“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”
-Dalai Lama
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably got more than a passing interest in productivity systems. Maybe there’s more on your plate than you have time to do? For me, it was a perpetual state. And even when I managed to make inroads toward achieving a big goal or crossed lots of to do’s off my list, I’d often find my satisfaction immediately eroded by the nagging awareness that I was neglecting something important — like people in my life, or my health. I lacked balance. Business was great, but I wasn’t exercising. I met a financial goal, but was completely tapped out spiritually. Can you relate?
In search of a solution, I experimented with a variety of time management approaches and found tremendous value in many, but essential qualities lacking in all. Filling in the gaps, I’ve evolved a methodology that:
- Uses a vision and goal-driven approach to help get the most important things done.
- Creates balance by directing consistent effort across all major life areas.
- Harnesses the power of habits and daily routines to facilitate progress.
- Promotes personal reflection and discovery.
- Is customizable and adaptable for each individual.
- Establishes continuity safeguards to minimize disruptions from unplanned life events.
- Keeps actions aligned with core values for a happier and more meaningful life.
If you’re looking for a bare bones, minimalist to-do list organizer, this isn’t your system. But, if you want a comprehensive, value-driven life optimization and productivity methodology, then you might find this approach useful. It’s called LifeZone Productivity or LZP. There are 10 steps to get started, and you’ll be called upon to do some serous soul searching and delve deeply into the nitty-gritty of your life along the way. But in the end, I think you’ll find a tool for meaningful productivity — one that helps set and keep you on a path toward creating your best vision for your life.
Here’s how to do it.
1. Identify LifeZones: The Cornerstone
LifeZones are the important facets of your life that you want to optimize — can’t afford to overlook — and around which your entire system will be organized. LifeZones are individual to the person, though many zones will be shared by most people.
Your LifeZones could include: health, relationships, finances, work, home, creativity, fun, spirituality, contribution, or more specific passions like music or writing. A good LifeZone litmus test is to imagine the consequences if you neglected that particular area for a year or more. If the result could be a disaster for you, then it’s probably something you should treat as a zone. Record your LifeZones into a planning tool.* The establishment of LifeZones is the foundation of a top-down priority and value structure that can minimize the risk of having your life go too far off course in any one area.
*When it comes to a preferred medium to implement LZP, I recommend a digital format over a paper planner because the system is data rich and will rely heavily on recurring reminders. A digital tool will let you easily slice, dice, sort, track, tag and manipulate the data in a variety of ways.
2. Vision Statements: Create Drive
Next, write a detailed vision statement of how each zone would look in an ideal state. Record your descriptions along with each zone in your planner. For example, a finance vision might start with: “I’m unburdened by all debt, on track to retire with a million-dollar portfolio by age 65, drive a luxury car and have sufficient savings to travel abroad one month each year.” Write it in the present tense (I am, not I will) — the more specific and detailed, the better. Feel free to use images if you’re more of a visual thinker.
If you paint a compelling, positive picture of your future, you’ll be more driven to do what’s necessary to make it happen.
Embodying your core values with vision statements can also imbue what might otherwise feel like mundane tasks with a deeper sense of purpose and meaning. For example, framing the preparation of a home-cooked meal as an expression of love for your family (relationship LifeZone) vs. just one of five chores you need to “get done” after work can make performing that act an inherently more rewarding and satisfying experience. You’ll not only be more likely to do things when they’re strongly connected to your values and life vision, but you’ll do them better and feel better doing them.
Now that you’re in a really positive headspace about your vision for the future, let’s take a trip to the dark side by crafting a worst-case scenario for each LifeZone. Using our previous finance example, the negative version might start, “I can no longer afford my mortgage payments, so I’m forced to move to a cramped apartment in another town. I’m accruing massive debt month to month, facing bankruptcy, and can’t afford basic necessities for myself or my family. I can’t send my kids to college — there’s no way out.” Capture your fears and least desirable outcomes, but not in a way that’s so unbelievable you discount any possibility of it actually happening.
