Target Action
Kosh now knows its outcome (an emergency fund) and its actor (young earners in their first job). The next question sounds easy: what should they actually do? "Be better with money" is not an answer. You cannot design a button, a prompt or a default for it, and you cannot tell whether it happened.
The rule
Pick one concrete, observable action that most moves the outcome.
The target action is the specific behavior the actor performs that drives the outcome. Everything in the earlier sections — B = MAP, the CREATE funnel, defaults, habits, plans — needs a concrete action to work on.
There are usually many possible actions. For an emergency fund, an actor could read about budgeting, track every expense, cancel subscriptions, ask for a raise, or set up an automatic transfer. Choose between them on three criteria:
- Impact: if the actor did it, how much would it move the outcome?
- Likelihood: given the actor's motivation, ability and context, how likely are they to do it?
- Observability: can you tell whether it happened, so you can measure your design?
Then write the chosen action precisely: who does what, how much, and when or how often. A well-written target action reads almost like a test you could run against the data.
Finally, the action must be within the actor's own control. "Get a salary raise" might move the outcome a lot, but the decision belongs to an employer, so no Kosh screen can make it happen.
The shortcut
Score impact × likelihood. List candidate actions, rate each high, medium or low on both, and pick the one that is high on both. Then check that you can observe it.
List candidates
Read a budgeting guide. Log every expense by hand. Cancel unused subscriptions. Set up an automatic payday transfer to the emergency pot.
The trap is choosing the action with the highest impact regardless of likelihood — such as "track every rupee" — and then wondering why almost nobody does it.
Drills
Answer fast — trust the rule.
Which is a well-defined target action?
What is the problem with "become financially literate" as a target action?
Action A has high impact but low likelihood. Action B has high impact and high likelihood. Which should be the target action?
Why must a target action be observable?
Remember
- Pick one concrete, observable action that most moves the outcome.
- Shortcut: impact × likelihood, then check it is observable and write who, what, how much, when.
- Trap: a high-impact action that almost nobody will actually do.