With so much on our plates in our work and personal lives, you don’t need us to tell you how important structuring your week is. Whether you’re a fan of timeboxing, have adopted chronoworking or insist on knowing the difference between your capacity v your capability when it comes to completing the daily tasks of your job, we’re always looking for ways to make our 9-5 run just that little bit smoother.

Enter: the MIT method. 

According to corporate mindfulness coach and author Chelsea Pottenger, the best way to approach a seemingly endless stream of tasks is to always do the Most Important Thing first.

“Every Sunday, I sit down with my diary and determine my top priority for the week and then break down what I can do each day to achieve it. Not only does his help alleviate the dreaded case of the Mondays, but it also helps me stay clear on what my goals are,” she writes in The Mindful High Performer.

Of course, while you can be as strategic as you like on paper, things don’t always go to plan. More often than not, there’s the risk of a last-minute meeting, a Zoom call or a pitch that can throw off the entire day. Therefore, to ensure everything essential gets done and time isn’t wasted by ‘vampire tasks’, Pottenger employs the MIT method. 

“At the start of my workday, the first thing I like to do (way before I even think about checking my email!) is to identify my most important task, which I aim to complete within the first two hours of my day,” she explains.

Similarly to Brian Tracy’s famed ’eat the frog’ method, attacking your MIT first means that you’re often directly addressing the thing you’ve been avoiding – you know, the job that’s been looming over you and causing you an untold amount of stress. However, by creating the habit of doing your MIT first, not only do you get it done and off your plate, you also give yourself a sense of accomplishment that you can then carry through the rest of your day. 

But it doesn’t stop there. After you’ve identified your MIT, Pottenger says that you need to be ruthless with your prioritisation. “As a rule of thumb, your hippocampus (aka memory centre) can keep three tasks clear in your mind simultaneously. For that reason, you should limit yourself to three tasks for the day,” she continues. 

So, how do you narrow it down? As she puts it: “Chase the antelope, not the field mice. Focus on what is going to give you the biggest return for your time.”

Images: Getty