natural-planning v1.0A

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---
name: natural-planning
category: workflow
environments: chat
description: Plans one multi-step project with GTD's Natural Planning Model (purpose, outcome, brainstorm, organize, next actions) when it feels stuck, vague, or overwhelming; does not triage inboxes or pick today's task.
metadata:
  version: "1.0"
---

# Natural Planning Model

Every project the brain plans well, it plans in the same five phases, whether or
not anyone names them. David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) formalizes this
intuitive sequence so it can be applied deliberately to projects that are stuck,
vague, or simply new. The point of walking through it is not process for its own
sake — it is to arrive at outcomes that are clear and next actions that are
concrete enough to actually do.

This skill is distilled from personal notes on David Allen's *Getting Things
Done* (German edition *Wie ich die Dinge geregelt kriege*, trans. Helmut
Reuter); apply it as a general reasoning tool, not as a prescription for how
any one person must plan.

## When to use

- A single project feels stuck, vague, or overwhelming and needs deliberate
  planning before action.
- A to-do is not yet a concrete physical next action and belongs to a larger
  project that needs clarifying first.
- A stalled project needs its purpose or outcome restated before organizing
  or picking actions.

Not for:
- Triaging an inbox or processing loose inputs into a task manager.
- Picking what to work on today from existing next actions.

## The five phases

| # | Phase | What it does | Key question / output |
|---|-------|---------------|------------------------|
| 1 | **Purpose & principles** | Answers "Why?" — defines success, sets decision criteria, focuses resources, motivates, clarifies what matters, and widens the option space. | "Why are we doing this at all?" |
| 2 | **Envision the outcome** | Mentally anticipates successful completion. Visualize where you'd be, what would be true of finances, reputation, relationships, or whatever the project touches. | "What does success look and feel like?" |
| 3 | **Brainstorm** | Generates ideas without evaluating them. Nothing is judged, questioned, rated, or criticized; quantity beats quality; analysis and structuring are deliberately deferred. Mind-mapping is a natural fit: put the central idea in the middle and let associations grow freely from it. | "What are all the possible moves?" |
| 4 | **Organize** | Sorts the brainstormed material by importance, into sections, sequences, and priorities. Depending on the project this can be a hierarchical outline or a flowchart of steps over time. | "What structure does this need?" |
| 5 | **Identify next actions** | Defines concrete physical next actions. A project is ready to execute once every next action, on every currently-movable front, is decided — without first having to finish other parts. | "What is the very next physical thing to do?" |

The five phases run in this order because each depends on the one before it:
without purpose, brainstorming has no criteria to aim at; without an envisioned
outcome, organizing has nothing to structure toward.

## How much planning is actually needed

The governing principle: **plan only as much as it takes to get the project off
your mind.** Not every project needs all five phases in full.

| Tier | Share of projects | What's actually needed |
|------|---|---|
| Light | ~80% | Just a clear outcome (phase 2) plus a next action (phase 5) — no separate brainstorm or organize step required. |
| Medium | ~15% | The above, plus some brainstorming — a sketch, a few notes, informal idea capture. |
| Full | ~5% | The complete five-phase model, applied deliberately and in writing. |

Match the depth of planning to the project, not the other way around. Forcing a
five-phase treatment onto a simple project wastes effort; skipping phases on a
genuinely complex or stuck project is why it stays stuck.

## Workflow: walking a project through the model

1. **Assign the tier first.** Decide up front how much planning this project
   needs — Light (outcome + next action, ~80%), Medium (plus a sketch of
   brainstorm, ~15%), or Full (all five phases in writing, ~5%). Everything
   below follows from that choice.
2. **Ask for the purpose — don't invent it.** Ask the user "Why are we doing
   this at all?", then wait for the answer. Ask one question at a time and
   never fill in purpose or outcome on the user's behalf.
3. **Ask for the outcome picture.** Ask what successful completion looks like —
   concretely, not as a vague aspiration — and again wait for the answer.
4. **Brainstorm without editing.** Generate every possible step or angle. Defer
   all judgment, structuring, and prioritization to the next step. This is the
   only step the agent may generate on its own.
5. **Organize the ideas.** Group, sequence, and prioritize what came out of the
   brainstorm. Use whatever structure fits — an outline, a flowchart, a simple
   list.
6. **Decide the next action(s).** For every front the project can currently move
   on, name the concrete physical next action. When a front's next move belongs
   to someone else, record it as Waiting For — who owes what — instead of a
   next action. Stop only when nothing is left vague.

For Light-tier projects, steps 4–5 collapse: go straight from outcome (step
3) to next action (step 6).

## The physical-next-action rule

A "next action" must describe a physical, visible behavior — something a body
can actually go and do. This is the most common place planning silently stalls:
people write down something that sounds like an action but isn't one.

- **Not a next action:** "Schedule a meeting." This names an outcome, not a
  physical behavior — it doesn't say what to actually go and do next.
- **A real next action:** "Email Jane to propose three possible dates for the
  meeting." This is something that can be done right now, with the body, at a
  keyboard or a phone.

Checklist for testing a candidate next action:
- [ ] Does it name a physical behavior (email, call, write, buy, walk to, open)
      rather than a result or an intention?
- [ ] Could someone else do exactly this, right now, without asking a
      clarifying question first?
- [ ] If not — the real next action is almost always to *gather more
      information* (in Allen's framing, most stalled decisions are stalled for
      lack of information, not lack of willpower). Make finding that
      information itself the next action.

## Diagnosing a stuck planning session

When planning stalls, Allen's rule asks which direction to move: a project
that lacks clarity moves up the model, back toward purpose and outcome; a
project that is clear but motionless moves down the model, toward
brainstorming, organizing, and next actions.

**Move up — the project needs clarity.** Signs:
- Arguing about solution details without agreement on what the outcome even is.
- Every idea on the table feels like a variation of the same thing (cognitive
  fixation).
- Each proposed solution creates new problems (a sign the wrong problem was
  solved).

If any of these show up, back up to phases 1–2 — restate the purpose and
re-visualize the outcome — before resuming organizing or picking next actions.

**Move down — the project is clear but motionless.** Signs:
- The outcome is clear, yet no concrete physical next action exists.
- Planning keeps circling back to purpose and vision instead of producing
  something doable right now.

If these show up, move down to phases 3–5: brainstorm, organize, and name the
next physical action.

**Reactive planning is the failure pattern:** starting from the bottom —
scheduling, listing actions, reacting to the latest pressure — before purpose
and outcome are established. Planning run backwards like this produces motion
without direction; stop and move back up to phase 1.

## Output

When applying this skill to a project, produce:
1. The purpose (why) and the envisioned outcome, stated concretely.
2. Where the project falls on the 80/15/5 tier, and therefore how much of
   phases 3–4 are actually warranted.
3. A brainstorm list if the tier calls for one.
4. An organized structure if the tier calls for one.
5. A list of concrete physical next actions — checked against the
   physical-next-action rule above, one per currently-movable front of the
   project.
6. A Waiting-For list for fronts whose next move belongs to someone else —
   who owes what — kept separate from your own next actions.

If the process stalls at any point, run the stuck-session diagnostic above —
move up for clarity, move down for motion — before pushing further on
organizing or actions.