The internet is full of articles about how to optimize your productivity, workflow, and workday, but to what end? Have a clear goal for the kind of life you want to live and start changing now to achieve it.
For some, a goal might be to spend as much time with family as possible, and for others, it may be to grow their business as fast as possible.
I first sat down to re-prioritize my life when my daughter was born. Previously, I focused on bringing my startup idea to life and the uphill battle of making the business work. I needed to make sure my little girl had the best life possible.
To accomplish this, I had to change my priorities to focus on the things that matter. Now with my son coming, I’m taking the time to reflect and re-evaluate again.
The process of optimizing extends beyond work. Let’s optimize our life.
Optimizing your life is a continuous process designed to harmonize all parts of you. For most people, life consists of some combination of the following areas:
There’s a lot you can accomplish in life, and it can be overwhelming trying to do it all. Happiness doesn’t come from doing everything, but from choosing a select few activities to focus on, and prioritizing those over everything else.
Why limit yourself? When you focus, you can put more time and energy into actually accomplishing your goals, rather than leaving things unfulfilled.
To prioritize your life, choose 2-4 of the above categories that are most important to you at this stage of your life. Any more than that and they won’t be priorities. You can still do any of the other activities. Just fit them in after you complete the others, and only when you have time.
Here’s what my priorities looked like over the last 3 stages of life:
When I was single, my top 2 Life Priorities were:
👨🏽💻Career- I was launching my first business Chopbox and putting all my time and energy into this.
🎉Friends- I had a great group of friends and we would hang out during the week and every weekend.
📖 Individual Time- I played video games and spend more time on my own.
After I met my wife, my top 3 Life Priorities were:
👫🏽 Family Time – I love spending every second possible with my wife. We both have high career aspirations, but always love coming home, cooking dinner, and reflecting on the day.
👨🏽💻Career – This time I was running my second business, TeaSquares. Focused on business growth at all costs.
👨🏽🏫 Mentoring – I spent a ton of time mentoring students from my alma mater, and other rising business owners.
Now with two kids, my top 2 Life Priorities are:
👨👩👧👦 Family Time – Now expanded to include time with my wife, daughter, and son together. My wife and I both work from home and care for the kids full-time.
👨🏽💻Career – Focused on running Foodbevy and Good Food Brands as sustainable and profitable businesses, while spending the majority of the day with my kids.
As you see, my top priorities changed at each stage. Life brings new challenges and opportunities and it’s necessary to shift what’s important to you at that time.
Now that I have my top priorities, it’s time to optimize them. Each week I list out the most important things to do for each of my priorities and block off time on my calendar.
For family time, I have 3 goals:
To accomplish these goals I block off my calendar for learning time, plan fun creative dinners, and research new activities around town to do each week. I also make sure that I am present with my daughter while she is awake and minimize phone use.
As some of these tasks happened during the weekday, they would obviously get in the way of a typical 9-5. Running my own business provides some flexibility. I only schedule 1 hour of calls per day, and spend evenings after bedtime catching up on work.
These are my career goals:
To accomplish all of these, I have to say “no” to many opportunities that come in every single week. By staying focused on these limited goals, I can spend all my time and energy to reach them.
Trust me, staying focused is not easy, but being conscious and identifying your priorities will help you feel more accomplished.
Now it’s your turn. Let me know what your top priorities are and how you plan to optimize your life.
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