Name
Find the exact word, not the near one; stop when you can say what the name leaves out.
Twain: the lightning bug and the lightning.
Seen in Francis Ponge, Le Parti pris des choses, 1942
Try it on your work
Take one part of your work that everyone refers to by pointing ("that bit," "the thing") and give it a name, written where the pointing happens. Stop when the name is used once by someone other than you.
List every existing name for the thing you're working on, then write candidates until one makes two people nod without explanation. A name that needs explaining is a description; keep going until it isn't.
Name the phases of your process that currently pass unnamed: the gap between approval and start, the state of "done but not sent." Once every state has a word, what you can name, you can count.
How it has been used
Find the exact word for the thing: the field guide's precision, the diagnosis that ends a decade of vagueness, the project title that suddenly organises the work. The move forbids the near-synonym: "close enough" is the failure state, and the test is whether the name excludes what it should.
Where it leads
Grouped under Help me name what matters