Bloom Your Mind

Ep 118: Three Priority Tricks

• Marie McDonald

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A client recently asked how I get up at 5am in a house with squeaky floorboards and a husband who’s a night owl. The answer to this, and to so many other things comes from knowing my priorities. 

While the 5am wake up call might ring just so I can get some exercise and some alone time before the chaos of the world wakes up…there’s something else that’s even more important to me than either of those things. Knowing my priorities makes a 5am wake up call easy, and ALSO makes it easy to forgive myself if 5am passes me by. 

Priorities help us set goals and realize them, of course. But they also help us meet day to day challenges with confidence, communicate with clarity, and feel clear as we’re making decisions to meet the big challenges that will inevitably arise. 

In this episode you’ll learn three tools that will help you:  

  • Use priorities to plan your week and your calendar 
  • Use priorities to troubleshoot the unexpected day to day interruptions 
  • Reflect on your days and weeks, so that you can use clean, clear logic to adjust how you choose to spend your time
  • Make easy, guilt free decisions to let go of one goal when another is more important 
  • Move through big life challenges with clarity and confidence about how you’re showing up 

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Bloom your Mind Podcast, where we take all of your ideas for what you want and we turn them into real things. I'm your host, Certified Coach Marie McDonald. Let's get into it.

Speaker 2:

Well, hello everybody, and welcome to episode number 118 of the Bloom your Mind podcast. You know what? I am at my house today and my children are sick. They are here coughing and all wrapped up in little blankets, and they've been here for a couple of days. I've been cooking soup for them and bringing them tea. But what's interesting about this is I was so sick last week and we quarantined me. We had me in this one room and I barely spent any time near my kids at all, and so when I started to get better, my husband and my kids none of them got sick and we were gloating, we were like we did it. We were walking around telling people. You know, we dodged that bullet, we worked hard to separate us all. We quarantined and we did it. The kids didn't get sick and then they went down. So here I am in the house with two sick babies. They're almost at the end of it, but this thing is long and it passes from one person to the next, so don't gloat, take it from me.

Speaker 2:

So today we're going to talk a little bit about priorities. I know that I have talked about priorities before on the podcast, but this has come up as such a helpful tool for my clients, for the people in the bloom room, and there are three different ways that we are going to use it room, and there are three different ways that we are going to use it. So we've talked about priorities in one major way before it's. Using a system of five priorities is one of my favorite tools for time and project management, for life management, so I'll review that way of using this tool. I'm also going to review two other ways that priorities can just help us in the day-to-day, because there's a new way of thinking about this. This is that has really just created a lot of relief for my clients. I realized it was a way that I use priorities that I hadn't really articulated yet, and so I'd love to share that with you. So I may have shared this with you before. I definitely have. You may have heard it before in the podcast, but one of my favorite things to do and have my clients do when they're planning their week, they're like, ah, my time's all over the place. Look at this week. I haven't spent any time doing the things that I love, but my whole week is chock full. I feel like I'm moving every minute. I don't have any spare time, and yet I didn't get to the things that I want to do. So what I have them do and I will offer it to you as a tool to use is to sit down and write your top five priorities.

Speaker 2:

For me, they're my mental and physical well-being, my health, my authenticity. For me, that's a big old wrap-up of, just like me, being able to set boundaries and be authentic with the people around me. Be myself, exercise, take care of my brain, my body, my boundaries, take care of myself. That's always number one. And number two is my family, my kids and my husband. Loving them, being supportive, having their backs. It's soaking up the moments with them and not taking them for granted. Loving them like I feel it is my responsibility to love them, because I'm the only mom my kids have and I'm the only partner that my husband has, and so if I don't love them, who's going to right? I see it as a big responsibility because nobody's here but me.

Speaker 2:

And then work. For me, work is like the intersection of where my passion meets the world's need, and so it becomes my contribution. That's a big one, and that contribution also sort sort of like I say, work and volunteerism. So I spend a lot of time volunteering and leading in areas where people need me and then working and coaching and consulting and speaking and stuff. And then my last two are adventure, which is like the sense of awe and miraculousness of being alive, being in the world, having fun, having this feeling of gratitude and awe and whimsy as I walk around. And the last one's community and friends. You know spaces where I can be with people that are not my family but that I love like family, right?

Speaker 2:

So those are my priorities and if I see those top five priorities and I look at my calendar and I use a Google calendar system if you want to get like nerdily tactical with me here I color code my Google calendar and the first thing when I look at my week, the first thing I do y'all is green. It's my dark green color and you know what that green is. It's my health and wellbeing. It's my dark green color and you know what that green is. It's my health and wellbeing. It's all my exercise. Before I plan anything in my week, I plan in my exercise and I plan in my red, which is love. So I plan in time with friends, time with my husband, time that fills my cup, and those two things are really important for my health and wellbeing. I also plan in meditation alone time are really important for my health and wellbeing. I also plan in meditation alone time whatever I need for mental health. Then I go in and I do all my stuff for my family and that's next and after that I do all my work.

