Purpose Your Day: Most Important Task (MIT)

I’ve mentioned this briefly in tips to be an early riser, but I thought I’d explain a little bit more about MITs - Most Important Tasks. It’s not an original concept, but one that I use on a daily basis and that has helped me out tremendously.

It’s very simple: your MIT is the task you most want or need to get done today. In my case, I’ve tweaked it a bit so that I have three MITs — the three things I must accomplish today. Do I get a lot more done than three things? Of course. But the idea is that no matter what else I do today, these are the things I want to be sure of doing. So, the MIT is the first thing I do each day, right after I have a glass of water to wake me up.

And here’s the key to the MITs for me: at least one of the MITs should be related to one of my goals. While the other two can be work stuff (and usually are), one must be a goal next-action. This ensures that I am doing something to move my goals forward that day.

And that makes all the difference in the world. Each day, I’ve done something to make my dreams come true. It’s built into my morning routine: set a next-action to accomplish for one of my goals. And so it happens each day, automatically.

Another key: do your MITs first thing in the morning, either at home or when you first get to work. If you put them off to later, you will get busy and run out of time to do them. Get them out of the way, and the rest of the day is gravy!

It’s such a small thing to implement, and yet I’m raving about it like it’s a huge revelation. But it is. Sometimes small things can make big differences. I highly recommend you give it a go.