How to Discover and Set Your Priorities

In my last article (click here to read), I discussed the issue of shifting priorities in the context of parents' struggles to find time to practice with their children. I related two stories of building a foundation on shifting sand or rock. Here are some questions to help parents uncover and focus their priorities and attention.

Four Questions to Discover and Set Your Priorities

Here are four questions to discover where your treasure is and to set your priorities:

1. Where do you spend your time?

In order to find out where your treasure is, you need only look at where you spend your time. Fill out an activity log or hourly calendar this week with every activity that you do, including work, driving time, sleeping, and watching TV. Do this for one week and you will most likely be amazed at what you discover. Of course, what you choose to do about your discovery will also be interesting. Are there pockets of time that are wasted? Do some activities drain your time? Where could you yield more satisfactory results with your time?

2. What do you want to accomplish?

Do you know what you want to accomplish? Do you have a set of goals or even one thing that you want to see happen this year, this semester, this season, this month, this week, or even today? I usually have a few goals floating around each year. I have them written down. Sometimes I go through periods when I refer to them often or on a daily basis, but I find that once I have written my goals down, I usually remember them. There have been several instances when I wrote a list of goals and forgot about them only to rediscover my list later and realize that I had accomplished everything on the list. I believe that writing down your list of goals is the key to accomplishing them. (Here is an article about my 90-day goal setting approach).

The purpose of having a list of goals or any goal is that you will be more in control of how you spend your time. You will be more aware of when others take you away from your goal path and when and what activities drink up the time you could spend on your goal plan. Think about what you want to accomplish.

I have three scheduling tools, and they each serve specific purposes:

• iPhone: this digital tool allows me to check my schedule at all times and far into the future, and I can share it with others.
• Planner: I keep my appointments here with occasional note reminders of important items that have a time specific aspect to them. This tool serves two purposes for me: (1) I get a “global” view of the week to come, and (2) I can quickly see where I have pockets of available time to accomplish things related to my goals.
• Bullet journal: this is my weekly and daily schedule plan and my working tool. In this tool (Leuchtturm 1917 dotted medium), I design my week and my days to come. I identify my top goals for the week, and I use this tool to capture stray thoughts, notes, reminders, and other useful information. Because I refer to this particular tool often every day, I stay on top of all my priorities and goals for the day and the week. This tool is a great way to keep track of many different things. There is an entire community of avid bullet journal users to draw ideas and inspiration from. For more information about how I use a bullet journal, here are some previous articles and podcast episodes:

• Bullet Journals for Suzuki Parents
• GTD for the Music Teachers, step 3, Organize!
• Episode 42: The Bullet Journal and Other Tools

3. How will you reach your goal?

Do you have a plan? Having a list of goals is a great step, but developing a plan to reach those goals is an even stronger step. Figure out what steps need to be taken and in what order. I currently use my bullet journal to work through ideas and steps for a project, and I have also used a project notebook to jot down ideas related to my goals, but any notebook, sketchpad, or legal pad would do. I devote a page of the notebook for each project idea I might consider. Then I pull out one project sheet at a time and carry it around with me. I jot additional ideas down on my project sheet, and sometimes I turn them into lists of action items. Here is an article I wrote recently to outline my use of the 90-day square to accomplish my goals and projects over a 90-day period and to provide more balance in the major areas of my life: There Comes a Journey.

4. How Can You Get Started?

Remember the Nike slogan, “Just Do It!” This is the best advice I can ever give to any parent or student. My other favorite unspoken part of the slogan is, “stop whining,” or as I like to tell my university students, “stop why-ning” (Why do I have to play scales? Why do I have to go to this concert? Why? Why? Why?). Yup, stop the "why-ning" and just get started! The time it takes to think of creative excuses is time that you could use for something more productive, like practicing with your child!

I hope that my readers will take some time this week to consider where their hearts truly are and what treasure they seek to find. Are your priorities built on rock or sand?

Until next time,

Happy Practicing!