Speaker 2:

But then I got to look at my calendar and see if my fourth and fifth priorities are in there. Is there something taking up a lot of my time that I am allowing to be a priority before my fourth and fifth priorities of adventure and whimsy and miraculousness of life and community and friends? One of my top priorities is not taking up very much space in the calendar. For instance, if I don't have exercise and love time in my calendar, then I know I'm not in line with my priorities because that's my number one and so if it's not taking up space in my calendar every day maybe not necessarily the most hours of the day, right, because it can't always work like that but if I'm not making it the top priority to get in there every day, I know that I'm kind of out of balance. So that's the first thing.

Speaker 2:

Now that same system works with the priorities that you have within your work. So if you have five top priorities in a work week, then you should look at your calendar and plan the first priority first, the second priority second and so on. If you look at your calendar and you're working and something is your second priority but it's not on your calendar at all, you know you're not in line with your priorities. You're doing something that's urgent but not important. Know you're not in line with your priorities. You're doing something that's urgent but not important, or you're being reactive, letting people take your time for meetings that are not actually a priority for you or whatever it is. So that's the first way to use a system of five priorities to make sure that you are spending the hours of your life doing what is most important to you. That's how you plan it.

Speaker 2:

But another thing you can do is do a little retro. So if you look back at your day and you're like, okay, I did the things on my calendar, but then all of the unplanned time I was on my phone, I was scrolling and you think, is it a priority for me to be on my phone? Wow, it's not only not a priority, but I don't even want to do it Like I have been wanting to make an effort to be on my phone less. Then you know it's time to put some effort into being more in line with your priorities. When you look at the way that the sands of time were spent for you that day and you check out your list of five priorities, then it's real easy. It's just a math problem. You don't have to feel shame, you don't have to feel embarrassed, you don't have to feel like something's wrong with you and you don't have to feel like it's a mystery about where your time is going, because it's just a matching game. Match the five priorities with the hours of your day and boom, you get a life you're designing intentionally.

Speaker 2:

Now the second way of using these five priorities, or a few priorities, is in relation to something that you're planning. So let go of that first concept of five priorities for your life and I want to just share something with you. I get up at five in the morning so that I can get some exercise and some alone time, some quiet time, before the kids wake up and walk out and fill the house with their little giggles and screams, before I'm with clients who are, you know, telling me about their life and their needs. And before the world wakes up, I want a little time to myself. And I had a client say you know how do you do this when you have a partner that you're sharing space with? And we talked through some tactics.

Speaker 2:

But the number one thing that I do with this priority of the morning is I know that, within the goal of getting up at five o'clock in the morning to exercise, I have three priorities there. The first priority is sleep For me. I understand that almost everything else in my mental and physical sort of function all depends on me getting sleep, and I'm more of a nine hour girl, but I need eight hours minimum. So the number one priority for me is eight hours of sleep every single night, nine if I can get it, and hey if we get 10, we are a happy, happy woman. Secondly, exercise. That's why I'm getting up at five. I want to get some exercise and that makes me a happy girl. It's like when I exercise and I work out in the morning and then it's done and then later I can get walks or whatever else. Anything else is icing on the cake, but that exercise in the morning. That's my second priority there. Third, third important is alone time.

Speaker 2:

Now, what happens here is because I know that sleep's the most important, exercise is the second most important and alone time is the third. We know that life will always get in the way. There's always stuff that's going to come up. I won't sleep well one night because there's trash trucks, or the kids can't go to sleep, or someone's sick, or someone gets home late, or I'll have a dream or whatever. Right, I'll have to do some work, or maybe I do something fun and I get home late. I know that if I don't get eight hours of sleep, that's a no-go. So I will skip my exercise in order to get sleep. And here's the magic when I skip my exercise in order to get sleep, I feel like I'm winning. I don't feel like I'm beating myself up for not getting exercise.

Speaker 2:

I'm really proud of myself for getting sleep, because I know sleep is the most important thing for me, and so I already know that I made a choice that's in line with my priorities. I already know I don't want to give up my sleep in order to get exercise. I will always give up my exercise in order to get sleep first. That's my priority. And so, even when something goes wrong, I'm winning in my mind. And so, even when something goes wrong, I'm winning in my mind. And then, if my husband wants to get up with me and exercise, I know that exercise is more important to me than alone time. So if I get some sleep and then I get to exercise and my husband's up with me, that's all right. Number one I get some time with my lovely husband. But also I know that the exercise is my second priority. There it's more important to me to do that than it is to have the alone time. And then when I get all three, it's a super win and it happens. Most of the time I get all three.

