It’s been an interesting few months for me. My situation has resulted in circumstances that allow me to reconfigure my lifestyle and the way I approach business. This is very exciting for me, but it also represents a daunting task.
One of the things I’ve been set on, however, is doing what matters first. I’ve once again gone through the process of determining my priorities, and I’m working on living according to them.
What’s Most Important in Your Life and Business?
Too often, we become frustrated because we don’t get to do what we want to do. This is usually because we fritter away our time doing things that aren’t important — and then later we find that the things that matter can’t be crammed into our lives.
One of my favorite illustrations of this is the story of priorities and a jar. In this story, a professor puts rocks into a jar, filling it up. However, even with the rocks in the jar, there are spaces for pebbles and sand to fill in. If you reverse the way you fill the jar, though, starting with sand and pebbles, these small things pack in better, taking up the space — and leaving no room for the rocks.
The idea is that you should start with what matters most. That way, you always have time for your priorities. Doing what matters first ensures that you are able to live meaningfully (or make the money you need from your business). If you can’t fit in all the sand, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got some of it in there, but that stuff doesn’t matter as much.
Start Your Day With What You Want Done First
As I thought about the “rocks” in my life — the things that I want done first — I started changing my day around. First of all, I’ve decided that I want time to get healthy and exercise. That means that the very first thing I do during the day is exercise.
My business is also important because the money I earn is how my son and I make a living. I’ve started looking at the most important articles to write each day. This evaluation takes into account how important the client is to me, how much the client pays and my deadline. Rather than putting off challenging or important articles until later, I tackle them as soon as I sit down to work.
Finally, I also started figuring out how much time I was spending on other things. Tracking my time use helped me see that sometimes I fill my jar with too many pebbles or too much sand before I get the rocks in there.
Doing What Matters at all Costs
I’ve also started making time for doing what matters. It matters to me that I am able to make nutritious meals for my son and me. That means that when it’s time to cook dinner, I stop what I’m doing. Working on a podcast might be worthwhile, but it’s more important to make dinner instead of eat out. (And, of course, I shouldn’t be in the middle of a big article with a tight deadline, because that should have been finished earlier in the day.)
It’s also important for me to spend quality time with my son each day. So that means the phone is put away and extra projects are set aside so that I can focus on my son. He’s at school most of the day, so I have all of that time to work on other things. When he’s home, I need to work on our relationship so that it remains good.
Sometimes, as I’ve worked on these changes, I’ve had to force myself to stop working or to stop Skyping with someone else, or to schedule phone meetings for different times. However, because I want to change my life around to do what matters, I’ve started making myself stop and put off other things. Sometimes it means that I don’t watch an episode of TV because I have to make up for stopping a project to spend time with my son, but it’s worth it. My life with less TV has turned out to be much more fulfilling so far. And I hope it continues.