Why do this to yourself, you may be wondering. We’re all motivated by pleasure and pain. And pain avoidance can be a very powerful motivator to take action. Research shows that when we clearly envision future outcomes, we tend to make better decisions. Doing this exercise can help you delay gratification and increase your willingness to endure short-term discomfort for long-term gain.
If the idea of performing this exercise is too distressing, and you’re not particularly motivated by pain avoidance, then you can skip it. But if you’re the kind of person who’s ever cleaned out your garage after watching Hoarders, or started taking better care of yourself following a health scare, then you may find value in this tactic, unpleasant as it may be.
3. Goals: Move the Needle
For each zone and its accompanying vision, identify the first goals you want to reach along the way. List them zone by zone in your planner. You don’t need to capture every goal along the journey, but set out an agenda for the next year or so. Think of a goal as any objective that can improve your life in a transformative way.
Maybe you’re wondering about the difference between a goal and a project. While there is some overlap, goals are more aspirational, life-changing and broad than projects. A project can minimally be defined as a task requiring multiple steps. And a goal can require the completion of several projects. You’ll have more projects than goals, and your projects will tend to change more frequently. Consider that two people can share the same goal of saving a million dollars by retirement, but undertake very different projects (e.g. get a second job, increase savings, downsize housing, etc.) to get there.
Tag all goals by zone, assign them target completion dates and record them with their associated zones and vision statements in your planner.
For a finance (F) LifeZone, some goals (G) might be notated like this:
- F/G: Pay off all credit card debt (12/18)
- F/G: Establish a 6-month rainy day fund (9/18)
- F/G: Increase annual income to $100,000 (4/18)
Setting and tracking progress toward important, measurable goals in all your zones moves your life forward with intention and helps avoid the pitfall of getting overly caught up in “the tyranny of the now.”
4. Fill the Well: Tasks and Projects
Now it’s time to create a master list of all your to do’s — this repository of current and future tasks is called the well. Get all of those nagging “shoulds” out of your head — all the things you should get done, want to get done, are late getting done, or just thinking about doing — every bit of it. This process and the resulting list can be pretty long if you haven’t done it before. Make sure these are all specific and actionable items and that all projects have a well-defined next step (update resume vs. get a new job). Include at least one task or project toward the completion of each goal and give those items a special goal indicator such as a symbol, mark or color code.
And remember to add all your regular maintenance items and yearly tasks — e.g., review insurance policies, clean out the gutters, change out smoke detector batteries, make IRA contributions, etc. It can be helpful to generate these items zone by zone, “What do I need to do to take care of my (finances, health, business) every (month, quarter, year).” There’s a tremendous amount of stress reduction and feeling of control when all of those “shoulds” are finally captured in one place, never to be forgotten.
Projects (P) and next steps in a finance (F) LifeZone, the first is marked to indicate it’s part of a larger goal:
- F/P: Create retirement plan — set appointment with financial planner
- F/P: Lower credit card interest rates — make a list of all my credit cards and phone numbers
Simple tasks:
- F: Sign up for rewards program on my credit card
- F: Order new checks
Tag all items in your system by zone — always. Associating tasks, projects and goals with LifeZones in your planner and thereby in your mind is key to reinforcing their connection to your values and vision, which in turn increases motivation and follow through.
Getting everything onto one long list can be very satisfying and/or anxiety producing. Just do your best — remember, it’s a working document that can and will change over time. Finally, place any papers, files or other materials needed for upcoming tasks in an inbox or other central location for later review and processing.
5. Maintaining Priorities: First Things First, Last Things Later
Depending on how much of a productivity fetish you have, this step can be really simple or more complex. Assign priority to tasks and indicate their importance with circles, color, stars, numbers — whatever your preference. You may choose to flag a few select items or rank each task low, medium or high — whatever level of detail works best for you. Having priority indicators will help you get the most important things done week to week, month to month and year to year.
