Throughout my early years at university, I've always had a big problem with procrastination. I would leave my assignments and projects to a few days before the deadline. It was my strange way of thrill-seeking but it was leading me into a lot of stressful situations.
For years I found myself in a vicious cycle of procrastination.
After learning how to break down my goals into bite-sized tasks, I started to see changes in my productivity and slowly started to break the cycle.
Focus on the Most Important Topic
It's easy to get overwhelmed by the number of tasks you have throughout the day.
Most people follow the approach of writing down a list of their tasks for the day. While this might be enough for some individuals, many will find themselves struggling with this approach. If you are the latter, then you've come to the right place.
The Most Important Topic (MIT) solution aims to fix your ineffective list of tasks by instead focusing on the most important topic each day that will move you towards your goal.
No longer will you have to keep writing lies on a piece on paper each day.
One goal to rule them all
Define your one goal for the day, week, month or year.
While this might seem counterintuitive at first as one goal doesn't seem like a whole lot of work. This will help tremendously in maintaining a laser focus to achieve it. The purpose of this is to reinforce what you are working towards.
A simple reminder each day can go a long way in making consistent progress.
Defining your one goal might be harder than you expect as I'm sure you will have many. This is an important step so take your time. Redefine your goal as many times as you need until you are certain it is the one you want to work towards.
Just as planned
It's time to start creating a plan of attack in achieving your goal.
Identify the main projects that will move you closer to your goal. I like to think of my projects as sub-goals that take days or even weeks that push the wheel towards the bigger picture.
Ever been in a situation where you don't know what to do next?
That's where the next action list comes to the rescue. Write a list of micro-tasks under your MIT for the day. Keep these simple. If an action seems too much to work on right away then look at splitting it into multiple actions.
That's all there is to it!
There's an MIT solution for everyone
There's no right or wrong way to implement the solution. Following the aforementioned steps in some way or another is more than enough. Do whatever works in your situation.
In my case, my main goal going into my internship at Fonseka Innovations is to gain valuable experience that will further my career as a developer.
Here's what my MIT solution looked like at my very first sprint with the team using Workflowy.
I have divided it into three main sections: MIT, Log and Completed, with my goal clearly visible at the top. My MIT will have the next action list underneath it that typically take 1 to 2 hours to complete.
The log section keeps all of the projects that will be worked on in the future and these contain my upcoming MIT's.
Moreover, I like to keep a completed section for what I've done each week. This gives me reassurance that I am making progress towards my goal.
Like a well-oiled machine
The team at Fonseka Innovations follows a very similar approach and it is how they are able to work efficiently on projects. With multiple competing projects at a time, the team needs to be methodical about what they do each day enable to keep the ball rolling.
I was given a lot of resources on my first day, MIT solution being one of them. This is because a lot of emphasis is put on being able to manage our most important resource.... time.
So far the MIT solution has made a good impact in managing my time in my very first sprint with the team. It has allowed me to be more productive and adjust to how the team operates.
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