You set up your computer. You have your coffee in hand. You are mentally prepared and psyched up to go.
On that thing, that task you don’t want to do, but know you need to do, sometime.
You’ve blocked out the day to do it. It’s not a whole lot of joy… Here goes <gulp>…
Before you start any task, stop!
Ask yourself these 3 questions:
1. How will this help to reach my main objective?
2. Do I need to do this?
3. Could there possibly be an easier way?
Does this really need to be done?
1. How will this help to reach my main objective?
- What is the purpose of doing this?
- What value does this bring?
- How will it impact your work afterwards?
- How does it get you closer to your end goal?
- How does it help your team?
OK, this does need to get done, so who should do it…
2. Do I need to do this?
- Is this your job to do or should someone else be doing this?
- Could someone else who knows what they’re doing get it done quicker and easier than you?
- Should this be outsourced?
So if you know it needs to be done and that you are the only person who can do this…
3. Could there possibly be an easier way?
- How would you logically approach this?
- Have you asked someone with more experience how they would do it?
- Have you asked Google how this could be done more easily?
- Could there be a completely different way to do this that you don’t know about yet?
Don’t just assume that the task needs to be done, that you need to be the person to do it, or assume there’s only one way to do it.
