Action Log examples May 12, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Action Log, Action Research , trackbackThis is the third in a series of articles exploring the Action Log concept for 1st person research. The first article began to explain the practice of first person action research, and the second introduced the idea of keeping an Action Log.
In the comments, Shelley asked for a real example of an Action Log and Bill Anderson has provided one already, which we discussed there. He also sent me his second day’s log which I can publish and discuss here, together with an example from my own. First let me repeat how I described the type of actions to put down and the purpose of the log.
The simple idea is to jot down on at least a daily basis, a list of the actions taken. By actions, I mean visible external steps which are intended to have a positive effect, to add to a movement in the desired direction.
The purpose of an Action Log is:
- To make a useful record which may improve the chances of being able to detect the weak signals of a reproducible relationship between cause and effect, when there is one.
- Motivation to increase the number of actions taken.
- A pragmatic form of appreciative enquiry, focussing on the positive accomplishments.
Two Action Log Examples
So this is Bill’s Log for Tuesday, May 6, 2008
- Replaced air filter
- Tried to replace light bulb - need professional help.
- Contacted AD about his blog error about me.
- Contacted TB about TCDL presentation req’ts.
- Commented on JM’s FB wall.
- Contacted UIUC info sys prof about ASIS&T07 session on training curators of digital science resources.
- Phone call with DH.
- Note to AD about his blog.
- Memtester run on pandora (2x).
- Voted in city election.
- Minimal HD cleanup.
- Sent class times to ML R-L.
My comments
This is a great example of an action log, with minimal description of discrete tasks accomplished. My first reaction was to question #2 , which could be about decision making rather than action taking but if you think about it the act of trying to replace the light bulb has been done and it’s moved Bill forward towards solving the problem. The other one is the phone call at #7. If the action was to make a call to DH that needed doing for a specific reason then fair enough. But If it was just to receive a call and pass some time discussing this and that, then this is just accounting for time spent rather than logging actions.
Andy’s Log for three days
- 7th May
- PM: Posted News at LTB and updated category news and redir.
- AM: added to Old WordPress blogs and blogged Shirkey extract to some blogspots and WPs with link-also on flickr. Added Rose’s stuff to cider wiki. blog2 redirection. Added MammaMia to blog post after seeing unsucessful searches. Finished setting up accounts for Social Bookmarking
- 6th May
- PM Changes to London Theatre Breaks blog - name change and blog tab. Posted Grease. Updated 2 blogspots. replied to comments.
- AM tweaks to LT posts. Redirections added to blog2
- 5th May
- PM posted sneeze post. Edited a music page at zetnet. Added some tags and links in Wordpress.com
- AM blogged at ukcider. worked on draft at DAR
Comments
These entries are fairly typical, representing a number of small tasks and one or two larger ones. The descriptions are not very helpful sometimes, for exaple ” tweaks to LT posts” doesn’t help me remember what the tweaks were, but at least I know I was doing something useful, hopefully. “Worked on draft” is a giveaway, so I’ve caught myself out justifying time and recording an action prematurely. Not until the draft is published does it become an action of the type I am interested in, although I suppose I felt I’d made some good progress towards publishing.
General Points:
Not a timesheet.
We are not trying to account for our time, in fact the actions which I log only represent about a quarter of the time I spend working online. The rest is research, interaction, reading, learning, and taking actions behind the scenes that may precipitate effective actions later on, but at this stage don’t yet count.
Not the Total Solution.
The Action Log isn’t a “Total Solution”, it doesn’t account for reflection, prioritising, decision making or lots of other essential tasks. It’s only intended to address one aspect of the personal workflow, not the whole thing.
In the next post in this series I shall reflect on the possible impact and implications from keeping the Action Log and also discuss briefly the idea of using twitter.
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is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
I’m the DH in Bill’s log. This is a regularly-scheduled 1-hour buddy call. So it is a scheduled activity. We don’t always have an agenda, but we work to have the call.
I think that makes it an action, whether or not there is an expected outcome (other than the notes and sometimes action items that come out of it).
How does that fit in your picture of Action Logs?
Hi DH, welcome to Distributed Research and thanks for commenting, how interesting that you got dragged into this as a result of being mentioned in Bill’s Action Log.
As to the phone call , it’s not a big deal really and only Bill can decide whether it’s worth logging as an action for his own purposes. There may be a context where the call is scheduled but regularly gets cancelled, for example, in which case making the effort to ensure it happens could be an important step forward. I’m biased anyway because I strongly dislike phone calls and feel they can often be time consuming and pointless. Going completely away from the topic now, many people seem to have some kind of need to exercise their vocal chords but that doesn’t necessarily mean anybody is listening properly and there’s no automatic record of what’s been said.
Anyway thanks for dropping by, I’ve subscribed to your blog in the hope of reading more anecdotes about flowcharts and Grace Hopper
Hi Andy (and orcmid), regarding the phone call. Orcmid and I have committed to keeping in touch with each other and in collective thinking about systems architecture, computation, programming, software engineering, and education (to mention some of our topics of conversation). This has resulted in collaborative and individual blogging. These calls are both pleasure and work. So, in my book, they qualify as activities hat gets done.
Andy, I also appreciated your comment that Action Logs are not about reflection, prioritizing, etc. And I might be mis-reading you, but I’m not sure there are any “total solutions”. Tomorrow is uncertain - I think I need to be prepared to be unprepared.
-Bill