First Things First
I came across this gem of a quote awhile back by the famous Stephen Covey. (7 Habits fans, anyone?) I was honored to be Stephen’s dental hygienist for several years BTW.
HOW do we become a person who puts First Things First? Here are my 7 steps to doing so.
1) Make a list of 25 things you want {Can be anything, do not limit yourself…dream!}
2) Make a list of all of the things you want to accomplish in your life {at least 25…this can be anything you desire, no limits}
3) Make a list of your top 5 priorities
4) Now go through the lists from #1 and 2 and cross out any items {for now} that don’t correlate with any of your top 5 priorities.
5) Highlight the items that correlate with two of your priorities and star {*} thoses that correlate with your #1 Priority.
6) Look back on your daily activities for the past week. How many of them are reflective of your priorities?
7) When planning for your next day/week/year consider scheduling {FIRST} time for those activities that reflect your priorities/values.
Start with scheduling in those starred items and follow with scheduling your highlighted items. I recommend setting goals reflective of the items you have starred and highlighted.
Here is an example. One of my top 5 priorities is a thriving relationship with my spouse. When I had young kids, it was vital that we schedule time to be together without the kids: weekly date nights on the calendar. Thus, setting up a regular babysitter became not just a “to do” task but an important part of my putting First Things First. Now that all of the kids are gone, we have more opportunities to be together, but we still need to make the choice to do so.
Recently I took the opportunity to reflect on my current top priorities. Here are mine. Yours may look very different. It’s all good. The process is the same.
My top priorities:
Close connection to God
Share in a thriving marriage
Maintain close relations with family and friends
Maintain healthy mind and body
Help others in their lives
The exercises that I mention above are part of my coaching curriculum. This is an exercise that we do early on and check back with to make sure that we are staying true to our priorities which allows us to maintain a healthy perspective when faced with outside agendas and forces. I would love to help you work on putting {your} First Things First.
Click on the link below to set up a FREE first things first call.
