“I should work on the report.”

You may mean it. But the sentence leaves the moment of starting undecided.

Try a more specific version:

After the morning call, I will open the report and draft its conclusion.

Now there is a recognisable cue and an action to take when it occurs.

Connect a situation with an action

Psychologists call plans that link an anticipated situation to a response implementation intentions. Their usual form is: “If situation X occurs, then I will do Y.”

They add a plan for acting to an intention to pursue a goal. A review synthesising 642 tests found benefits across different outcomes, but also substantial publication bias and variation between studies. A robust Bayesian analysis accounting for publication bias estimated a smaller positive average effect (Sheeran, Listrom and Gollwitzer, 2024).

The evidence supports trying cue-linked plans, with potentially modest benefits. It does not establish a reliable productivity gain for a particular person, kind of desk work or app. The review was published online in 2024, but its database search ended in September 2019.

The practical idea is to decide in advance what you will do when a particular opportunity arrives.

Choose a cue you will recognise

“When I have time” is easy to postpone because you still have to decide whether the moment qualifies.

For a first experiment, choose an event you can identify without much interpretation:

  • When the morning call ends.
  • After I sit down at my desk following lunch.
  • When I open the project document for my first work session.

These are example cues, not a ranking of which triggers work best. Choose one that fits your day and leaves room for the action you intend to take.

If another commitment always follows the morning call, that cue is a poor fit for drafting. A precise plan still needs a feasible opportunity.

Make the response concrete enough to begin

“Work on the report” can mean reading, editing, searching for data or worrying about how much remains.

“Open the report and draft three sentences stating the conclusion” gives you a first move.

Compare:

Goal: Prepare a clear report for Friday.

Starting plan: When the morning call ends, I will open the report and draft three sentences stating the conclusion.

The first sentence describes the desired result. The second connects a situation with an action that moves towards it.

You can refine the draft later. For this exercise, choose a response you can actually carry out when the cue occurs.

Where Tempo fits

Tempo lets you select the work and start a timed session. Use it when your cue arrives: open the relevant project, start the session and carry out the first action you planned.

Choosing a project or starting a timer alone is not an implementation intention. The cue-and-action link is the part you formulate yourself, in a note, your calendar or another place you use for planning.

At the end, a session note can record what happened. On review, ask whether the cue occurred, whether you acted and what got in the way. That gives you a practical basis for revising the next plan.

A plan cannot supply missing capacity

If you lack a necessary input, authority to proceed or time between competing commitments, making the wording more specific will not remove the constraint.

Use a starting plan for work you intend and are able to do. If the cue repeatedly arrives without a realistic chance to act, change the plan or address the underlying conflict.

The research does not test Tempo or guarantee that this exercise will work for you. It provides a reason to try a small, explicit plan and assess what happens.

Choose one task. Name the cue. Decide the first action.

Scientific reference

Sheeran, P., Listrom, O. and Gollwitzer, P. M. (2024, published online). The when and how of planning: Meta-analysis of the scope and components of implementation intentions in 642 tests. European Review of Social Psychology, 36(1), 162–194 (2025 issue).