Master Plan (they just have to contribute to their realization). Also, Action Plan items will be self-explanatory as to how to go about achieving them, or flexible enough so that you will be able to decide on how to proceed. In addition, as discussed before, items on the Action Plan can sometimes point to a Focus Plan.

Let us analyze the following scenario, in which we have a Master Plan objective to achieve a laid-back and relaxed lifestyle, with some steps towards it: starting a home-based business, moving near the sea, and being able to travel the world. Let us say for the sake of this example, that we also have a related objective, which is to be fit, with a number of steps to allow us to achieve and maintain a fit body: eating healthy food, exercising and getting periodic checkups. The Master Plan's entry for this could look like this (see Creating The Master Plan):

-RELAXLIFE(HomeBusiness; MoveNearSea; Travel) & FITNESS(EatHealthy; Exercise; Checkups)

We could create the Action Plan below, based on the partial Master Plan above.

After much research, I came up with the following syntax for the Master Plan. This syntax facilitates the integration of the various TMS Procedures, enables us to see the "big picture" of our objectives, and allows for easy updates of the Master Plan.

The proposed syntax consists of a bulleted list of objectives, each of them containing a number of semi-colon-separated steps in parentheses, necessary to achieve each it. In addition, each line will contain an andpersand-separated list of related objectives.

This is the way the Master Plan will look like if you follow the proposed syntax:

-OBJ1(Obj1Step1; Obj1Step2; ...) & OBJ1.1(Obj1.1Step1; Obj1.1Step2; ...) & ...
-OBJ2...

As mentioned before, the above scheme allows for easy integration of the TMS Procedures. For example, naming conventions and other Interface elements should be used for all items on the plan, Prioritization can be achieved by moving items towards the top of the list, or to the left of the line, Sequencing will be given by the steps in parentheses, and Timing might be incorporated into each objective's caption. As for Grouping, each and every line represents a co-related group of items. Also, Alignment checks are supported by this syntax, as it provides a structured and changeable view of our Master Plan.

From the psychological perspective, creating our plans “set in stone”, will be counterproductive. It will affect our internal need for freedom and decrease our performance level. For this reason, we need to feel reassured that all action items, deadlines, or even objectives on our plans, are changeable within our Time Management System.

As mentioned in Updates, our ability to assess our external and internal realities, is what will allow us to adjust our plans and adapt them to the ever-changing reality. This will enable us to constantly learn from our reality, and flexibly adapt our plans to it (preventing obsolete and inadequate plans).

Flexibility then, is a psychological factor of major importance and therefore it should always be kept in mind when using the Time Management System. We should remain alert, and open to incorporate changes in the various aspects of our plans (action items, objectives, structure, etc). The idea of having this kind of flexibility, will by itself improve our ability to achieve objectives.

An example of built-in flexibility provided by our Time Management System, is the use of the Action Plans, which is organized using the week as its time unit. As discussed, this allows for flexible item re-organization (based on our internal and external realities), while maintaining the weekly focus.

Some of our goals might be not to achieve a concrete objective (eg. graduate from college, reach the forecasted sales for the quarter, etc.), but rather to change certain behavior, by incorporating or getting rid of certain habit (eg. improve communication in the company, eat healthy food, etc.). I will discuss how to handle habits with our Time Management System.
We can manage habits by using Focus Plans. We can create one or more Focus Plans when we are trying to incorporate new positive habits, or when we are trying to get rid of negative ones.
These Focus Plans should last until the habit is internalized, and we see that we are acting accordingly. The recommended duration for the initial Focus Plan used for this purpuse is 1 month, and it should contain those activities which our daily tracking will enable the habit to be properly internalized. After a month, we should assess the situation and decide whether or not another Focus Plan will be created (or the initial one extended), or not.
If we consider that our habit is internalized (either by us having aquired the new habit or having gotten rid of the old one), then the overload of a Focus Plan will not improve our performance, and therefore all Focus Plans associated with this habit should be discontinued.
At this point you may also want to evaluate whether you should keep the recently-aquired (or dropped) habit in your Master Plan. For this purpuse, you should analyze if the habit is fully internalized (if it is not, but a Focus Plan will be too much of a hassle, you should consider keeping it only on the Master Plan). Another point to consider when deciding whether to keep the objective on the Master Plan or not, will be how much mental pressure this puts on us (follow guidelines discussed on To Write Or Not To Write).
Last but not least, it is important to mention that even though aquiring new habits or disposing old ones is a hard task, it may give us an opportunity to achieve some milestone-style (one time) objectives along the way. For example, if the desired habit we are pursuing is to live a healthy lifestyle, the Focus Plan for this habit might include activities to achieve other desired objectives as a side-effect, such us reaching certain weight or certain body mass index.

Religion might call it “evil inclination”, and Psychology maybe calls it “defensive mechanisms”. From whatever point of view you approach it, there is a concept of psychological forces that prevent us from accomplishing our goals. These forces get us confused and we come to believe that we want things that we do not really want (see example in topic Objective Setting). These forces will in fact increase, if we identify our objectives within our Time Management System (and write them down on the Master Plan).

The rule of the thumb to prevent this situation, is that whenever you perceive these negative forces around a specific objective (both at a personal and at an organizational level), you will be better off without spelling it out on your Action Plan, and being extremely careful to only give hints about it on your Master Plan (without being too specific). This rule allows for a balance between keeping awareness of the objective, while at the same time decreasing the negative psychological forces associated with the action-oriented character of the Action Plan. This will enable you to stay more focused and, even though this particular objective does not appear on your Action Plan, you will "remember" to act upon it, in a more spontaneous, and relaxed way.

Another variable that is important to consider when assessing whether to write or not to write an objective in our plans, is how much attention and energy we want to invest on it. For example, it will be counter-productive to create an Focus Plan for an objective that is not hard to achieve or does not require immediate attention. The reason being that we will be wasting plenty of energy creating this plan and following up with it (energy that could be used on a harder to achieve, or more urgent objective).

Similarly, when registering objectives in our plans, we should assess whether it is better to go into a deeper level of detail, or else leave all options open as to how to get the desired results. Leaving options open will certainly reduce the psychological pressure associated with following a strict path. However, sometimes (eg. due to external reasons) we will have to abide by more structured and inflexible rules.