Here are some things to know about choosing your most important tasks, and why you need to get them done first.
Choose Your Most Significant Tasks as Your MITs
To start with, your most important tasks should be the most significant ones. These are the ones that will make the most significant difference in your success, reaching your goals, or completing your work for the day.
This will depend on what you do for work and what types of tasks you tend to have, but think of your day as a series of tasks. Consider the ones that would be the most valuable to have done.
Is there a task where you feel incredibly motivated after you get it done?
What about something that takes a bit more energy to get done?
What task would be helpful to do before the others?
These Should Be Done First Thing
It is better to start your day with your MITs to get them out of the way. This is why you want to add your most important tasks to your day’s to-do list, and highlight them or put them at the top of your list.
Think of your day’s tasks as a menu of options.
The MITs are what has to be done, with the other tasks available to you for when you have time for them but aren’t quite as urgent as those MITs.
Choose Your MITs From Your Day’s To-Do List
You might have some days where your MITs are the same as the day before and other days where they change. If you’re having trouble figuring out what they should be, just start with your day’s to-do list like you usually would then choose 2-3 tasks that you think should be done first.
You are bound to notice a few more essential tasks, either because they help with other tasks on your list, or because they are time-sensitive. It helps to make your MITs related to a deadline and work down the list from there.