Daily Prioritization Made Easy

February 14, 2024

Daily Prioritization Made Easy

In the last 12 years, I’ve tested 20+ daily prioritization methods.

Here is the most productive one:

identify your Most Important Task (MIT)
Resolve to get it done by 11 am.

That’s it!

It doesn’t have to be more complicated.

Everything else:

Tea
Water
Coffee
Breakfast
Gratitude
Breathing
Journaling
Meditation
Visualization
(Cold) shower

only prepare you for your MIT.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all up for a good morning routine. Still, whatever you call a morning routine is preparation for the real work. It’s like placing all the ingredients on the kitchen counter before you start cooking. Or like preparing your gym bag before going to the gym. Or like doing your research before you start starting writing your book.

It is also fine if you don’t have a morning routine, or if your morning activities vary from one day to another.

You can spend a few minutes in the evening thinking of the next day. This way, it’s easier to decide what is that one most important activity to complete the following day. Another way to approach it is to review your calendar in the morning.

How do you choose the MIT – you may ask?

The MIT is that activity that yields the best result for you.

It brings you closer to what you want to achieve.

It can be a standalone activity or a task that leads you to a bigger deliverable. There are deliverables that you want to complete that can’t be complete in one day. So you can break these deliverables in smaller tasks and then get one task done every day.

Consider breaking an activity in smaller, daily tasks for:

creating a project plan
setting team goals at work
writing a document or a book
creating an organizational structure
coming up with a financial investment plan

or any other important deliverable you work towards.

So why is it so important to get the MIT done by 11 am?

In the morning, irrespective if you’re an early riser or a night owl, you have an improved capacity to focus. Your brain is not yet flooded with distractions and your energy levels are higher. Also, others are still figuring out their days so they’re not yet requesting your time and energy.

There is mental ease that comes after completing what you decided it’s most important to you. The feeling of the job done is not only good for your motivation, it is a great self-esteem booster. It can help maintain your energy levels high for the rest of the day.

Consider this: the MIT may also be the most difficult activity you need to complete. So once it’s done, everything else is easier on that day. The sooner you complete your MIT, the better you feel, the more energy you have to tackle other activities.

You may have more than one activity you consider important, in one day. That’s fine. Choose an activity to start with, then do the second, then the third. More than 3 may lead to overwhelm and stress, so limiting the number of priorities is a great idea.

Remember:

Your most important task is to identify and complete by 11 am the most important task of your day.

Every. Single. Day.

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