First Things First

There may be urgent tasks on your to-do list, but don't let these things keep you from what is truly important: your family, friends, and health.  

1. Need to live: food, shelter and health
2. Need to learn: being intellectually stimulated
3. Need to love: having people you can trust and care for
4. Need to have a legacy: having a sense of purpose in life

Focus on your life's principles to meet these needs; they are your guiding compass, your north star. These principles must guide ALL your decisions, not just some.  

Write a personal mission statement to guide you through tough times and hard decisions. Picture yourself at 80: What kind of life have you led? What makes you smile when you remember it?

Start by taking steps toward your desired future right now!

Specify for each goal: 

• what: the right thing
• why: for the right reason
• how: in the right way

Make sure your goal is under your influence and in alignment with both your principles and your vision for the future. Finally, your goal needs to be driven by importance, not urgency. 

Make time for work, family, and leisure so that each of these vital areas gets their share of your attention. Plan the coming week on Sunday with the guiding help of your principles. This will give you a broader perspective when planning. 

• See the other people in your life as an opportunity to cooperate and create win-win situations. 
• Rather than perceiving life as one big competition focus on the more positive outlook of one big cooperation effort where there is enough for everybody and where we help each other.

Empower your kids or coworkers by focusing on a "high-trust culture". This is characterized by: 

• Mutual trust
• Mutual respect
• Being honest with each other
• Holding each other accountable
• Giving and receiving feedback

Combine your roles in life (work, family, leisure) by looking at the spots where they overlap and shifting your perspective to the WHOLE you. 

Maybe you want to exercise more but have to take care of your kids. An example of combined roles would be if you exercised together with them. 

Preventers: 

• Discouragement
• Pride
• Unrealistic expectations

Try focusing on humility and gratitude for what you already have. Put the important things first. Everything else will fall into place, as the last idea/parabola will show you. 

Fill your jar in the following order: 

• stones (your important things)
• gravel (your urgent things)
• sand (the other stuff in your life like material belongings)

If you would reverse the order, the stones wouldn't have a place in the jar. So always start with the most important things when planning ahead in your life. If you want to read the whole story just search for jar story online.