Ask Yourself 3 Simple Questions to Reset Your Priorities
Learn how to prioritize well and make the most of your days.
I have a problem with finishing things. I've written about it before, but the main culprit is that right when I'm in the midst of immersing myself in a project, something else comes along, and I abandon the previous project or hobby altogether. It’s both a blessing and a disaster. On one hand, I get to try many different things. On the other hand, I never get anywhere with one thing.
I’ve come to the realization that my bête noire — a boatload of unfinished projects — has come to its problematic fruition because of one major pitfall: I did not know how to prioritize.
Prioritization is Everything
And I mean everything. It’s been said that adults make around 35,000 decisions every day. All of those are tiny prioritizations. If you do X, you don't do Y. In other words: you prioritize X over Y. If you spend your evening watching football instead of spending time with your kids, you’re prioritizing football over family time. If you spend 2 hours on social media each day but you’re complaining that you don’t have time to work out, you’re prioritizing social media over your health. It sounds blunt but it’s exactly what it is.
Your behavior is like a mirror to your priorities — reflective and brutally honest.
The ‘problem’ is that we never think about this. We just go along with the current of life, spend a fair amount on the sidelines of our life watching it happen to us instead of making it happen. The sooner you realize you have the power to prioritize all of those 35,000 decisions, the potential is limitless.
The Relationship Between Time and Priorities
Nothing is as honest as your time management. How you spend a day might not make a tremendous difference to your life, but it compounds. How you spend one day sets the tone for the next and the next. Before you know it, you’ve spent the better part of a year scrolling Instagram and procrastinating on the things that matter to you.
“How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.’’ — Annie Dillard
Here’s a quick exercise to see where you’re at on the spectrum between wasting time and making the most of your life. Simply ask yourself three simple questions.
1. What do you think your priorities are?
The things of which you think are your priorities are the things that you know should get the most attention in your life. Ironically, they are often also the things we put aside the most to focus more on the less important stuff. Examples of some priorities that could fall under this category include:
- A healthy diet
- Spending time with loved ones
- Getting enough sleep
- Making time for your hobbies and things that fulfill you
- Personal growth
- Social time
- Taking care of your mental health
- Taking care of your physical health
Take note of the things you find most important. These are the things that should take up most of your time and mental energy.
2. What are your actual priorities?
Here comes the pitfall. While it’s easy to think of the abovementioned examples as your priorities, they are usually not treated as such.
I could easily say that my priority is getting healthy. But if I don’t put in the effort and time, it’s apparently not my priority. It’s simple as that. Your behavior is like a mirror to your priorities — reflective and brutally honest.
Simply put, your actual priorities are the things that most of your mental energy and time actually go towards.
As it turns out, my actual priorities are work and (usually) doing mindless things after work. If I’m lucky, I write or read a bit. But the thing I thought was my priority, getting healthy, is apparently not my actual priority. I still struggle with keeping up my breathing exercises, supplement intake, and regular exercising. Consistency is not my forte.
3. What needs to change to bridge that gap?
If I say my priority is getting healthy, but I don’t treat it as a priority by not consistently taking in my supplements, workout out, eating healthy or doing my breathing exercises, there’s clearly a gap between my intention and my actions — what I want and what I do.
Luckily, it’s often straightforward and clear what needs to change to cover that gap. I know what I need to do: I need to work on my consistency when it comes to keeping up my healthy habits.
But let’s say it’s not as clear as day. You think your priorities are family time and sleep, but you work 12-hour days. Your actual priority (work) results in neither of your true priorities getting any attention. That needs to change. Sure, life is not always as simple as ‘’Well, go find a new job then’’. But it is important to keep in mind how you want to look back on your life when you’re nearing the end.
Take inventory of your wanna-be priorities and your actual priorities and see how you can operationalize the gap in between them. I assure you that even when you feel like you’re using all 24 hours in a day to the best of your ability and there’s no time for your priorities, there’s always a possibility for restructuring, no matter how small it is.
Recap for your memory:
To reset your priorities, ask yourself these 3 questions:
- What do you think your priorities are?
- What are your actual priorities?
- What needs to change to bridge that gap?
The answers might be confronting, but sometimes that’s all we need to start taking action towards a life that’s more meaningful and fulfilling in the long run.
