Making It All Work

Making It All Work explains how to balance your daily tasks with your long-term goals to bring them all together for a happy and productive life.

Do you tend to think of yourself as a doer or a dreamer? Maybe you fluctuate between both, but most of us generally fail in one of these ways or the other.

Another way to think of these ideals is by defining them as difference between perspective and control. Perspective is how well you can see the big picture, while control is how you organize your daily process in connection with the long-term.

Some of us are great at seeing the big picture. I have a family member that is like this. They always see things on a bigger scale than just the day to day. When it comes to the details, however, this person doesn’t see them as clearly. If you’re like this you may also have a lot of ideas, but struggle to implement them.

I’m better at the control side of things than perspective. Getting into the finer components of a larger picture is my strength. But I lack in my ability to see things comprehensively and imaginatively. There are days when I get caught up in updating the look of a spreadsheet but struggle to get my marketing plan nailed down.

The sweet spot really is having a balance of perspective and control. Another way to think of this is managing daily tasks in a way that is in line with your overall goals. Let’s take a look at how to do that in our other two lessons!

Do you ever feel busy but take a harder look at your day and wonder what you actually accomplished? It’s easy to get caught up in the little everyday tasks we have to do and lose sight of the bigger picture. Allen gives three tips to make sure that what you do each day is important: Identify your responsibilities and take care of them. Organize tasks into bigger projects. Always keep an eye on your goals. Personal responsibilities might include taking care of your relationships, finances, or health. Organize them into categories and subcategories to gain greater clarity. One example of this that I use is mapping out my health into three sub-categories of diet, exercise, and rest. Keep them simple, all you need to do is be aware of them for them to make a difference. Next, look at those smaller actions as part of bigger projects. These should be the kind that get you to a higher goal and can be done in less than a year. The final component is reviewing your long-term goals to see that your projects…