Priorities & Intention

Sometimes I swear I have ADD. Days go by and I wonder what I've accomplished. I tend to flit from one thing to the next. At other times in my life I have had imposed structure (which I have always resented) in the form of public school, parental rules, work rules and expectations, etc. Since I quit working for Novell, I have pretty much been on my own to dictate my priorities and how my time is best spent. I don't think I have done a good job. I get easily overwhelmed and distracted and spend my time on whatever is right in front of me and demanding the most attention RIGHT NOW.

As a result, one of things I have tried to cultivate in my life is to live it with intention. To create the life I want based on what I value most and to feel like I am really living each moment so that when I look back on my life, I feel like a used my time here well. I don't want to look back on my whole life and feel like I do about most of my days, like I just went through the motions. But if my days go by that way, then it follows that the result of my lifetime would also be that.

Being an orginizationally challenged individual I haven't been successful and figuring out how to mesh my values, my priorities and my time together in a meaningful way. But thank goodness there are people out there that are naturally good at this stuff and these amazing people write books!

I'm currently reading Find More Time: how to get things done at home, organize your life and feel great about it by Laura Stack. Oh how I love this book. It is a book to own. It is organized it to bit size steps that help you figure it all out and progress. It gives simple, concrete steps and examples to help those of us that are organizationally dysfunctional. I tend to get bogged down in the details, so simple is best.

I have discovered my main values are: family, learning, security, health, and fun. It may seem obvious to most people, but I now realize that my time and actions should be based on these values. I've set several small, reachable goals for each value with rewards for reaching them. Progress is the name of the game. During the day I stop and think, "does this relate to my values? does this help me reach my goals"? and if it doesn't, I redirect. Novel concept, I know.

I think this is a perfect task for spring.