Category: Priorities

Generally speaking, I know what I need to do.

And I like to think I have a pretty good memory.

But let me tell you, I forget a whole lot less when I have a checklist.

Plus… I really like to cross things off my checklist.

And if I’m being totally honest… I’m the type who will write things onto my checklist AFTER I’ve done them JUST so I can cross them out. Yeah, I said it. Fight me.

Because of this self-awareness, I created Kaizen sheets for myself.

They’re one page documents that list everything I need to do with space to add things as they come up. I have one for work, one for personal growth, and I make custom ones for my employees.

If it’s important enough to be remembered, it’s important enough to be written down.

Don’t rely on willpower and memory to bring your goals to life—rely on fool-proof paper and ink, clear-minded task priority, and the almighty checkmark.

Out doing some last minute shopping today for the holidays, I saw:

• Cars fighting over parking spots.
• Shopping carts left carelessly all around parking lots.
• People evidently stressed out on the phone talking with people about gifts.

And towards the end of it all, I had a refreshing encounter with a woman who asked me for advice on a gift she was considering. She was calm, warm, and present. And after I gave her my advice, I asked her if she was ready for it all.

She said, “Honestly, yes. I’m not worried about it because even if I’m short a gift or missing something, I know that gifts aren’t what the holidays are about. So I’m going to celebrate the day as it should be celebrated and be present, helpful, and as joyous as I can be.”

And I think she nailed it.

Don’t miss the forest for the trees this holiday season.

It’s the spirit we bring with us to each of our encounters that counts—not the material gifts.

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P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.

When it comes to priorities and life balance, I’ve written a lot about thinking in terms of days.

If Sleep/ Work/Recreational Time are priorities, split each according to the hours of your day (e.g. 8 hours each).

If Family/ Friends/Health are priorities, split each inside the 8 hours of “recreational time” you have (e.g. one hour meal time with family, one hour happy hour time with friends, one hour exercise every morning).

If Growth and Contribution are priorities, maybe block out 20 minutes to read, 20 minutes to write, and 20 minutes to help somebody just because.

And then there’s four hours left inside your “recreational time” to account for commutes, screen time, fun, snoozing, procrastinating, spontaneity, etc.

I like the idea of daily because every day we do the things that are priorities… it’s a good day.

It’s usually on the days when we aren’t able to hit our top priority areas that we feel like the day is a wash.

However…

It never plays out as simply as it’s laid out, does it?

Life gets in the way.

And when it does, a simple solution to keep your life balanced and in tune with your priorities is to shift from daily to weekly thinking.

…Put more time in at work than you planned? Subtract it from another day or deliberately block time for the missed priority on your more flexible days.

…Get caught in another media rabbit-hole and lose some high quality sleeping hours? If you can’t add it to the morning, ban yourself from even viewing media at all the next day or two.

Rebalance the week if/when you can’t rebalance the day.

So much to do and so little time.

…It’s the modern day dilemma.

Yet, so much of what we do consumes far more time than it should / needs to.

This is the real modern day dilemma.

How much time do you spend scrolling aimlessly through timelines hoping for entertainment / dopamine hits?

How much time do you spend trying to refocus after completely preventable distractions?

How much time do you spend simply trying to wake up in the morning?

The modern day dilemma isn’t one of having too much to do… it’s one of having too much that we can do and a lack of focus / discipline to get done what needs to get done based on a clear priority.

So, before you go complaining about needing more hours in your day… aim to make the hours you do have more efficient.

Don’t ask for more if you’re not already fully utilizing / being wasteful with what you already have.

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Inner work prompt: before you say “so much to do and so little time” ask yourself what you’re doing that you don’t have to do. Ask yourself what tasks you can trade back in for the time they take instead. Ask yourself how you can change the phrase to “just enough to do with plenty of time.”

One of my associates made a comment that if you wake up two hours earlier every day for 12 years, you’ll get back an entire year of your life.

And while on the surface this sounds great—it completely disregards the state of mind you’ll be in with two less hours of sleep every day for 12 years.

I mean, how many people in today’s world already aren’t getting enough sleep as is? I’d be willing to bet that more aren’t than are. Subtract two more hours from their already insufficient sleep totals and you have a recipe for complete misery.

This is not the direction our sleep conversations should be heading.

Enough already.

What we need to discuss aren’t ways we can subtract sleep to add mere quantity to our total lifespan… what we need to discuss are ways we can add sleep—to at least, you know, maybe hit bare minimums—so that we can add quality to our lifespan.

Being awake ≠ feeling alive.

Feeling alive comes from quality consciousness… from a quality awareness… from a quality presence. Not from barely conscious… highly caffeinated awareness… and a miserable state of presence.

…Which by the way, isn’t even to make mention of the fact that insufficient sleep will very likely shorten lifespan. And how unfortunate would it be if what was subtracted was more than the year you were trying to gain—in misery nonetheless—and it was all for nothing?

Don’t get it twisted; don’t be mislead by the hustle homies; don’t miss the forest for the trees…

Quality is the name of this game we call life.

Every now and again it’s useful to meditate on Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong will go wrong—as it pertains to various aspects of your life, and use what you see as fuel to better prepare for what’s to come.

Some examples:

• Business / Work: If you lost your job tomorrow, what alternative paths could you follow? What kind of time will you have before running out of savings? What side hustles coud you turn full time?
• Relationships: If your best friend(s) suddenly moved out of state, could you cope? Could you start connecting more with other people in your life? If your loved ones stopped showing you the love they once did—could you still find ways to show love to them and yourself?
• Personal safety: If somebody attacked you on the street, what training/ tools will you have at your disposal? What if somebody broke into your home? What if somebody targeted a family member—what training/ tools will they have?

None of this is meant to scare you or jinx anything you have that’s going great in your life. It’s merely to say, it’s useful to be prepared.

Because if there’s anything I’ve learned over the course of my life, it’s that life has other plans.

…And many a time, it felt like it was going all wrong in comparison to the plans I made.

Shoving your head in the sand and hoping nothing goes wrong isn’t a good strategy.

Assuming things will go wrong, however, and coming up with a plan for if/when it does… is.