[2022-06-13] My priorities
In Where we spend our time, I talked about a list of priority activities a friend had written and shared with me. Inspired by her thinking, I committed to crafting my own list and sharing it with you.
The purpose of such a list is to serve as a touchstone—a test to check that I'm spending my time in areas I've deemed a priority and a tool against which to compare any new request or potential activity. When I'm asked to do something or when I contemplate taking on something new, I can pull out my list to see whether the new possibility fits into my priorities or whether I would have to give up something more important to take on the new thing.
The day after receiving my friend's list, I jotted down my priorities: eight broad categories with specific activities under each. The whole thing came together quite quickly, so much so that I was convinced I must be missing something. So I set the list aside, thinking I'd expand the categories. While I did add a few more activities over the following week, the initial eight categories I identified remained the same.
Sleep
Sleep was at the top of my friend's list, and I decided to emulate her approach. As W. Chris Winter, MD, explains in The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How to Fix It, sleep is vital to health, including helping us maintain a healthy weight, supporting a healthy heart and circulatory system, elevating our mood, and supporting our immune system. Similarly. Tony Schwarz states in The Way We're Working Isn't Working that sleep influences our effectiveness in waking life more than any other behaviour. Despite this, says Schwarz, "sleep is also one of the first behaviors many of us are willing to sacrifice, on the mistaken assumption that doing so will allow us to be more productive." I did this for years, foregoing sleep for work. I still struggle to get enough sleep, especially because writing my daily posts often takes me late into the evening—all the more reason to make sleep a priority.
Health
I might have included sleep in my broader health category, but sleep is sufficiently distinct to merit its own heading. For me, health encompasses a range of activities, including exercise, stretching, self-care, fostering mental health, spending time outdoors and in nature, cancer follow-ups, preventive medicine, risk reduction and regular tests. Health has been a primary focus for the past 22 months. Being diagnosed with ovarian cancer had a way of putting things into perspective, proving the adage that if you don't make time for your wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness.
Family
Many lists about where we should spend our time include relationships or, as Dr. David Rock and Dr. Daniel Siegel propose in the Healthy Mind Platter, connecting time. I prefer to have distinct categories for family and friends. For years, my life was dominated by work, so what little time I had left was devoted to my family. In retirement, I have more time for family as well as friends. The family category includes not only my husband and children, but also my mom and sister, with whom I talk almost daily. It also includes my brothers; having lost one brother, I'm mindful of the importance of connecting with my brothers.
Friends
It is incredibly fulfilling to finally have time for friends. In this category, I include nurturing relationships, supporting people and corresponding with them. I spend time every day responding to comments and emails I receive in response to Jenesis posts. It's a tiny way of saying, "I see you. You are important." And as public health measures associated with the pandemic ease further, I look forward to more face-to-face get-togethers with friends.
Writing
Writing has been part of my life since I was a little girl. In some ways, it's an odd hobby, as writing is challenging every time I sit down to do it. What makes it fulfilling is the final product, which often makes the struggle worthwhile. For me, writing includes reflecting, researching, blogging, responding to feedback, teaching, and—one day—turning the blog of Jenesis into the book of Jenesis. Of all the categories on this list, writing provides the greatest sense of purpose and meaning. It has enabled me to turn what I could easily have viewed as a pretty lousy situation (cancer) into a source of inspiration through which I can help others.
Food
I've rarely seen food on a list of priorities or in an article about where to spend one's free time. But food is really important to me. Good food is both a source of pleasure and a foundational element of health. I love buying, preparing, eating, sharing and discovering food—the healthier and tastier the better. As I've said before, food is my love language. Cooking and baking are opportunities for connecting with others and for what Rock and Siegel call focus time (focusing on a task in a goal-oriented way) and play time (being spontaneous or creative).
Organizing
I only recently discovered how much joy I get out of organizing things, such as my physical space, my virtual space and my time. I'm a list maker, a note taker, a calendar scheduler, an information collector, a time manager, a system creator and a planner. Throughout my life, I've set up systems and used tools and apps to make my life more productive, comfortable and fulfilling. In the organizing category, I include housecleaning, decluttering, digital organizing, financial and estate planning, household chores calendar, and gardening.
Learning
Like sleep, I've taken learning from my friend's list. For me, learning can occur through reading, listening to audiobooks and podcasts, spending time with knowledgeable people, watching shows, documentaries and videos, and teaching others. Learning is not only a goal in and of itself, but also an opportunity to advance other priorities, for example, when the learning is related to sleep, health, food or organizing.
In reviewing my draft priority categories tonight, I concluded that they're solid. I expect that I will continue to add more activities here and there, but these eight areas represent what is most important to me at this point in my life.
I'm hoping that you might share items from your own set of priorities to serve as further inspiration as I continue to tweak my list.
