For me, there are an endless number of things that I could be doing with my time. As a parent, a natural ideator, a high achiever, and someone who finds it difficult to say “no” to helping others, these four aspects make it very easy for me to have many things going on at one time. 

We all know it’s easy to be “spread too thin”, and it can be very uncomfortable and draining. If we have many things going on at once, it’s easy for this to happen when we don’t prioritize.

In the past, especially before becoming a parent, work could have easily been my very top priority. Putting all my energy into work was easy because I lived abroad as an expat. It was very easy to not have much awareness around not having a healthy work-life balance.

Once I became responsible for another human being, I realized that there was only so much that I could do and I had a limited reservoir, and I needed to prioritize.

We can get a lot of clarity from prioritizing because the most important things become clear. 

The power of prioritization really stems from the idea that you’re able to focus on the essentials and create space for them when planning, taking action, and making decisions about what to take on and what not to.

My rocks are:

• Parenting
• Time with my daughter
• The people that I care about
• My physical and mental health
• Self-care practices and routines
• Very meaningful work that energizes me

There is spaciousness in my rocks. They allow for moving at a moderate pace and also have room to pick up the pace of things.

I prioritize those by:

• Saying “no” to things that do not align with my priorities
• Self-reflecting
• Setting boundaries
• Getting paid assistance, such as coaching
• Getting an objective point of view from a friend
• Scheduling personal and work tasks, and time-blocking

For example, I use Google Calendar to schedule my tasks.

I carve out Thursdays to do anything related to coaching, whether it’s a coaching session, working on my website or blog, or working on my coaching business. Thursdays energize me.

I always schedule the things that matter the most right there on my calendar, and I also schedule “me time”.

It’s not that I can’t do anything else, but I de-prioritize everything else.

Focusing on my health is definitely an ebb and flow in terms of consistency, but I’m actively working on prioritizing my mental and physical health.

When it comes to managing our time, energy, and distractions, pursuing the things that are most important gives us more power to do our best, live purposefully, and say “no” to the not-so-important things from a place of confidence.