{"id":1364,"date":"2013-02-13T19:03:31","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T01:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/?p=1364"},"modified":"2013-02-13T14:35:27","modified_gmt":"2013-02-13T20:35:27","slug":"tasks-big-picture-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/2013\/02\/tasks-big-picture-view\/","title":{"rendered":"Tasks \u2013 Big Picture View"},"content":{"rendered":"

I suspect that Stephen Covey is right when he commented that the \u201curgent\u201d things in our life rather than the \u201cimportant\u201d things drive many of us.\u00a0 The distinction between these two things comes down to whether those \u201cthings\u201d further our goals, the long-term ones that give our life meaning.\u00a0 If we\u2019re repeatedly running from one urgent task to another urgent task then we\u2019re not focusing or working on the big picture view of our lives.<\/p>\n

Of course, Stephen Covey isn\u2019t the only one telling us how important it is to plan, to be mindful of our goals \u2013 both short and long term ones \u2013 since most (if not all) time management experts address this concept.\u00a0 When we avoid planning, it\u2019s that much easier to focus our time and energy on working on those urgent tasks.\u00a0 The urgent tasks tend to be in our face \u2013 virtually demanding our attention or something bad will happen, often the crises.<\/p>\n

Yet if we only think about the immediate things that need our attention, when do work on the things that actually have value for our lives?\u00a0 And don\u2019t get me wrong, it doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s easy to shift our focus.<\/p>\n

One of the most helpful ways to tackle this, for me anyway, was to think about the roles in my life.\u00a0 Each role that I fill has meaning \u2013 whether it\u2019s required or voluntary \u2013 and deserves my time and energy.\u00a0 Not necessarily equal time and energy mind you.\u00a0 So I made a list (and yes I do like lists) of what different areas of my life I wanted to spend time and energy on.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not all going to have identical lists \u2013 though many of us have jobs and families \u2013 both of which need our attention.\u00a0 The idea is to keep it relatively short since ideally you\u2019ll set aside at least a little time each week for these areas of your life.\u00a0 This could relate to Your Needs and Values<\/a> \u2013 as some people might put Spirituality on their list \u2013 for me, that’s contained in my Personal category.\u00a0 My list has evolved over time but I\u2019m currently working with 5 areas that I want to attend to each week: Business, Household, Volunteering, Relationship, and Personal.<\/p>\n

This means when I look at both my calendar and to-do list, I am actively thinking about when I will focus on the various areas.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t mean that it always works as I planned; yet it\u2019s not supposed to.\u00a0 \u201cUrgent\u201d tasks do come up and it\u2019s not about ignoring or avoiding those.\u00a0 It\u2019s about making sure your life isn\u2019t driven by those urgent tasks.<\/p>\n

It means that we\u2019ll have less regret at the end of the week, month, and year.\u00a0 We\u2019ll know that we\u2019ve directed our energy toward things that matter to us \u2013 personally.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter if you make a list of your categories; it doesn\u2019t matter if you create a mission statement for yourself; it doesn\u2019t matter how you go about it.\u00a0\u00a0 What does matter is finding a way that works for you to make the most out of your life in the big picture view.\u00a0 How else does your life have a greater meaning?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been known to rail against goals in the traditional sense, yet here is a goal that I live by \u2013 to work to have a full life that embraces all that I need and value \u2013 and how to go about it, the big picture view of life and tasks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10,8,18,5,9,22,15,4],"class_list":["post-1364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personaldevelopment","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-goals","tag-household","tag-motivation","tag-productivity","tag-resources","tag-routines"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-m0","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1364"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1368,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364\/revisions\/1368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}