Living Life by Design

Photo by 3n on Flickr

When our lives in alignment with our priorities – life is good. There is a settledness, a peace, a strength, a knowing. However, when our lives are  not in alignment with our priorities, we feel off-balance. Something feels wrong. We are on-edge, more irritable, more sensitive, more judgmental.

When I feel off-balance, I look back on my recent activities and I compare them to what is important to me. Or, another way to look at it is to think if someone were to look at my activities to determine what’s important to me – would it match up to what’s really important to me? If not, there’s need to be a shift.

For me to get to that shift, it often means stepping back, maybe even getting away from it all. Maybe it’s a bike ride, or a walk, or time at the beach. Or maybe it’s going to a movie, or having coffee with a close friend. Just some time to 1) get away from what’s right in front of me, 2) to ponder what needs to shift, and 3) to return with energy and enthusiasm necessary to make that shift.

I recently came across this fun little exercise in helping us determine our priorities. I can’t vouch for it’s accuracy, but it could be revealing. I was surprised what the list revealed about me. I encourage you to try the exercise.

Five things are happening in your house at the same time. In which sequence would you solve them?
1. The telephone is ringing!
2. The baby is crying!
3. Someone’s knocking or calling you from the front door!
4. You hung the clothes out to dry and it is beginning to rain!
5. You left the tap on in the kitchen and the water is already overflowing!

Go ahead, write down your sequence in how you would handle the scenarios.

I’d love to see your sequence. Feel free to post it in the comment section below.

And now for the fun part. I’d love to know why you selected them in the sequence you did. Who we are, how we’re designed, and what’s important to us will impact the sequence we choose.

Let me share my sequence and the why, then I’d love to hear yours. Here is the list in the order I’d solve each one and why.

5. You left the tap on in the kitchen and the water is already overflowing!
I’d do this one first because it’s a quick fix. Turn off the water. I wouldn’t clean it up right away…I’d do that later, but at least I can quickly stop it from getting worse. So, on the way to the crying baby I’d shut off the water.

2. The baby is crying!
I’d do this next because this is a very high priority compared to any other item on the list. I’d want to find out what’s wrong. What can I do to help. (To be honest, my top two could be interchanged. If I did this one first, I’d pick up the baby, go shut off the water, then focus on the baby.)

3. Someone’s knocking or calling you from the front door!
Then I’d pay attention to who’s at the front door. I can’t ignore them (like the phone) because they are there. Hopefully, the crying baby has stopped crying and I can pay attention to whoever it is at the front door.

4. You hung the clothes out to dry and it is beginning to rain!
Now that the urgent has been dealt with I can focus on what needs to be done. I’d rescue the clothes – if they haven’t gotten too wet by this time. If they are soaking, I’d just leave them.

1. The telephone is ringing!
By this time the phone has stopped ringing (because it’s gone to voice mail). I can check voice mails and return the call when the time is right.

This reminds of the very helpful diagram made popular by Stephen Covey. Everything in life goes into one of four quadrants. In looking at this exercise, here’s how I would place each of these items into the quadrants. Your placement may differ.

• Quadrant 1: Important and Urgent
• the crying baby
• people at the front door
• Quadrant 2: Not Important and Urgent
• clothes on the line
• Quadrant 3: Important and Not Urgent
• running water (this could potentially go into Quadrant 1 depending on the damage it’s doing)
• Quadrant 4: Not Important and Not Urgent
• ringing telephone

According to Covey, it’s best (and healthiest) to stay in Quadrant 3 as much as possible – important and not urgent.

Back to our exercise. At the beginning of this exercise, I mentioned that the sequence we choose reveals a bit about our priorities. In this fun little exercise they tied each of the situations to a priority.

Here’s their ‘answer’.

Every individual point (item) represents something in your life.

On the list you can see which meaning every point has:
1. Telephone represents Work
2. Baby represents Family
3. Door represents Friends 
4. Clothes represent Money
5. Tap represents Love Life

I’m not sure how ‘Tap’ represents Love Life, but I’ll leave it at my #1! If I took my list and converted to the priorities it’d look like this:

1. Love Life
2. Family
3. Friends
4. Money
5. Work

What about you? How did you rank the scenarios and why? Why did you choose your first one as first? Do you agree with the correlation with the priorities?

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