How to choose key aspects of life in order to invest time and energy in them

We continue to acquaint you with the translations of Chris Bailey's articles, where he shares the tips that he learned during the “a Year of Productivity” project. We have previously published articles by this author, they are available in our blog in the "personal productivity" section .

So we give the word to Chris!
')
Clarify the key elements of your life.

Every week, perhaps without even thinking, you spend your time and energy on many elements, like the following:



One of the books I am currently reading as part of the Year of Productivity project is Meier’s Getting Results the Agile Way . The book describes a system for managing time and energy. It also pays a lot of attention to the various key elements of life, namely those given above. It should be noted that there are actually much more such elements (for example, social and spiritual), but Meyer takes as a basis those in which an ordinary person invests most of his time.

The components of your life, if summed up and compared, characterize you as an individual, and on an elementary level you can use them to determine how you distribute your time and energy. From the moment I learned about the idea of ​​key elements, I have not lived a day without thinking about how to apply it to achieve a high level of personal effectiveness.

A person feels great when he literally immediately achieves efficiency, but it seems to me that it is much more important to keep it for a long time. For this, it is necessary to choose the right elements of life in order to invest your resources in them: time and energy.

How to choose key aspects of life in order to invest time and energy in them

Not all aspects of life constantly retain their relevance. In order to correctly choose the main and most relevant of them for the subsequent expenditure of time and energy, Meyer recommends doing the following:

1. Think of aspects of life as a set of projects. “Looking and understanding your results in this context will help you manage risks. In some areas, it may take significantly more resources, while others, on the contrary, will be somewhat ignored. ” Working with your set of projects will inevitably contain certain “interruptions”, but the idea of ​​key aspects will allow you to identify areas that require maximum attention and find enough time for them. ”
2. Go ahead and describe the results you would like to achieve in each key aspect in perspective. Just talking about the importance of a particular area of ​​your life is one thing, and quite another to get inspiration from the possible advantages in the future if you build your life correctly.
3. Identify the most significant aspects of life. When this is completed, you will be able to direct the resources you have (time, energy, attention, and so on) according to your needs.

There is one more thing to keep in mind: the key elements are closely interrelated (for example, career and finances, or emotions and entertainment). It would be nice to describe (and then implement the written) possible perspectives, killing, if possible, two birds with one stone.

The practical part: how to invest your time and energy in key aspects?

I hope that I have been able, at least in part, to explain to you the meaning of the idea of ​​perception of life through its key aspects. You have divided and determined the significance of your actions with respect to one or another element, what next?

Here are some ways to more deeply integrate the idea of ​​key aspects into life.

Create a list of key aspects of your life.

What should it look like? According to Meyer, the list should be as simple as possible and easily perceived visually. It is this kind of list that will let you know if you are on the right track.

If you make a voluminous list with numerous sub-items for each aspect, you simply will not look at it. Conversely, a short list of items will allow you to quickly view items and focus on the important. Here is an example of a readable extended list with all the necessary sub-items:



Add regular aspect list scans to your schedule.

Creating a list of key elements is useless if you are not going to review it regularly. Take it as a rule to return to it once every one or two weeks and choose priority aspects of life for the next time interval. Make sure that you have a list of cases, as well as a diary. In it you will need to write down a million ideas and things that you must implement and a list of people you need to meet.

Identify for each key aspect the threats and opportunities

Be sure to consider all the threats and opportunities related to key aspects of your life. “Strictly speaking, threats are things that can negatively affect your mind, body, emotions, career, finances, relationships, and leisure. And opportunity is something that can help improve your life in these areas. ”

Limit the time allotted to each aspect.

What does this subclause mean? Once you have determined the importance of each aspect, you can begin to act in accordance with priorities, setting limits (maximums and minimums) of time spent on each of them. Here is an example of such a time limit taken from the book Getting Results the Agile Way :



In order to effectively set the time limits for each key aspect, determine and record in your diary the maximum and minimum time for each of them (especially in cases where there is a lower time limit). According to Meyer, the meaning of these limits is to “keep balance and improve your results.”

Minimums are designed to prevent you from completely ignoring some aspects, while you are throwing the main effort on others. Highs should help you spend time more efficiently - they force you to take your time wisely.

Everything should work for the result.

It makes no sense to write lists of the main aspects of life, so as not to use them later.

Focus on the results. It means:

• Strictly adhere to the established highs and lows.
• View key aspects to see if you are ignoring any of them, making up the next to-do list.
• Analyze the list of their key aspects every week in order to timely identify those that need increased attention, as well as to find potential threats and opportunities.
• To determine for yourself what long-term positive effect you would like to achieve on each of them (key aspects are, in the end, a very useful way to look at your life).

Summarizing

Key aspects of life - an incredibly effective way to look at your life from the outside and determine priorities. The bottom line is, “looking at the most important bird's-eye view”, “descend to the ground” and apply this knowledge to change one’s daily activities in order to optimize it. In practice, this means creating a list of your key aspects, setting time limits for each of them, making scans of the list of items on your schedule and identifying threats with opportunities for each aspect.

PS from the translation editor: if you are interested in reading other articles of the author, we highly recommend to study “Why great achievements will not make you happier (and what to do with it!)” .