What are your priorities in life? How do you prioritize your priorities? Here are a few priority-related posts you may have missed. Click the link to read the full message.
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities.”
“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
“Dig the well before you are thirsty.”
For many people – myself included – home and family represent a sanctuary of safety, peace, and happiness. It is a place we expect and usually find security, community, and the love we seek to give and receive.
How much time and attention do you actually give to your family during the work week, as well as on the weekend?
How often do you share meals together without phones, play board games, or engage in deep and meaningful discussions?
Far too many of us operate as ships that pass in the night. We only experience brief moments of togetherness, more often under the same roof, but not together.
Where and in what ways can you experience far more “Heaven on Earth” by making your family a more prominent priority each and every day?
What are your priorities? How do you prioritize your priorities? Here are a few priority-related posts you may have missed. Click the links to read the full message.
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities.”
“The essence of self discipline is to do the important thing rather than the urgent thing.”
“My brain has too many tabs open.”
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The Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared,” has been used by millions of scouts around the world since the early 1900s. It focuses on always being in a state of readiness, in mind and body, to do your duty.
How prepared is your mind to evaluate and explore the many opportunities, challenges, and choices that present themselves on a daily basis?
How strong, flexible, and able is your body to do what you know is right, so that you can live your vision and values fully?
What are some of your current priorities in which it is important or even urgent to “be prepared’? How will you dig your personal or professional wells before you become thirsty?
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When was the last time you visited a big-box supermarket? It has been estimated that the number of food products in these megastores are in the tens of thousands. Clearly it is impossible to get everything in our shopping cart, so we all go through some process of elimination. We use criteria such as healthiness, value, shelf life, and taste as factors to make our choices.
What criteria do you currently use in your personal and professionals worlds to filter out unhealthy or undesirable options that do not serve your highest priorities?
How could being more selective improve your world?
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The nugget of wisdom in today’s quote highlights two of the most significant elements of success.
By focusing on more things that truly matter, we prioritize the important over seemingly urgent issues we encounter throughout the day.
Caring, supportive people provide needed ongoing counsel and occasional kicks in the butt. Their encouragement causes us to stretch and engage in the hard work needed to pursue and realize the goals and objectives that matter.
Who are the people in your life who care deeply about your success? How can you focus more of your interactions on the stuff of life that really matters?
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Stephen Covey was a wise man. Few individuals have had a more lasting impact in the development of individuals as life-long learners. Part of his brilliance was his ability to break complicated principles into their simplest form, resulting in his brilliant Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
Apply today’s quote to Covey’s Seven Habits to discover your main things for the day:
How will greater focus and far fewer “main things” help you realize more of your potential now, and in the future?
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Have you ever noticed what happens to your computer when you have a number of applications open at once? For most of us, the system either slows down considerably, or locks up completely.
In much the same way, our brains work most optimally when they can focus on a single task at any given time. Unfortunately, society and life in general wants everything at once, which often generates considerable stress and other difficulties.
Reduce the number of open tabs in your brain by blocking out 15, 30, or 60 minute segments of your day for the most important and value-creating priorities. If possible, utilize the open brain tabs of those around you to accomplish even more by coaching them to use this technique.
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Whenever I begin a new coaching relationship, I conduct a core values exercise, as part of my personal excellence training.
In this personal inquiry, the individual examines their most important priorities, beliefs, and commitments. Family is almost always on this list, if not among the top three.
Upon completion of our one-day training session, each client is encouraged to plan and initiate various projects for their professional and personal lives. One of my latest executive clients has named his current personal project “Home Sweet Home,” as he is now placing a much higher importance on his family.
Should the value of family be a top priority for you, please consider developing your own “Home Sweet Home” project with family members, and make this area of your life an even more beautiful masterpiece.
When it comes to prioritizing our days and getting things done, most people are familiar with some form of Time Matrix that breaks tasks into four categories:
Virtually everyone would agree that item #1 – Important and Urgent – would be given the highest priority, and item #2 – Not Important and Not Urgent – would be the lowest. The challenge for most people is sorting through the amount of time we devote – or should I say “lose” – by inadvertently slipping into more #3 – Not Important, but Urgent – than #4 – Important, but Not Urgent.
Where would the habit of greater discipline concerning the important matters in your life pay you the highest returns, personally or professionally?
Consider selecting a friend, family member, mentor, or coach to work with in this area as soon as possible.