priorities

What is your MIT Today? Thoughts about Prioritizing

What is your MIT?

One of my clients encourages people to focus on the “Most Important Thing” each day–a principle shared in their book, Winning Well. Similar concepts are part of conventional business wisdom however you word them–essentially, it’s prioritizing. 

I wrote about MIT some time ago here but it’s worth looking at again.

For some MIT means Most Important Thing. For others it means Most Important Task. But I got to thinking about other things it could mean, that may align better with some types of work. For example, since administration is a big part of my work, picking ONE most important thing/task can be difficult. How do you choose which client or project gets the appropriate attention when you have more than one?

So maybe, MIT can be thought of in other ways, such as…

Multiple Important ThingS

When you consider your MIT, it’s okay that there might be more than one. I recommend that you never have more than three MITs in your day, however.  As you plan your time, consider up to three things that really must have your focus today. Be careful not to always pick these based on urgency, though. Our fast-paced world creates “emergencies” regularly, something we need to intentionally fight against.

Most Irritating Thing

Another approach is to choose the task you least enjoy doing and focus on doing that early in the day. You’ll feel both a sense of relief and accomplishment, and it will probably energize you for the rest of the items on the task list.  For example, maybe you hate updating your checkbook, but if you do it once a week, and today’s the day, it saves a month (or more) worth of work in the future when it may become harder to find transactions or reconcile the account. (Side note, I reconcile my checkbooks once a week since dealing with numbers is not a natural strength for me. It’s easier to find something that’s off when there’s only a week of transactions.)

Most Influential Thing

What items on your task list will most move the needle of your goals today? What will have the most influence on the important ideas and values you want to live out? For example, maybe you are writing a book, and spending at least 15 minutes writing today will keep the process moving for you. 

How about you? What should be your MIT for today, based on which meaning resonates with you the most?

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Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

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