This Simple Exercise Will Make Sure You Spend Time on What Makes You Happy

It’s so easy to get caught up in the daily grind. Before you know it, a week has passed, the month ends, the year is over, and you haven’t done a thing that mattered to you. Somehow, you managed to be busy and bored all at the same time. So, how do you break the cycle? Is there a way to actually spend time on what makes you happy—to separate the urgent from the important?

Step 1: Start a Life Audit: Start a life audit once or twice a year to help reevaluate how you spends and prioritizes your time. To get started, you’ll need a bunch of sticky notes, a pen, a blank wall or floor, and privacy. You should probably turn your phone off, too. A life audit, as serious as it sounds, is simply the process of writing down every tangible goal or vague ambition, both professional and personal, on a Post-it note and sticking it on a blank wall. after completing your own life audit, I suggest shooting for at least 100 wishes for yourself.

Step 2: Define Your Vision: From there, try to place each of your goals into a bucket: travel, health, family, career, and more. Whatever theme comes up can have its own bucket. Move the sticky notes around until they’re all under the right theme, and consider whether these themes capture what you want your career and life trajectory to be. Continue adding more sticky notes, if necessary. What you have in front of you now are guidelines for how to spend your time in a way that’s rewarding for you.

Step 3: Design Your Day: Now that you have your guidelines, plot your day around these goals. Mark each note with an “S” for short term, an “L” for long term, or an “E” for every day. From there, you can decide how to work toward your short and long term goals. This is where you want to get specific. Set weekly or monthly goals and be exact about the time you hope to spend. If you’re having trouble figuring out where you can actually fit more into your day, consider doing a time audit to see where you’re spending all your time and whether it makes sense or not.

Working toward a hundred goals big and small may sound like a daunting task—and it is, but no one ever said you had to do it alone. “Think about your team, both at work and at home.” No one ever found success on their own, so don’t forget to lean on others as you try to break the cycle and refocus your goals.

David Trippett, Executive Coach: MBA, ICF, Six Sigma, 603-321-6911 DTEC@comcast.net http://coachdtec.com www.facebook.com/pages/David-Trippett-Executive-Coach-MBA-ICF-Six-Sigma