15 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Working Another Day




October 17th, 2008 | Flourishing






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Are you in the right line of work? Should you be doing something else? Ask yourself the following questions:






1. Do you get to do your work, or do you have to do your work?
2. If you were guaranteed your current standard of living no matter what you did, would you still do what you’re doing?
3. True or false: When you think about what you do, are you dreaming or dreading?
4. Who decides when you work: you or your organization?
5. Do you get through your day or are days a chance to advance your goals and projects?
6. True or false: If you stopped liking what you’re doing, you would quit.
7. Does your productivity keep you working or does it help you maintain productive motion?
8. Do you like to talk about what you do, or would you rather people not ask about it?
9. True or false: What you’re doing today helps build skills and achievements that help will help you do what you want to do 6 months to a year from now?
10. Does doing what you do drain your energy or renew you?
11. Do you make your To Do list or does somebody else?
12. True or false: You would be proud if someone you loved did what you’re doing.
13. You get up early or stay late because…1) you want to work on the project or 2) you want to get the project done.
14. When you say what you do, do you say “I am a (_____) or I (_____). Example: I am a painter vs. I paint.
15. Would you do what you’re doing if you weren’t getting paid for it?




I recognize that some of the questions seem the same, but sometimes asking the question differently yields different answers. Please share some of your answers or thoughts if you’re up for it.

The key to keeping up with your busy schedule and finding more fulfillment in the process is finding ways to better manage your life rather than your schedule. In order to create a better plan for your life, you must have compelling reasons that will drive you to follow through with your goals. You must determine how each individual task will bring you closer to what you really want in life—loving relationships, vibrant health, peace of mind, or financial freedom.  

Tony initially created the RPM (Rapid Planning Method) system to help himself manage all of his growing priorities—family, work, health, contribution—in the beginning of his career, when he realized that the level of achievement he was experiencing in his professional life was costing him fulfillment in his personal life. By prompting him to answer questions like “What do I really want, and why do I want it?” or “What are my needs and how can I accomplish them?” Tony’s RPM system continues to help him get the results he wants while increasing his level of fulfillment.

Get the verbs right

Notice how we’re breaking these Big Nouns into little verbs? That’s deliberate. With that original to-do for your presentation, you might theoretically just keep “preparing” your presentation until some arbitrary alarm bell goes off in your head, saying “Yeah, okay, that looks like a fully-prepared presentation, so you can stop.” But a better-defined chunk of activity suggests a task with clear edges; it has a beginning and an end. This enables you to keep putting one foot in front of the other, ensuring that you always know what to do next, instead of half-assing your way through a badly-defined pile of fuzzy nouns.

This physicality and functional piece-work act in concert to make the planning and execution of your tasks as stress-free and unintimidating as possible. Knowing that every item on your to-do list is a familiar task that can be accomplished before lunch can be wildly empowering. It’s just up to you to ensure that all your work is segmented, shaped, and stacked into units that can fit through the windows that are available to you.

Your work is what you make it

The trick is that these jobs can be made easier long before they’re undertaken by framing and naming them properly and in the right-sized units. As early as the capture and planning phases of this cycle, you hold the power and responsibility for defining your work. Failing to do that well and thoughtfully is a primary cause of hang-ups further down the line. In other words, your work often isn’t difficult because you’re necessarily all that busy, but because you hadn’t taken the time to list it all out in a way that makes it clear and “do-able”. This is so important as you begin actually working on your tasks, when the last thing you want is to wonder whether you’re doing the right thing at the right time.

Anatomy of a To-do

The primary idea of a to-do is that it’s a task that can and should be done–a point that might seem obvious until you start uncovering how many of the items on your to-do list may not belong there (or, conversely, how many uncaptured items do). The best and most useful to-dos share common qualities:

• it’s a physical action
• it can be accomplished at a sitting
• it supports valuable progress toward a recognized goal
• it’s something for which you are the most appropriate person for the job

Glancing at your own to-do list, do you see any potential troublemakers? Notice any items that make you squeamish? Any mystery meat tasks that seem "un-doable" as is? Don’t sweat it. We’re going to have you shaped up in no time.

Why Am I Doing This Task?






This is important. When compiling a list of all the stuff that’s on your mind (and on your plate), it’s crucial to unpack how each task you accept or assign to yourself will support your projects, your roles, and the goals you’ve set for yourself. Before adding a new item, reflect on the value that each chunk of work brings to your world.





• 
  Is this the best use of my time right now?
  
• 
  Am I the best person to do this task?
  
• 
  Is this something that must be done now? Why now?
  
• 
  What happens if I don’t do this at all?
  

If it’s on your list, it’s a commitment

Try to keep this box image forefront in your mind whenever you’re tempted (or compelled) to shovel more work into an already-teeming inbox. Look at each addition to your to-do list as a personal commitment to completing that action. Bear in mind that every minute you spend working on one task is necessarily a minute you cannot spend working on another. So ensure that your to-do list honors these reasonable limits and keeps you focused on the work that’s most valuable to you.

This actually takes a surprising amount of discipline and requires making a kind of deal with yourself; no more treating your to-do list like the hope chest where you toss all the stuff you should be doing or might maybe be doing. The to-do list is a plan, and it’s a contract. If you’re not sure you want to do an item, take it off the list. If you can’t envision what doing the task will look like, off it goes. Jot and doodle someplace else.

The purpose of goal-setting isn’t to control the future.  That would be senseless because the future only exists in your imagination.  The only value in goal-setting is that it improves the quality of your present moment reality.  Setting goals can give you greater clarity and focus right now.  Whenever you set a goal, always ask yourself, “How does setting this goal improve my present reality?”  If a goal does not improve your present reality, then the goal is pointless, and you may as well dump it.  But if the goal brings greater clarity, focus, and motivation to your life whenever you think about it, it’s a keeper.

Many people set goals and then assume the path to reach the goal will require suffering and sacrifice – a recipe for failure.  A better idea is to set a goal and pay attention to the effect it has on your present reality.  Set goals that yield a positive effect on your life whenever you think about them, long before the final outcome is actually achieved.  Treat goal-setting as a way to enhance your present reality, not as a way to control the future.

These are posts from a special 43 Folders series looking at the skills, tools, and attitude needed to empty your email inbox — and then keep it that way. You can visit each of the posts by clicking the title.

And don’t miss the “Related Articles” for our all-time popular posts on productively dealing with email.