Putting the mask on you first: Designing the life you want!

Photo courtesy of Matt Douglas.

In this third part in the series of "Putting the Mask on You First”, we are going to proactively design the day that you want to have. Not should have or will have one day when….and certainly not the one that is booked up for you in advance.

The day that you design will then become the week that you want and presto!…the week then becomes the month and the life that you want to live. If you missed the blog on discovering how closely you are living to your values, click here to visit it. Do the exercises in that blog to discover your values and how closely you are currently living by them, if at all!

For now what you need is:
- A good list of what you want in your life, what you value. All those things that you keep thinking “I should” or “I will when I have more time”…well NOW is the time! (e.g. family time, mountain biking, fitness, time with friends, painting time, whatever floats your boat time).
- Your calendar. This is the most critical tool to make things happen. If it’s not in your calendar, believe me, it will never happen!

The story of the rocks and pebbles.

Firstly, let’s start with a story that helps explain how we are going to design your day, your week, your life. If you know this story forgive me and simply skip to the next section. I learnt this many years ago and as simple as it is, it’s a really powerful analogy.

I want you to imagine a one litre glass jar sitting on a table in front of you. On the table are also 3 big rocks, 12 medium rocks, and hand fulls of sand. The aim being to put everything into the jar and be able to close the lid. You can have fun experimenting with this but I’ll cut to the chase and give you the answer.
If you put the sand in first, or even the medium rocks in, you will never fit everything in, particularly the big rocks. See the left jar in the picture above. The only way to get everything in there is to put the 3 big rocks in first, then the medium rocks followed by the sand. See the right hand jar in the picture above.

It’s a perfect analogy for our time. If you give your time and energy to the small stuff first, like your emails, even though it might feel satisfying to get those emails down, you’ll never have room for the truly important things in life. The things that you value. By putting in the big rocks into your calendar first, you’ll dedicate your precious time to what you prioritise as important and not what other people’s priorities are.

Putting in the big rocks into your calendar: Now comes the fun part 😃. Again, ensure you colour code the different chunks of time for your appointments according to your values. For example: Family, Fun, Food, Fitness and work.

Next, look at your coming week. Make appointments with yourself now by putting in time for the things you value. Is it 1 hour of fitness in the morning 3 days a week? Is it playtime with your children? Is it time to catch up with friends? Is it time to practice playing your instrument or read a book? Whatever it is, put it in there now. Check out the example of my calendar above.

These appointments with yourself need to be sacred. Non-negotiable. This is where you Put the Mask on You First. This is what will give you energy in your life, fill up your cup!

Sometimes life happens and you do need to move one of these appointments. If you do, don’t panic, and don’t delete that appointment from your week. Move it to another time and delete something that is less important to you, the smaller rocks. Remember, this isn’t being selfish, this is being self-less!

Once the big rocks are in, fit in all the other things you need to do in your week. Work. Home admin Committees etc…
I even break up my work time in the same way. I pick the 3 most important things I need to accomplish in my work week and put time in my diary for that first then I fit in the other appointments or email time etc..

If you look at your diary and think….’but how do I do this when I have meetings that have been booked in well in advance and I can’t move or delete them?’. Simply skip forward a few weeks in your calendar now and block out time for yourself, ahead of time. Make the space now for your 3 big rocks without knowing what those rocks might be, but knowing there will be some. When the time comes to fill in that space, you’ll have a better idea about what those big rocks are and you’ll have the time for them too. It might take a couple of weeks to transition your calendar to this new way of prioritisation but it’s well worth it.

So have a crack now! Fill your calendar with colour now for the next 4 weeks! Step back and have a look and feel excited that you now have time for the things that you value and that you aren’t a slave to your calendar anymore!

Put the mask on yourself first, schedule You Time into your calendar as a priority and thrive again!

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