Question your work

I came across a blog posting titled “Question your work” on “Signal vs. Noise”. It tells you to ask the following questions in your work regardless the size of a task/project you are working on:

• Why are we doing this?
• What problem are we solving?
• Is this actually useful?
• Are we adding value?
• Will this change (user) behavior? [(user) is added by me]
  
• Is there an easier way?
• Waht's theopportunity cost?
• Is it really worth it?

I posted it on my PC display at work.

This is along the line with what Tim Ferris said in the presentation titled “The 4-Hour Workweek” on last year's SXSW conference:

Ask your self periodically: Am I productive or just busy? Am I producing something or doing a crutch activity?

The list above is much more concrete and useful to me.

If you are still early in your career, you may not need to worry about what to do and what not to do. But as you grow matured at work, you will need to.