Doing what matters is a simple concept. You just complete important tasks and eliminate everything that is nonessential. The big question however is “What matters?”
Unless you are clear about what matters to you, priorities and importance could be completely misleading. In best case scenario you stretch yourself in many potentially important directions. In the worse case you have priorities of people around you substituting your own ones.
You need to figure out what matters to you and then build your plans based on this foundation.
Slow down
First of all to look for things that matter we need to slow down and have a deep breathe. It’s very hard to be thoughtful while fighting with tons of urgent tasks. Thoughts are always coming back to current contexts and problems at hand.
In my opinion you need to slow down for a couple of weeks to truly change your rhythm. First week is to change the rhythm. Second week is to think about what matters and define how to act according to this. One or two days are just not enough for the brain to make a switch.
Slowing down can be achieved by having less commitments and more margin. Ruthlessly clean the calendar by canceling or rescheduling appointments and leave only true emergencies in a task list. Will putting on hold appointment or task create a disaster? If not then put it on hold.
Understand what makes you happy and fulfilled
When the mind got calm it’s time to think about what is it that makes you happy and fulfilled. There is no need to worry about how those things can be achieve. Only thing that matters is to understand what they are.
Think about what drives you in current days, about past moments of happiness and fulfilment, about your dreams and wishes.
Determine what you don’t want
Now that you clearly see what makes you happy and fulfilled, it’s a perfect time to think about things and states which definitely don’t fit, those that make you unhappy, stressed out, and eventually block your energy. They should be eliminated from your life.
I bet this list will match your current biggest pain points. I bet your brain constantly struggles when you have to work on those things or be in those states.
Listing this things gives you a clear vision of them. Probably you will need different strategies to eliminate or minimize them, but don’t worry about this now. You can handle this later. Don’t let thoughts like “there is no way I can get rid of this” stop you.
Determine what you do want
I guess that in your “don’t want” list there are mostly items representing a state, not specific actions. At least I hope that you’ve put yourself at a bit higher level than tasks in your regular days.
When thinking about what you do want I suggest you to also think high-level and global. We’re not making a wishlist of presents to ourselves. We’re making a list of things and states which would create a lifestyle where your days are full of happy and fulfilment.
Create your dream ordinary week
With the information you’ve gathered in previous steps, it’s time to draft how your weeks would look like to match findings about what makes you happy and fulfilled, what you do want, and what you don’t want.
This would be your dream ordinary week.
“Dream” stands for your ideal week where you’re happy, fulfilled, have enough time and energy to work on what you want while having no need to work on what you don’t want.
“Ordinary” means being realistic. It’s the week you can actually live in your current season of life. Embrace the reality of having commitments to close ones, your health state, your current financial state, etc.
The aim is a picture of a regular week in life with your job, family, and friends in best case scenario. Try to incorporate as many things from your “do want” list and leave out as many items from your “don’t want” list as possible.
Now that you have the clarity about how your dream ordinary week would look like, your next step would be to find strategies allowing you to start living your life in such a way. Unfortunately there is no magic trick to switch to dream ordinary week. At least when you know what matters to you, you can priotize those things over others and plan your life on a concrete foundation.