{Busy Woman’s Guide to Balance} 3 Simple Ways to Set Priorities
We’re four blogs into our Balance series, and we’ve talked A LOT about boundaries and why they are good.
I mentioned in my last post that boundaries help support our priorities.
Today, we’re going to talk about…
- What priorities are
- How we can set them, and
- How combining priorities with passion and boundaries helps to create a life that you LOVE.
Prioritize: (Verb) To arrange or deal with in order of importance. To put things in order of importance.
Priority: (noun) a thing that is regarded as more important than another
As women (whether married or single, with children or without children), there never seems to be enough time in a day to do everything that we want to do. There’s always more.
For example, I wish I had more free time for Bible Studies, Studying to advance my professional knowledge, and time to spend with my loved ones. I wish I had more time to clean, food prep, read books. (Luckily I don’t have to worry about a time crunch with my workouts – a 20-30minute fat loss workout from our Members Portal can’t be beat!) I wish I had more time to walk, quilt, and crochet….
You get the idea. We all wish we had more time!
I’ve been working very hard lately to build boundaries and set priorities, so that the things I’m interested in – the things I’m passionate about – have their time to shine.
Prioritizing is important when time is limited and demands are unlimited.
Coupling priorities with boundaries helps you better allocate your time where it’s most needed. It also helps to lighten your load from things that aren’t as important.
Now a quick word about “what’s important”… This is going to be different from one woman to the next. You may prioritize food prep more than the next woman. AND THAT’S OKAY!!
Priorities help create the world that’s right for you.
Here are 3 Simple Ways to Set Priorities:
- Deliberately choose what is important to you and what you’re passionate about. Sit down in a quiet spot, where other people’s influences aren’t impacting you, and ask yourself what is most important to you? What are your goals? What do you want your life to look like? Who is most important? What gives you a sense of fulfillment and joy? Write it all down and then you can organize and prioritize from that list!
- Keep them simple. The longer the list, the more overwhelming and impossible it will seem. Choose just a few to work on at a time, and keep the rest of them on the “next list.” When the first few priorities are achieved and are automatic, then you can move forward and tackle the next few and work on making them automatic.
- Once you set your priorities, live them! Respect them and let them HELP YOU. Write them down and put them somewhere you’ll see them EVERY DAY. Remind yourself throughout the day about what your priorities are – this will help keep you focused and on track! Set goals (check out Kira’s post about SMART goals to help you learn how to set goals) and reach them!
Without priorities…
- We “go with the flow,” which means that we let others and society define what we need to be doing and what we should be doing.
- We don’t know when to say no
- We procrastinate things we know are important to us for things that others find important
- We feel as if we don’t have control or say in how we live our lives
- Our passions are neglected in favor of the to do list.
Don’t let this life get away from you…
Embrace who you are and what you want out of it by setting boundaries and priorities to make them happen!
For more, check out our previous posts on all things Balance here:
- 6 Reasons Boundaries are Essential
- 9 Ways You Know Your Boundaries Have Been Crossed
- 5 Steps to Establish Your Boundaries
Coming up, I’ll talk about learning to say no, finding yourself once the smoke has cleared, and more, so stay tuned! 🙂