Peace Through Prioritization
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In this episode:
Peace Through Prioritization
I’m pretty sure that peace is one of those things that you could never have too much of! We could all use more peace in our lives, right?
Especially now as we’re going on month 9 of the Covid pandemic and quarantine, and things are only looking worse for the next few weeks.
For many of us, the pandemic has led to major life changes, typically simplifying the number of commitments or travel that we have on our agendas. On its face, the lack of gatherings, travel or in-person meetings seem like they would correlate to “simpler” lives. For some people, I’m sure that’s been the case. But a more simple schedule doesn’t always correlate with a more calm mind.
Prioritization may seem like a funny thing to talk about when so many of the things we enjoy in life are no longer possible or guaranteed. However, the skill of prioritization can be applied to mindset, thoughts and goals in the same way it can be applied to our time or activities. And by doing that, we can experience greater peace.
In this episode I share:
Why prioritization is key for experiencing peace in life & career
What we tend to do instead of practicing prioritization
How to know when prioritization is lacking, and ideas for implementing it in your life
Why prioritization is key for experiencing peace in life & career
Peace is the experience of having the freedom to just be--to be tranquil and to have freedom from turmoil.
We lack peace when we have conflict or tension in our lives, and especially in our minds. Anxiety, stress, anger, fear--these are all in opposition to peace.
Prioritization can help remove some of that mental tension by establishing boundaries about what actually deserves your attention. When practiced well, prioritization frees us from the constant negotiation and renegotiation of what’s important and worth our energy at that time.
I think that prioritization is one of the more underrated life skills we can possess. Most of us tend to run around each day feeling like we are supposed to be doing “A through Z” and the stress of that pressure alone usually derails us into only completing 1-2 of the items on our list.
When you think about that, failing to prioritize both wastes our energy and ruins the satisfaction we could have had from accomplishing the 1 or 2 things that actually needed to be done that day.
To put it simply, when you think, believe or act like everything is important, importance becomes irrelevant. If everything is important--nothing is important. And we all know that’s not true!
When it comes to work or career, if we aren’t able to prioritize what is actually important to us, or what actually needs to be accomplished that day, we end up becoming slaves to work or the whims of others.
In many cases, people who constantly complain about being overworked, or are always staying late at the office and blaming it on their boss or some other external factor, actually have a root issue with prioritization.
Being able to prioritize well doesn’t protect you from having busy days, weeks or feeling the stress of a big project here and there. But what it does free you from is the belief that you are a victim to your life.
When you choose to use your power of prioritization you can regain the sense of control over your life and time that is foundational for experiencing peace.
What we tend to do instead of practicing prioritization
What we tend to do rather than practice prioritization is we tend to follow our attention. Sometimes, these two things can look pretty similar. For example, something that is demanding our attention seems more important than something that isn’t actively demanding our attention, and so we might assume that it is more “important.”
Emails come to mind here as a practical example. If you’re at work, a priority could be your goal to complete a draft of the grant you are working on. However, let’s say your email keeps blowing up with questions from colleagues about a project you are all planning to meet about tomorrow.
For a lot of people, the instinct would be to respond to the emails because they seem more urgent than the grant project you’re working on by yourself. But if you take the time to interrupt what you’re working on to respond to all of the emails, you’ll derail yourself from finishing the grant. You’ll feel frustrated and stressed and have spent time on what was demanding your attention, but wasn’t actually a priority.
For a non-work life example, let’s say your priority was to get outside for exercise. But when the time comes to actually walk out the door, you get distracted by how messy the kitchen is. The kitchen now has your attention and it may feel more pressing to you than your priority to get outside and walk. In the moment, you may feel like cleaning the kitchen is more important because that’s where your attention is.
By the time you finish cleaning it, it’s now time to make dinner, or it’s too dark or, you’re too exhausted and just want to sit and watch some Netflix.
In this example, your time was still used productively. Meaning, cleaning the kitchen may have been a good use of your time, but it wasn’t your priority. And that’s the type of situation that can make prioritization feel really nuanced and difficult to implement. Prioritization can often lead to greater productivity, but the two aren’t the same thing.
Even though it may feel good to have a clean kitchen, it doesn’t feel good when you look back on the day and feel like you didn’t have the time, or choice, to make good on your commitment to get outside and exercise.
