We left off with repurposing. There is no way to get more time in the day, but we can repurpose the time we have. That would lead us to, prioritizing.
Sometimes there just isn’t enough time in the day, or the week, or the year, to fit everything in just like we want. To please everyone and say yes to everything asked of us. Sometimes I even find that it would be beneficial for me to say no to some things I really would like to commit to or be involved with. Or sometimes I say yes to things in the midst of too many other obligations, something I would normally love, but because I overcommit I end up being filled with an overwhelming sense of regret.
There has to be balance.
There has to be importance placed upon and given to the things that are valuable to my life. The things I long to invest in and grow. Where is my purpose? Because if I could find that, I would be able to see more clearly where my priorities should fall.
I asked myself, (aside from work) what would my top 5 be? The top 5 things that deserve my attention. I came up with this list:
- Faith
- Health
- Family
- Friends
- Home
Those are extremely broad, I realize, but those are things in my life I want to take care of and cultivate. My priorities. Originally, health was at the bottom. I had four in mind, and health became a secondary thought to those other things. It’s difficult to put our health first, because that’s like putting ourselves first, and that sometimes seems selfish.
But what does it mean when we neglect ourself? We run the risk of nothing else being taken care of in our life. We can not hold it together and be what we need to be, if our health fails.
I decided I liked the look of this list, and I’ve been practicing the art of declining. I take a look at the list, and see if it can fit. Is it beneficial to those priorities?
But first, I had to take some time to make plans for those things. To get them in order, I want to thrive in those areas, but there was a little clean-up required beforehand.
I needed to take some time to refine each of them. Not on their own, but separately. I had such a relief going forward because it felt like really good progress. I actually started at the bottom of the list, our home. It was full of tangible things, and the easiest to make a plan of execution for.
Over the next few days, I’ll walk you through the process of refining our home as part of my priorities.
It looks a lot different, and it certainly feels a good bit lighter.
Emily says
I’m loving this series, especially your comments earlier about giving oneself grace and not following through on plans. I stay home with my 2 children and stay busy volunteering at my church in ministries I find important to me. Learning the art of declining, as you so graciously put it, has been a safeguard for my family time during this season.
I’m looking forward to reading about the fruit of your strategic planning for both yourself and your family!