After B1 conquered his first words “mum”, “dad” and “more”, one of the next, most gorgeous, clear, understandable words was “ap-ple pie” (with this totally gorgeous breath between the two words). What’s that got to do with anything? Well not much really. I was thinking about pies. More specificially, the pie that is our life.

 

We are all given a certain amount of time in our day – 24hours. We  each make judgment calls minute by minute regarding how we spend this time – how we split up the pie. There are so many good things to spend our time on.

 

The “pieces of your pie” can include: (in no specific order)
Extended family
Health (Physical, Mental, Social, Emotional, Spiritual)
Housework/Chores/Errands etc.
Friends
Spouse
Self Developement/Education
Kids
God
Work
Giving to others/Service
Recreation & Hobbies


I’ve been pondering for a while now, how to divide up my “pie”. Hence, part of the reason I set myself 40goals was to help set some form of boundaries for how I spend my time. I listed 40 things that I felt were important for me to do and wanted to do, set myself a timeframe (40weeks)… and that’s where I am for the next… well, until May 2012.

 

On a hourly, daily and weekly basis, I’m still having to make those decisions on what is highest priority.  Or in the words of President Josiah Bartlett, “What’s next?” 🙂

 

One of the ways I do this is to divide my “to do list” into 4 categories, based on
1)       The importance of completing it, and
2)      if there’s a deadline/time factor involved.

 

You can download a copy HERE.

 

This gives 4 categories:

  • MUST DO, WITH DEADLINE ….  (eg. pay phonebill, go to doctors appt, organise dinner)
  • MUST DO, NO SPECIFIC DEADLINE  (eg. Put away folding, Return borrowed clothes, BLOG!)
  • CAN DO IF WANT, WITH DEADLINE   (eg. go to music class on Tues @ library, buy nappies on sale)
  • CAN DO IF WANT, NO DEADLINE (eg. reorganise stuff on shelves in garage, bake biscuits)

 

To satisfy my crazy “left-brained” mind, I’ve ordered it so that the box to look at first is top left (like reading a book), and I have the most important boxes shaded grey for a visual reminder (thats also my OCD coming through).

 

Whilst I’ve generally used it for weekly-monthly prioritizing, it’s pretty flexible, in that you can apply it to a day’s chores, a week’s errands, a month of activities & events or “big picture” things like when trying to prioritise for things (eg. house renovations, garage sale, holiday, extra hours at work, family time, starting a new hobby or playing sports etc.).

 

By writing all this, I’m not claiming to have this all down perfect. I’m struggling at the moment with having the energy and time to get through my to-do lists, so my house is constantly in disarray. This is simply something I’ve been thinking about and a tool I’ve been using a bit to help manage my multiple to-do lists and give me some sense of order amongst the chaos… Since I like lists 🙂

 

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