What’s Most Important?

I love Essentialism by Greg McKeown. He asks lots of great questions in the book that help to determine what really matters.

Here’s one: “What’s the most important thing I need to do today?”

The answer is ONE thing that if done would make a satisfactory day.

A Story About This Important Question

There’s a story he tells of a woman who read essentialism and started asking herself this question every day.

One day her dad called her and said her mom was in the hospital a couple hours away. He said it’s nothing serious and I know you’re busy so you don’t need to come.

She asked herself: “What’s the most important thing I need to do today?” Go see mom.

So she dropped her plans for the day, got in her car, drove the two hours, held her mom’s hand and said “I love you”. And those were the last words that she ever spoke to her mom. Within an hour her mom was in a coma and within a week she was gone.

A Question To Ponder

It’s worth asking: “What’s the most important thing you need to do today?” every day.

A great companion question is “What’s important now?”

What was important last week or last month or even sometimes an hour ago is not necessarily what’s important now.