As you may have guessed from a recent blog post, I have been going through a bit of a quarter life crisis. Between balancing work, grad school, time with family and friends, self care, and spending meaningful time with my partner, I was at wit's end. I felt that I was at the bottom of my energy well, and wasn't succeeding in any of these areas because I couldn't full commit to anything.
That is when I came across a great post from Ximena Vengoechea on the importance of doing a Life Audit, essentially a way for you to pin down what you want to accomplish in your lifetime. Vengoechea recommends taking 100 post-it notes and writing down every single wish you want to achieve in your lifetime. Despite my love affair with post-it notes, I wanted to make the process a bit more high tech.
Enter Trello. Trello allowed me to create a list of all the things I wanted to accomplish, everything from seeing the Northern Lights to finally clearing up my skin. By brainstorming and getting all of my thoughts written out, I was able to start seeing these random patterns as achievable goals. Then I created different time frames I wanted to accomplish these goals in: Daily Life, Short Term (1-5 years), Medium Term (5-15 years), and Lifetime. The final step was color-coding them (because what is life without a fabulous color coding system). Using Trello allowed me to move around the order and coding until I finally had a list I was happy with.
I used the following code: Creative Pursuits, Self Care/Health, Relationships, Travel, Home,Money, Career Development,andProfessional Development.
Below is a small section of my growing audit.
The above list is by no means comprehensive. In addition to the fact that all of these lists scroll down what makes me most excited about this system is that it can be ever evolving. As I find things that spark joy, they can continue to be added to the list. I keep it on my phone as well as a reminder of the different goals I am working towards.
To compliment this audit, and figure out where exactly my time goes. I decided to do a time log. This meant getting down-to-the-second accurate about where my time goes. Eternity allowed me to do just that. If I got up from my desk to grab a glass of water in the kitchen, I stopped by work timer and started my eating timer. If I was listening to a podcast while commuting, I ran the timers concurrently (hence more than 24 hours in a day).
The below screenshot represents an average Tuesday in June. Clearly I messed up on the timing for showering/getting ready, but other than that the below log is accurate.
You might be asking yourself, what is all this self care and play that Cambria is doing!? She says she doesn't have time! The self-care category includes listening to podcasts, showing that I listen to (on average) about 3 hours of podcasts per day, and the play category includes social media and watching TV. The jobs category is anything which is related to career which is not included in my current work description.
Trends that emerged from my life and time audit:
I need to learn how to hustle! So many of my goals are related to finances, whether making sure I have a larger emergency fund or having the finances to travel. None of those are going to come true if I don't find better ways to invest my money (or make some on the side).
The only person getting in my way is me. Nothing has stopped me from selling a blog post or practicing my Russian except me. If these are my goals, I need to make time for them.
Sleep reigns supreme in my life. I protect it at all costs.
Don't let your creativity well run dry. I have so many things on my list that are related to creativity and yet when I am exhausted, those are the first things that go out the window. Make time for creative projects.
Prioritization. Accomplishing your goals is all about prioritization.
I can't recommend enough doing these two practices (especially concurrently). To be able to understand not only where I want to go with my life, but how I currently spend my time, was eye opening.
What would be the top 5 things on your life audit? Let me know in the comments.