Ask Yourself These 6 Questions to Identify Your Most Important Challenges
Along with ongoing anxiety, feelings of depression seem to be the norm these days. You might think that spending more time at home would help us be (and stay) on top of everything, but this is definitely not the case for most people. (If you’re someone who did quarantine cleanups early on and now have Pinterest-worthy toilets and pantries, this might not apply to you – unless that’s what you did instead of doing your other job.)
In an article on SmartBrief , Dr. Naftali Hoff – author of Becoming the New Boss – recommends starting our to-do lists with the Most Important Tasks (MIT). “These can be ‘one-time tasks that can be completed in one block of time … or can take several days,’ he writes. “If you don’t prioritize tasks on your calendar, all other requirements will clutter your time and mental capacity.”
So how do you know which of your objectives are true MIT? To find out, Hoff advises asking yourself these six questions :
1. What are the 2-3 most important things I need to do today?
See what you need to accomplish and find out which things would matter most to you if you accomplished them today.
2. What is the value of the task?
Determine how much return you get from completing each item on your list. “To be truly successful, everything we do must have value,” Hoff writes. “While the ‘value’ is not always obvious, it should be fairly obvious which behavior will predictably yield the most benefits.”
3. Is this related to your goals?
You have goals. What tasks on your to-do list will help you accomplish them? “This is MIT,” says Hoff.
4. Is this a task that you have been thinking about for a while?
If there’s something on your list that you can’t stop thinking about, or that you’ve been thinking about for a particularly long time, Hoff says it’s probably MIT.
5. Have you put it off for too long?
Chances are, if you’ve been thinking about a specific task for a long time, it’s probably because you’ve been putting it off. “Some of the MITs are the ones we push away the longest,” Hoff writes. “Maybe they’re a little tricky. Or risky. Something that will push us out of our comfort zone. If you have delayed for these reasons, it is time to intervene. “
6. Is this a task that will free you up to work at your current MITs?
It may sound counterintuitive, but according to Hoff, “the work itself may not be very important, but it may open the way for you to the most important work.” He gives an example of delegating a small project that can help free up time in your schedule for critical tasks that you might not otherwise be able to solve.