It needs to be a 5 or above.

Two months ago, I audited my life to find out if the things I was doing was actually creating the life that I wanted.

This was no small task because it turns out I was doing a LOT.
It also turns out there is and as I soon discovered there was no good noise to make alarms any less annoying…
Anyway. I digress.  

Every 15 minutes my alarm would go off and I took note of what I was doing at that time.

Working.
Cooking.
Napping.
Painting.
Writing Media Releases.
Watching Netflix.
Exercising.
Writing.

Every 15 minutes, like actual clock work – it would go and I reviewed the activity I was doing with only two questions.

“Out of 10, how much joy does this add to my life?’
“Out of 10, how productive is this activity to my life?”

I ranked every single one of the things I was doing out of 10.
The only rule was that it has to be a 5/10 to stay in my life.

This boring, frustrating but sometimes surprising task went on for two months.
But at the end – the results were there in black and white.

Often the boring stuff (filing, writing, emails) bought me little joy but ranked 10 on productivity. I needed them to run my business. They added to my life goals.   

Sometimes the ‘time killing’ things, like Netflix and Prime gave me high joy to start with, but when continued ongoing the joy weaned. The first 30 minutes was great, but after 45 it went below a 5 very quickly.

This activity really highlighted for me the places I spent my time that were serving me and where I was wasting it.

After two months I learned:
I love making music.
I love singing. I love creating art.
Turns out, I don’t like eating/making/cooking meat.
I also hate getting ready to exercise but I really enjoy doing it.
I love true crime documentaries.
I wasn’t getting value out of some business practices.
Writing is always hard for me but high productivity.
I hate it when my alarm wakes me from a nap.

Some of this I could have figured out without the alarms, I’m sure.

This is one of the hardest things about life is that we outgrow the habits that serve us. For awhile they fit perfectly.
But then something changes and the normal joy drops often in small increments.

It starts with a 8 down to a 7. Then from a 7 to a 6. Then maybe a 5. But we’ve done it so long we don’t question it.

With only 6 weeks left of 2021 I think it’s time we look at the 3s and the 4s and remove them. I have felt like I’ve lost 18 months and now that the world is opening back up – why are we doing things that aren’t the best for us anymore?