Marie greeted me in the hallway. “Good news,” she said. “I’ve finished listing the steps for the Phoenix Redesign Project. I was amazed. Seven steps, and I bet I didn’t work for more than one minute. I made more progress in that one minute than I have in the past two months.”

“So, what is the difference between your to-do list and your project list?” I asked.

She looked to the side, as if the answer was written somewhere on the wall. “It’s sort of like going through time, one thing after another, very horizontal. Then, I hit this project. The project list is more vertical. It drills down into the project.”

“You seem more relaxed today than you did yesterday.” I observed.

“I do. I have a better sense of control. I know exactly what needs to be done.”

“And what is the next-step?” I asked.

“That’s easy,” Marie explained. “I just have to pull the budget from a similar project we did 18 months ago. I remember, it contains a narrative description we can modify and all the budget elements are listed with our assumptions. I put this next-step on my schedule this afternoon. With the project list, I can actually work things into my calendar instead of having this dark cloud lurking out there.”

“So, just to summarize what you have learned?” I prodded.

“If you have a project, quickly list out the steps and identify the next-step.”