How to know when prioritization is lacking, and ideas for implementing it in your life
If you have that feeling like you’re running around busy all day, or getting distracted every five minutes, prioritization can probably help you.
The caveat here is if you are a parent and have kids around. In that case, the interruptions and distractions you may be experiencing are your priorities--your kids are your priorities. I say this knowing full well how little I know about the actual experience of being a parent. As I’m nearing the end of my pregnancy and expecting my first child--I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on how different life and work will look once the baby comes.
I’ll share some examples of how I’ve implemented prioritization practices to keep me on track even when my brain is so prone to distraction.
Phone Jail
Over the past month or two, I’ve been experiencing some major brain fog. I could be writing an email and then mid-sentence I get distracted and off track. My instinct is then to pick up my phone and check the news, scroll Facebook or look at my texts.
After a minute or two of scrolling Facebook, I think “What the heck am I doing here?” Rarely have I ever thought, “Wow, I’m glad I just opened Facebook.” lol
So, to help me actually stick to my priorities of focusing on work so I can complete what needs to be done tht day and then enjoy a relaxing evening, I created the practice of “phone jail.”
How this works for me is I turn my phone on silent and then walk to my husband’s office (on the opposite side of the house) and place my phone on his desk. I tell him my phone’s in jail and it’s as simple as that. Once the phone is gone, when I have those instances of brain fog I just pause for a minute to remember my train of thought. Without the ready distraction of my phone nearby there’s nothing more attention-demanding than the task I have at hand.
Getting Off Instagram
I haven’t logged into Instagram or had the app on my phone since the start of 2020. I don’t even think I have the words to describe how freeing that decision has been! However, considering my last point about phone jail, I’m realizing I may need to get off Facebook, too!
The main thing I want to highlight about Instagram though is that removing myself from that platform wasn’t a very popular decision. As a business owner, I had a lot of people telling me it would be brand “suicide” to get off the most popular content platform. On the personal side of things, I had people telling me that they felt I didn’t care to keep in touch if I got off.
But this is where priorities saved me! As a business owner, the amount of time, energy and effort I needed to put into Instagram didn’t make business sense. I was getting consistent leads and booking clients through my other marketing efforts way more consistently than I was through Instagram, but Instagram was taking 80% of my marketing-related time. Also, I hated the tension I felt around trying to be a person and a “brand” on Instagram and the focus on building a following. Not for me!
On the personal side of things, I knew that having time to call and connect with my family and a few friends was my priority--not staying “in touch” with everyone I knew through Instagram posts and stories. Living far away from all my family and some of my best friends, it takes extra effort and time to connect with them while also building a community here. Leaving Instagram was one way to practice prioritizing the relationships that really matter to me.
Ordering Instacart Groceries
Here’s my last idea, and I hope all of these can serve as inspiration for practices you can implement for your own personal priorities! Cooking at home and eating healthy are priorities I’ve held throughout my adult life. A few years ago, when my career began to get more demanding, the joy of cooking started to go away. Instead of seeing cooking as fun and creative, it mostly felt like a burden.
I realized that my lack of a system for making cooking and eating healthy easy was leading to stress. Getting home after work without a plan of what to eat, or without groceries in the fridge led to less healthy decisions. First, I created a meal planning routine where I would plan out the meals for the week, make a grocery list and then shop for everything at one time on Sundays.
While this helped the cooking portion, I hated using over an hour of time each weekend to drive to the grocery store, shop around, drive home and put all the groceries away. It made me angry every single Sunday.
I decided to prioritize my time on the weekend by using Instacart to order groceries and have someone else shop and deliver them to me. I haven’t gone back since! I can even order my Costco groceries on Instacart!
The fabulous thing for me about Instacart is that it saves me a ton of time. It also ensures that I have a plan for food and meals that week so I’m better able to maintain my priorities of cooking at home and eating healthy.
My Sunday afternoons are peaceful now, and every evening I cook is much more peaceful now, too. That’s a lot of peace I didn’t use to have from choosing my priorities in just one aspect of life!
I’d love to hear what types of ideas and practices you’ve put in place to help you honor your priorities! Please feel free to share them with me by sending me an email. You can easily do so by going here!