Speaker 2:

But what I'm saying here is that understanding what your priorities are allows you to roll with what happens, because you're clear on how to roll with it, on what needs to give and what is your boundary that you will not give on. For me, it's sleep. So that's a very, very valuable way to use priorities in relation to anything. You can apply that to anything. You can apply it to a relationship, conversation, a goal, something like exercise, anything, and it will allow you to roll with life, which will always get in the way. So, lastly, we can use our priorities when really wild stuff happens in life.

Speaker 2:

So again I have my list of my own health and wellbeing first, my family, second, my contribution, third, the wonder, whimsy, fun, and then community. So when life gets haywire and when things happen that are hard, when the challenges arise, things are going to get off track. Right, my goals are going to get off track. I will slip in some areas. Things are going to change when really challenging stuff arises.

Speaker 2:

But because I know what my priorities are, when I have that list of five right, that list of five right, I know what to let slip and what to not let slip. I know that I'm not going to give up sleep and basic self-care because I have to have that no matter what. And if it slips a little bit, I know that's the first thing that needs to get right back on track. I know, secondly, that, no matter what, if my work slips a little bit, my contribution, my community slips I'm going to give all of that a little flexibility before I give any flexibility to the way I'm showing up for my family, because for me it's my health and wellbeing first, and then my kids and my husband. So if I see that I'm putting work above them or I'm putting volunteerism or whatever above them in a way that's not allowing me to show up, have their back, be happy you know, not always happy, but I just mean be a loving presence, right? A loving, supportive presence for them, be who I want to be as a wife and a mother, a partner, a family member to them, then the other thing's got to give, because that's not okay with that one giving.

Speaker 2:

So having these top five priorities allows us to still feel okay and actually feel like we are shredding, we're killing it when things get in the way in some aspects of what's important to us, some priorities have to slip a little bit. We can still feel super proud of how we're handling things when we're holding tight to our top priorities. We know we're in line with our values, and I've just been hearing a lot of that of kind of life getting in the way, and I've just been hearing a lot of that of kind of life getting in the way. So when hard things happen, in addition to having these priorities in mind no-transcript Number one am I acting in a way that's in line with what's truly important to me, nothing else matters. Am I showing up to this situation the way that I am proud of? Am I being who I want to be? That's the first thing.

Speaker 2:

Second thing is there any way in which I'm fighting something that I can't control? Am I fighting what is? Am I just fighting with reality Because I don't want it, but it's happening? Are there any things that I just need to accept that I cannot control? They are circumstances that exist and once we recognize those, the faster we can stop fighting against them, the better, because that is wasted energy that will kind of suck our strength and our motivation. So how can I let go of fighting what is and focus instead on what I can control? And third, as I focus on what I can control, as I take steps to make things better, to face the challenge, to create solutions, how can I also not miss these moments of life or this phase of life, because, sure, some challenges are happening and maybe they're really big and really hard. And how can I make sure that I don't miss these weeks or these days or these years? As I'm fighting to fix what's happening or overcome a challenge? How can I also be present for my life and the people that I love that I'm with.

Speaker 2:

I always remember these two sayings that came out of my mom and dad's house burning down twice Houses that they built with their own hands on the same piece of property that's in episode two, if you haven't heard it yet and one of them was a tapestry that my mom had on her wall. That said was a tapestry that my mom had on her wall that said the barn burned down. Now I can see the moon. Oh, that just gets me every time I hear it. Ironically, they actually had a barn that burned down twice and you could see the moon from the mountaintop where that house was. But metaphorically you get it. So I love that phrase and I also love this other phrase.

Speaker 2:

The second time her house burned down, she found a poem that said I can let go of the life I had planned in order to have the life that is waiting for me. I love both of those so much. So it's not about giving in and giving up and just accepting whatever's happening. It's about really noticing what can I control and what can't I control, and as I take steps to change the things I can control to meet challenges, come up with solutions, take steps to get things back on track. How can I also not miss these days and moments of my precious life? How can I practice nostalgia for now and be here for every second of it? That's what I've got for you this week, and I will see you next week.

Speaker 1:

If you like what you're hearing on the podcast, you gotta come and join us in the Bloom Room. This is a year-round membership where we take all of these concepts and we apply them to real life in a community where we have each other's backs and we bring out the best in each other. We're all there to make our ideas real, one idea at a time. We'll see you in the bloom room.