To me my setup for deciding how to live my life and decide what to do seems straightforward and makes sense. If you ask my wife you will see how far eyes can roll (and she spent a large part of her early career as a project manager!).
Overall my approach to living life can be summarized with:
Live a fulfilling life I can be proud of. Do things intentionally, don’t let life just happen.
Values Link to heading
If I can spend a whole day not feeling well watching reality tv (Below Deck is my guilty pleasure at the moment) without guilt - I should be able to track it all the way back to one of my values. In this case it would probably be compassion, compassion for myself to relax and let some time go to waste.
Letting myself rest without guilt when I need it and not just push on was something I learnt way to late in life after having worked up so many overtime hours that it will probably last me a lifetime.
If everything is grounded in values it makes it easier to think about things.
To keep track I have a values document that starts by listing my overall top 3 currently most important values and then what values I strive to live by for every role I currently have in life.
It can look like this:
Overall top 3 values
- Honesty
- Discipline
- Patience
Additional values by role
| Man | Father | Leader | Husband | Friend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compassion | Encouragement | Stability | Compassion | Humor |
| Wisdom | Love | Humility | Love | Vulnerability |
| Courage | Patience | Clarity | Encouragement | Curiosity |
As you can see there is not to much embellishment or explaining, this is fine. They should be fluid and I’m happy as long as at least I know what I mean. The hard, and valuable, part is reflecting on them.
Since change is the only constant I update this regularly. It’s not set in stone in any way, it’s just a good tool to reflect on. Some values remain more constant than others.
Planning Link to heading
Now that we know what we value it’s time to talk about how we can live more along these values. To do this we need to talk about things like goals, projects & tasks. It’s about those customers to manage, communication to wrangle and stakeholders to satisfy. Riveting stuff.
I have split my planning into 3 levels. Quarterly, Weekly and Daily.
Quarterly planning Link to heading
Basically we start by looking a quarter into the future and see what we can do that will help us live more closely to our values and make progress on things that matter.
I try to set quarterly goals using OKRs (Objective and Key Results). I try to balance between goals which will let me live more according to my values and goals that moves the needle on company goals.
For more on OKRs, what they are and how they work check out my other post: “OKRs - do they work?”.
Tools used Link to heading
- Quarterly planning checklist
- Previous quarterly plan
- Values document
- Company goals
Weekly planning Link to heading
Every week I draft a rough plan for how to distribute the open (can’t really call it “free”, yet) time I have available that week.
I do this by reviewing all my tasks and Kanban boards each Monday morning as the first activity of the week. Here I think about what I need to do to make progress towards my quarterly goals and if there are open projects that I want to make progress on this week.
I try not to focus on what is important AND urgent (sorry Eisenhower) but rather what is most important in the long run.
I find that prioritizing by what is important and urgent will lead to primarily putting out fires without making real progress on what matters. The things that are not important I usually just try to find a way to never having to do again.
Putting out fires is good if they risk spreading, but sometimes it’s fine just letting a part of the forest burn since the sea will swallow it eventually. /Me, just now.
The output for this planning session varies depending on what I have to do. Sometimes it’s a general “Tuesday: schedule 2 focus periods for client project X” or “catch up on admin” and sometimes it’s - [ ] Finish google ads review for the month with specific tasks for each day.
I don’t pay to much attention creating the perfect weekly plan since it will need adjusting throughout the week anyways.
Tools used:
- Kanban board for every area of responsibility I have/hat I wear
- Kanban board for each project I’m working on
- Overview that shows a collected view of all boards, summary of work in progress, backlog counts etc. etc. at the same time (I’ll write up a post on how this works at a later date)
- My work and private calendar
- Weekly plan checklist
Daily planning Link to heading
Now we arrive at the type of planning I do most often.
A granular plan on exactly what to do today hour by hour to do what I set out to do in the weekly plan as well as things that show up and needs handling during the week.
I try to keep this at a high level if there are no very timebound tasks that needs to be done.
Tools used Link to heading
- Daily note in digital journal
Disciplines, routines and other helpful things Link to heading
Now in order to make the above work and in general make life better I have a few practices/disciplines/routines - doesn’t matter what we call them really.
Do something physical every day Link to heading
Move every day. Unless you are sick, then rest.
Think every day Link to heading
Might seem like a no-brainer, no pun intended, but it’s easy to go through a whole day just being distracted. TV, news, social media - limit that and read a book, listen to a podcast, sit alone and think. Make the brain work.
Shutdown Link to heading
I have clear work shutdowns with a shutdown complete ritual to tie upp all loose ends for the day so my mind can rest when going into family time.
Full capture Link to heading
I do full capturing of tasks, directly stolen from David Allen and Getting Things Done (GTD) (which I was a big fan in the 90s, hat tip to the OG productivity guru). This includes processing captured tasks from physical notes, teams messages, email etc etc during shutdowns.
I offload everything I have to do and want to remember into 1 trusted system. My obsidian files.
Never memorize what you can look up in books /Maybe Einstein
Great quote that can be shortened just to “never memorize what you can look up”, and I guess expanded in this age of generative AI to “… what you can look up and trust”.
Tool to figure out what buckets to pour time into - The Ideal week Link to heading
The Ideal Week concept, by Michael Hyatt, is a time management strategy that involves visualizing and planning your “perfect” week in advance. It’s a simple exercise but I really like it and do it a few times a year. It’s also a good tool to get on the same page with for instance your colleagues or your significant other.
Here are the steps involved in this method:
Visualize Your Week: Start by imagining what your ideal week would look like. This includes work time, leisure time, time with family and friends, exercise, hobbies, personal development, etc.
Categorize Your Activities: Break down your activities into categories. These might include deep work, administrative tasks, meetings, fitness, recreation, spiritual, family time, etc.
Create a Weekly Template: Using a calendar (digital or physical), divide your week into blocks of time and assign each block to one of your categories. Michael Hyatt recommends using different colors for each category.
Assign Time Blocks: Start filling in your week with these categories. Be realistic about how much time activities actually take. Don’t forget to include time for breaks and transition times between tasks.
Prioritize Your Tasks: Use this template to prioritize your tasks. The most important or challenging tasks should be handled during your most productive times of day.
Review and Adjust: At the end of the week, review how closely your actual week matched your ideal week. Make adjustments as needed for the following week.
I do this plan for all 24 hours of the day, Monday through Sunday, and outline how I would distribute my time in the best case scenario between different work areas, sleep, exercise, family time etc.
Tools used Link to heading
- I just do it in a excel sheet to keep it simple and review it from time to time.
Rounding off Link to heading
So there it is. My theoretical overview of how to do work (and I guess live a life) that is fulfilling and meaningful to me. Next time we will go into how I use Obsidian alongside Agile principles to actually do the things we talked about in this article.