{"id":2365,"date":"2017-01-16T22:36:36","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T22:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inigo.net\/?p=2365"},"modified":"2017-01-16T23:27:33","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T23:27:33","slug":"the-next-most-important-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inigo.net\/the-next-most-important-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Next Most Important Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

What’s next?<\/h2>\n

That\u2019s the great phrase that President Jed Bartlet used to ask his staff what was next on their agenda.<\/p>\n

It usually came at the end of an episode to signal that he was ready to move on to the next big thing.<\/p>\n

Cue staff giving him the next thing to do and the end credits.<\/p>\n

In the world of work, we often get stuck with the small stuff. The things pressing in on us from clients – which are important – but they\u2019re not the Next Most Important Thing.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been pondering the Next Most Important Thing for a while.<\/p>\n

Working on – not in the business – is a phrase I keep hearing over and over.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019ve been working to identify what that thing is.<\/p>\n

When thinking about the small scale – emails, support tickets, image changes, plugin updates, domain name renewals, meeting time changes, do we have any milk in the fridge – it\u2019s impossible to think about the important things.<\/p>\n

Not just the important things but the most important things.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Remove yourself from yourself<\/h2>\n

Take a step back and consider what you need to think about.<\/p>\n

Thinking about thinking is all very meta, but the more we think about thinking, the easier it becomes.<\/p>\n

We abstract the process until we can identify where we get stuck. \u00a0We often get stuck when we think something is too hard or when we become overly emotional.<\/p>\n