Post #66. Create Some “Life-Boxes” to Manage Your Time Better

Hi!

The past days I’ve been traveling through southern Sweden and Denmark, exploring the coast, swimming and taking far walks in nature.

I’m with my dear friend and brother from Afghanistan, catching up, laughing & joking way too much.

Currently I’m in Copenhagen, in a café, due to an interview I was planning to do with Patrick Wahlberg, author of PXP – Ditt Bästa Jag.

Wi-fi failed us, so we’ll take the interview another day, so I thought I’d share some thoughts I have on my mind, just for the sake of sharing something.

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Today I want to talk about… the idea of dividing life into priorities.

What do we benefit from doing this?

First of all, it helps us plan better, because we have anchors for our thinking.

To start with, we need to create, define our own categories. We can’t copy someone else’s priorities, even if that would be convenient.

So, for me to define my categories, I asked myself the simple question:

What do I really need to be fulfilled?

This is what I came up with:

Work
I need food, water & a roof to rest my head under. And to get these basic needs, I most probably need to work. And with work I mean: Exchange of value. The more rare & needed providing of solutions, the more value added, the bigger value exchange.

Healthy food & a clean simple home is my standard.

Play
I know that I could have all the money in the world, the best food % shelter, but if I didn’t know how to really play and have fun, life would risk to become way to serious, maybe even a bit dull…

This could be almost anything, but for me: play is mostly physical… This form of play is the one that fuels me the most. I believe real play is when you engage all of you: body, mind and soul…

Love
So, lets say I have a really high material standard, and that I fill my free time with amazingly fun activities, but I lack close relationships… This would be a receipt for disaster… Guess what, the second we stop working or stop playing, we will feel like something is missing. And it’s just this thing, love…. connection that is missing…

For me this means having someone to talk to both in your darkest hour and in your brightest moments… Someone to love and be loved by… Vulnerable & deep connections is what brings life’s greatest experiences, I truly believe. Because I’ve experienced the opposite, psychological isolation… it’s not that fun. I don’t  recommend it. I highly recommend getting out of it.

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What other categories could you come up with?

Or maybe you like the work, play, love categories… but have a hard time figuring out what you’d like to fill these categories with concretely speaking? Go through these questions carefully:

1. Work: What value could you add to the world? What work lights you up? What impact do you wish to have on the world?

2. Play: What makes you come truly alive? What activities do you most love? What are you doing when you feel most alive? What is your favourite play activities?

3. Love: Whom do you love? How could you open up your heart more to love? How could you soften into love? How could you connect more with real people during the day? What obstacles do you have for connecting with people? Shame, low self-esteem, overthinking? How could you work with that?

So, how to use these categories:

* When you plan your day, week, month, year.
* When you plan your vacation.
* When you set goals.
* When you review your day, week, month, year.

It’s all about thinking about what to fill your time with, and making sure you don’t miss anything essential.

How can you use these categories in more creative ways top make sure you live a life true to what you really care most about?

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Take care! 

With love, 

Daniel Galovan 

Ps.  Here are some other categories I’ve found useful, depending on what situation you’re in your life:

1. Mind, Body, Soul – self care. 
2. Health, Service, Family – planning. 
3. Explore, connect, give – gifts.
4. Work, Adventure, Refuel – inspiration. 
5. Input, zero input – creativity. 
6. Giving, receiving – service. 
7. Action, reflection.