What if the purpose of planning your days, weeks, months, and year(s) had little to do with the task of organizing yourself and more to do with achieving happiness? Could that shift in purpose get those of us that struggle to plan (and follow through) non-work-related time be enough to live out a life aligned with our values and less like living a life full of flailing.
Every year we buy an empty planner and one of two things happen: we fill it based on our personal priorities , what we value, and want to lend our time to0 OR life fills it for us. This year I want to encourage us to take back our time and plan it in a way that will literally make us happier, at least based on tons of research including some great work from Stanford's, The Psychology of Happiness.
"...working to live up to your moral principals all feel so good. Ultimately, we seek a continuing experience. We thrive on feeling that we matter, and that what we do matters" describes the importance of needing to feel valued and living out what matters to us, what we value. And yes, as the research implies, achieving happiness is super complex but we do know that one domain suggests living out what we value will indeed make us happier- so let's plan for that!
First, you must know what you value and then prioritize those values from most to least important. (This great article by Soul Salt can really help you understand your core values.) Once you understand what you value and their order of importance, you can head to your planner of choice (digital or hard copy) and began planning with values beginning with the most important core value and building out from there.
For example, my family takes precedence over all else so I head to my planner and block out all games, concerts, presentations, and special events my children, husband, sisters, nieces and nephews have. Attending those in person are non-negotiable. My spirituality and physical well-being are super important to me too so I block out time for that each morning and on Sunday to attend church. A core value and something I am super passionate about is service to my community. I am currently serving as an elected official as a trustee for our local college so all committee and board meetings are placed in my planner. I volunteer on the finance committee of my church so that goes down as well as meetings for state and national committees I lend my time too. Writing and creating content also tops my list as does reading and learning so I block out time for that too! And lastly, I make it a point to calendar in a few coffees and lunches with my comadres, my friends.
I think it's important to note that you need to leave time for nothing but not a lot of nothing, time for rest and nothingness. Leave space for that. For me that is Sunday afternoon and I rarely allow that planned time of nothing to be compromised. Oh and try to really discipline yourself to uphold your new found value based calendar but be kind to yourself if you lose your way a bit. Biggest piece of advice: your core values are yours and do not need to be defended but instead need to be protected.
So, in the end, if you flesh this exercise out to the fullest I have no doubt that you will live a more intentional fuller, purposeful, value-based life quite literally planning for a happier future you!
Stanford's Research on Happiness: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/case-studies/psychology-happiness
Core value exercise: https://soulsalt.com/list-of-values-and-beliefs/
Dalinda is a wife, mom, CEO, national leader in youth development and serves as a trustee for South Texas College on the southern border of Texas.
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