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I often find myself wanting to ask if I can do something ie. "Is it okay if I ask you a question?" or "Can I switch seats with you?" Along those lines. I'm not sure if this is something naturally asked in Japanese.
My attempts are: 「質問をしたい、これはいいですか？」but I can imagine this in no way sounds natural.
Are there any alternatives that act as softening a question? as I often feel uncomfortable just straight up asking a question since I'm worried it will seem interrogative. Thanks in advance.
A very standard and polite way of asking permission for something in Japanese is to use the construction VERBてもいいですか.
See these answers for reference:
In your sentence, you could use this construction and say:
質問してもいいですか。 May I ask a question?
For an even more polite version, you can use VERBていただけませんか. For example,
私と席を替わっていただけませんか？ Could you change seats with me?
