Pick one to three things each morning as the most important things you can get done today. These are your MITs. Identifying them will boost your productivity for the day. There might only be one of them. Focus on doing the first one first, before starting anything else in your workday.
My three important things every day include: playing with my son seeing him smile, having morning coffee and writing about business for the global audience of my website.
Why Is It Important to Have Most Important Things (MITs)?
We often get caught up in small tasks, busywork that lets us feel productive while the most important tasks get pushed back later and later, until we do not have time to do them anymore because of all the smaller ‘urgent’ things that come up. This is a form of procrastination, or at least bad priorities, or poor planning.
As an example, if you are a writer who needs to write a business book, you might put off the writing until after checking emails, which generates a dozen other small tasks that need to be taken care of. Then perhaps there is a meeting or two, or an errand to take care of. Then, something comes up that needs to be fixed immediately. Then you are too tired to write, or the day is already over. Instead, what if you wrote the chapter before doing anything else? The other stuff would get figured out, but the most important thing would get done first.
How to Complete Most Important Things (MITs)?
1. Pick. Each morning (or the evening before), pick at least one MIT, three are the most. Try to limit them to 20–30-minute tasks, or break them into smaller ones, if they take longer than 20–30 minutes. For example, if you want to write a book chapter, but cannot do it in 20-30 minutes, just write a page or half page.
2. Carry on. Getting the task finished is not as important as doing 20-30 minutes of it – you can keep going when you get to that point, but you do not need to continue.
3. Finish. Before you do anything else for work (including checking emails or social media), do the first MIT. Block out distractions, and just focus on starting that first one.
4. Celebrate. When you get that done, celebrate! Take a short break, stretch your body, maybe give yourself 10 minutes of email or other busywork, then get started on the second MIT. And then, the third one after the second one is done.
Starting to take action is the key.
