The WHY factor of Work life.

It's easy to put your head down and just work on what you think needs to be done. It's a lot harder to pull your head up and ask why. Keep asking yourself (and others) the questions listed below to ensure you're doing work that matters:

Why are you doing this? It's important to ask why you're working on? What is this for? Who benefits? What's the motivation behind it? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you better understand the work itself.

What problem are you solving? What's the problem? Was something not possible before that should be possible now? Sometimes when you ask these questions, you'll find you're solving an imaginary problem.

Are you adding value? Adding something is easy; adding value is hard. Is this thing you're working on actually making your product more valuable for customers? Can they get more out of it than they did before? Sometimes things you think are adding value actually subtract from it. Too much ketchup can ruin the fries. Value is about balance.

Is there an easier way? You'll often find this easy way is more than good enough for now. Problems are usually pretty simple. We just imagine that they require hard solutions.

What could you be doing instead? What can't you do because you're doing this? This is especially important for small teams with constrained resources. That's when prioritization is even more important. If you're stuck on something for a long period of time, that means there are other things you're not getting done. If you work on A, can you still do B and C before April? If not, would you rather have B and C instead of A?

Is it really worth it? Is what you're doing really worth it? Is this meeting worth pulling six people off their work for an hour? Is it worth pulling an all-nighter tonight, or could you just finish it up tomorrow? Determine the real value of what you're about to do before taking the plunge.?