Remove from the well any projects or tasks that you either want to postpone or are still under consideration and place them on a “later list.” This will save time during your weekly review as these items will be revisited less frequently.
6. Programming Progress: Routines and Reminders
Recurring actions have an important role in LifeZone Productivity. Because little things done regularly can create massive change over time, you’ll want to harness that power by building habits, routines and recurring reminders into your system. If you’ve ever found items on your to-do list that you really should be doing automatically rather than reminding yourself to do (like going to the gym), this step addresses that issue.
Review the well, notating any recurring actions or habits you want to establish by their frequency: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually. Maybe you want to run five miles every day? Or have a weekly date night? Or wash your car every month?
Examples of a daily recurring action in a health zone and a recurring monthly item in a finance zone:
H: Record weight (d)
F: File expense report (m)
Remember Once. Remove all the non-daily recurring actions (NDRAs) from the well and record these with recurring reminders on your calendar.
Many computer-based planners have the advantage of easily scheduling customized, automated repeating reminders, which I think is reason enough to go digital. Capturing recurring tasks on a calendar and setting recurring reminders has saved me an enormous amount of time and prevented many things from slipping through the cracks.
Now, at the beginning of each year, my calendar is already preloaded with all my important tasks and recurring reminders from the prior year. All that’s left is to add any new commitments. You’ll be surprised at how full your calendar is with just the things you need to do every year — it’s no wonder we can so easily find ourselves overscheduled.
Once you have a system of automated recurring reminders in place, you no longer have to “remember to remember” all the things you need to do regularly. This reduces stress and frees your mind for higher level, mindful engagement in more meaningful activities.
Make Improvement Routine. Next, remove the daily recurring actions from the well and design them into a daily routine, taking things like your energy level and environment into account. Bundle and sequence the actions in a way that’s convenient and efficient. You can divide items into multiple routines to be performed at different times of the day. You’ll naturally refine routines through trial and error, so don’t spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get it perfect straight out of the gate.
Evening habit routine:
H: Gratitude journal
H: 10 minutes of yoga
F: Pack brown bag lunch for work
F: Loose change in savings jar
R: Put a love note in my husband/wife’s work bag
You can assign a particular time or number of minutes for each action or just specify the sequence. Starting small and adding items incrementally can help build consistency, but if you’re a jump in feet first kind of person, go for it. By chunking, chaining and bundling habits into routines, you decrease the cognitive load and effort necessary to remember and perform multiple tasks. And when your routine becomes automatic, you can enjoy knowing every passing day brings you one step closer to your goals.
7. Deep Dives: Seeking out Game Changers
Have you ever discovered information, a tool, an approach to a problem or some inspiration that was truly transformative? These keystone life changes are more likely to occur when you make the time to freely explore your interests and seek out new experiences.
If you don’t regularly delve deeply into your zones, you can easily find yourself caught up in an endless “to do list loop” just going from one thing to the next, to the next — and miss out on important opportunities for discovery. So carve out regular time to try out a new workout class, research personal finance blogs, test a new recipe, attend a seminar, set up an exploratory meeting or check out new software.
Schedule deep dives as non-daily recurring actions on your calendar. But in this case, you’re setting reminders to do something unspecified — that’s the whole point. Whether it’s once a week or once a month, schedule a regular deep dive into each zone and see where it takes you.
8. Continuity and Recovery: Plan for the Unplanned
The unpredictable nature of life is such that it can get in the way of the best laid plans in any productivity system. And a lot of momentum can be lost as scheduled reminders are missed and your calendar becomes clogged with a backlog of overdue tasks. You can easily start feeling like a failure and abandon your system, which can make catching up a lot harder. So it’s critical to build in continuity safeguards and recovery strategies for challenging times.
Have you ever had a problem with your computer that required you to start it up in safe mode, where only essential systems boot up? Why not create a safe mode for your life? Decide ahead of time what’s essential to get done every day or week when life throws you the occasional curveball. Give yourself permission to enter safe mode and let the rest go when necessary.
