“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” - Steve Jobs.

I’ve watched the Steve Jobs commencement address at Stanford several times and always find it inspirational. But its not always been clear to me what I love to do.

The days fly by with meetings, emails, and 100 other things. It’s hard enough to come up for air, let alone recognize what we love to do.

When I first read the book Traction, I found a simple way to recognize what I loved to do, and figure out how to do it every day. For a week, I kept a sheet of paper on my desk, and every day I’d write down what I did that day in one of 4 quadrants.

I love it / I’m great at it
I like it / I’m good at it
I dislike it / I’m good at it
I dislike it / I’m not good at it

For me, it turned out I was spending a lot of time on things that I not only didn’t like, but many of them I wasn’t very good at it. Over time, I was able to delegate those tasks and free up more time to spend doing what I love to do.

I revisited this process recently, pulled out a clean sheet of paper, and am focused on doing what I love every day.

Photo credit: The Bull and the Bear