The past couple months I’ve been feeling like I’ve been largely reactive day to day.
I don’t like it one bit.
Why let outside circumstances, other people, and external factors control my actions? To prevent this I had to revisit my goals.
I’ve been writing goals down for years but I struggled at reading them everyday and holding myself accountable. So though I have specific goals and intentions, the hustle and bustle of life has played me for a sucker every damn time.
I asked MMA Coach Firas Zahabi last week on how to reduce stress and he reminded me of the principle: “First Things First”.
First Things First is Habit 3 of Stephen Covey’s book: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Prioritizing what’s important. Especially prioritizing the important and non-urgent things in our lives. Otherwise, there’s always a fire to put out if we don’t prioritize.
Putting this into practice and to bit become the sucker of life, I’ve been waking up earlier then I usually do and slowing down the morning.
No emails, no to being reactive to notifications, no Instagram, just aiming to do the most important things first in the day: feed my mind and strengthen my body.
This means writing and creating even if I don’t “publish” anything, reading books, listening to podcasts, audiobooks, long form conversations of wise and accomplished people.
This action of doing “First Things First” has been a great heuristic to follow.
So today I woke up and told myself what’s the most important thing I can do today?
This led me to revisiting a Document I created that maps out my Goals, Desires, and Identity. Last time I touched it was 6 months ago in February.
One of the pages in this document was a graph of “Your Life In Weeks”.
The average person lives until they're 85. That means there’s about 4,420 weeks in our lives. When you break down time into smaller units, shit gets real quickly. Each week if represented as a box in a chart would come out to look like this image.
I added the time that has already been “locked in” that I will never get back as well as the “Estimated Time Remaining” because Life is never guaranteed.
For every week that goes by, I will “X” off another box. This surely will be a reminder that time is finite and is truly precious.
I don’t know how much time I have in this world but one thing I know for certain…
I’m going to live my life intentional as fuck.
I hope you do too my friend.
The average person lives until their 85. That means there’s about 4,420 weeks in our lives.
If you want to live your life intentionally here are some action steps:
(Out of 99 people only 1 will do this. That is the law of averages).
1. Read author Tim Urban’s game-changing Article Your Life in Weeks.
The Chart from above is from this exact article that’s shaped my perspective to pay attention to the things that really matter. 80/20 your life and always think of the bigger picture–there’s only so much time.
2. Block out 2 Hours of Undisturbed Time on Your Calendar. Phone turned off, on silent or faced-down.
3. Chart out your own Life In Weeks. You can do this in a number of ways:
a. Highlight or Mark all the weeks that have gone by and start marking
“X” for every week that goes by. This will bring the absolute
perspective that time stops for no one and if you want to take action
it must be today.
b. Mark your Life in Weeks Chart by mile-stones and time-periods of
your life. Check out the example from Tim:
You can download your copy of Your Own Life In Weeks here courtesy of Wait But Why. (Note: I edited my name on the document to make it hit home that this is my life. I encourage you to do so as well)
How do you think you'll respond once you've filled out your own chart?
Originally Posted: 2018 August 1 at 7:55 pm PST
