Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world!

— Joel Barker—

Actions are the way we bring our dreams and needs into the real world. Some people get caught in their dreams, never moving into action, even when those dreams had plausibility. Some people may get as far as planning out their actions with detailed to-do lists. But until they get off the paper and into gear, that planning was just spinning wheels in the sand.

Once you have a specific stage objective, you will need to list the tasks necessary to be successful in your goal. As noted in the STARS Time section, no task should be longer than an hour. If so, it needs to be broken down into smaller tasks.

Once you get that list of tasks, you need to prioritize those tasks as to what you expect to benefit from performing the task. The ones which get high priority are the ones that are critical to the completion of others, and the ones that directly contribute to the success of the project. People sometimes get distracted by smaller, easier tasks that can be "icing on the cake," but don't actually get around to baking the cake. Then they wonder why they get stuck in a rut.

Here we will look at the three phases of our task evaluation, with more being discussed in the Applying the STARS System section.

1. At the Beginning of a Project.
   You will be making a broad description of Actions required on The STARS System Design Overview Sheet This file requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can get from the Third Party Downloads panel at your left.. If you wanted to start investing in securities, your general Actions would be (1.) Learn about stocks (2.) Investigate Brokerage Firms (3.) Set up Initial Portfolio (4.) Monitor Portfolio. This would give you your four Stages for your Stage Task List This file requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can get from the Third Party Downloads panel at your left. development.
   
   
   
2. Task List development.
   This stage says it all. You will now be breaking your general Actions down into tasks on The STARS System Stage Task ListThis file requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can get from the Third Party Downloads panel at your left.. Continuing the example from above of starting an investment account — For the first stage of learning about stocks, your task list might include (1.) Get books on stocks and investments. (2.) Investigate continuing education classes at the local college. (3.) Check into free talks by local investment firms. Those in turn will have their own tasks of actually reading the books and attending the classes.
   
   
   
3. At the end of a Stage or Project.
   Often when we finish something, our new found wisdom from the experience gives us insight as to how to do things better in the future. So this is the time to make note of it on The STARS System Stage and Project Evaluation SheetThis file requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can get from the Third Party Downloads panel at your left.. Also make notes of when you were right on target in how you did something. If you embark on a similar project in the future, you will have invaluable notes to help you.
   

— Shelly —