Use your priority indicators to help construct a safe mode protocol. And include resources to help you out when time is tight — like a grocery delivery service, dog walker or housekeeper. Keep this protocol on hand for when (not if) you need it. Having a reduced-productivity schedule and crisis resource list helps you get the most important things done when your life blows up and takes the pressure off when you need to occasionally downshift.
Another LZP best practice is to schedule a weekly catch-up session (NDRA) to revisit any unfinished business. If you schedule yourself out completely , it’s only a matter of time before something unexpected will derail you, so throw yourself a lifeline before you start drowning. If you end up not needing that time (which for me almost never happens), you can always deep dive, get ahead on your calendar (imagine that) or just do nothing (also highly recommended).
9. Get a Head Start: Weekly Review & Preview
Like many other approaches, LZP encourages a weekly review. Review the status of all tasks and projects from the past week. If anything is unfinished, you can: 1) finish it, 2) drop it, 3) save it for later, 4) delegate it, or 5) re-list it back in the well for your next review.
With LZP, you want to both review and preview each week. Draw new tasks and project/next steps from the well and schedule what you want to get done over the next seven days into your calendar, paying special attention to high-priority items.
While you can always change up your schedule mid-week, having a default plan in place allows you to hit the ground running each morning. If you don’t preview, you’ll end up performing a de facto daily review, which is time consuming, inefficient and stressful, especially of you have a lot of other stuff coming at you (and who doesn’t — all the time). This way, you can just take a quick look at what’s on tap each day and quickly make changes if needed.
As you schedule out items from the well into your calendar, you can mix items from different zones throughout the week, or consider assigning one or two LifeZone activities to specific days (e.g. Wellness Wednesdays or Finance Fridays) to promote deeper focus on those days.
During your preview, sort through your inbox, discard any unneeded items, file reference materials, distribute items for delegated tasks and place anything you need to act on over the next seven days in a personal outbox, organized and ready for your attention.
10. Multilevel Review: Hold the Course
It’s more efficient and productive to conduct reviews at intervals other than weekly for different levels of your system. You need to regularly review your zones, vision statements, goals, safe mode protocol and later list for optimum productivity — but not on a weekly basis. If you put too much on your plate for the weekly reviews, they can quickly start turning into marathon sessions you’ll find any excuse to avoid.
Here’s a suggested review schedule for different elements of LZP, which you can tailor to your own individual needs. Decide what’s best for you, then enter recurring reminders for these reviews into your calendar.
- Monthly: daily routines
- Quarterly: LifeZone goals, later list
- Semi-annually: non-daily recurring reminders
- Annually: zones, vision statements, safe mode protocol
Get Started
LZP will only be as effective as the quality and completeness of the information you put into it, so take your time. To set up this system well from scratch, I’d recommend giving yourself a week. Here’s a suggested implementation timetable.
- Day 1: LifeZones & vision statements
- Day 2: Goals for the next 12 months
- Day 3: Tasks and projects into the well
- Day 4: NDRA reminders
- Day 5: Daily habit routines
- Day 6: Priority indicators & safe mode protocol
- Day 7: First week preview and begin
Each day, record new tasks and projects as they arise — either put them into your calendar or the well. Mark tasks done as you go, and designate next steps for projects as you finish previous steps. When a goal-related item is completed, always add a replacement task or next step toward the goal back into your calendar or back into the well. Keeping all your goals active in the system promotes consistent progress across all your LifeZones and prevents important longer-term objectives from falling off your radar.
LZP helps you focus on priorities and align actions with values to live a life with intention. It frees your mind from mental task tracking, while encouraging deeper engagement in important areas. And it can help you maintain momentum in the face of adversity, while preventing disastrous consequences from neglecting what’s important. With mindful goal setting and steady progress in all your LifeZones, you can achieve your vision for a balanced, meaningful and fulfilling life.
Get into the zone!