----- Paula -----

© 2017 by Paula E. Bird

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90-Day Square Goal Setting Update

90-Day Square for Goal-Setting

Here is the end of the first month of my new goal setting tool, the 90-Day Square, and I thought I would share an update. I have really enjoyed using the square, not only because of the visual appeal of the square when I complete a task and color in a segment of one of the square quadrants, but also because I have found that the square and its components facing me daily has helped me to focus my efforts on the things that I decided a month ago were important to me.

As you recall, I decided to use a square to set some goal challenges for a 90-day period. I aired a podcast episode (There Comes a Journey) that explained why I found the idea of a square more useful than a circle, and the episode described my plans for this 90-day goal-setting tool. I blogged about it as well and included pictures (blog post).

Now my first month has passed. I still use my square. A lot. The document sits on my desk on top of my morning pages journal, so I see it every morning. The act of reviewing each day reminds me of the items that I included, and little by little, I continue to whittle away at the tasks that I outlined.

The above picture of the square shows the square as it currently looks. I have several more areas that I could shade in with color, because I have done considerable work on them so far, but I set these few items as things that would be completed when the 90 days were up, and so these things will have to wait until that time. If I could indicate a portion of a square segment to indicate a portion of the item was completed, then I did so.

Back Side

The picture on the left shows the back side of my square document. I wrote out a breakdown of steps for many items that show on the square color page. As you can see, I have marked an "X" or a "*" on many completed items. I review this side of my square frequently too, as it reminds me of the "little steps" that I might take to reach my bigger 90-day goals. I find that I enjoy ticking off items as I complete them, so this page is fun to look at as well as the color page. It helps me to stay on track with all of the little details and building blocks.

Maybe I would have completed all my tasks without the square, but I feel more confident that by using the square, I have indeed accomplished much. I assure you, there are few things as exciting as the opportunity to shade in a segment of the square!

For those who are interested, this is the spread that I have designed for my bullet journal. I use a hardcover, dotted, medium Leuchtturm 917 (affiliate link) with Frixion erasable color pens (affiliate link). I used plain highlighters (affiliate link) to color in the square segments. Bullet journaling is fun!

Happy Practicing!

----- Paula -----

© 2017 by Paula E. Bird

There Comes a Journey

Recently I published a podcast episode entitled, "There Comes a Journey," in which I discussed companion tools for the Suzuki journey. If you would like to hear about some of the tools that I use to help guide me as I plan for the coming year, listen to Episode 040 of the Teach Suzuki Podcast. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes (Teach Suzuki Podcast) or on Google Play (Google Play).

In podcast episode 40, I mentioned Jinny S. Ditzler's Your Best Year Yet! book and program. You can read my previous blog post about that program here, including several previous articles that explore various program questions in more depth.

I also discussed Hal Elrod's The Miracle Morning book:

This is an interesting book about how to set up your days for more productivity by structuring the morning routine to include several things that help build productivity. I found the book interesting in that it confirmed my own observations and experience about how to use morning time effectively. The book also presents information about the "Circle 10 Life," which is a visual representation of a set of life goals that are designed to provide balance.

You may also find these book resources in my Teach Suzuki blog resources store, which you can find at the top of the blog in the sidebar on the right side of the blog.

In the podcast episode, I discussed the difficulty I had with the circle 10 idea. I had two main issues. First, I found it difficult to create the circle representation of my life. Second, I had trouble dividing my life into ten segments. Although I liked the circle representation idea, I found the process too difficult and cumbersome to be very useful for me and my busy life. I need something that is quick to set up, follow, and maintain.

I came up with a simpler solution, which I wish to share with you: the 90-day Square. My program is different in that it focuses on two main areas in my life -- my personal and my professional sides. I further divided these two areas into individual and other people. With these four simple divisions, I was able to create a square representation.

Personal & Professional

Two of the quadrants are related to my personal life. The other two quadrants are related to my professional life. I titled my four square quadrants:

1. Personal: activities that focus on me alone, such as my health, fitness, and personal development goals
2. Home/Others: activities that focus on my personal life and involve others, such as family relationships and my home environment
3. Creative: activities that focus on me alone and are related to my professional side
4. Work/Others: activities that focus on my professional life and involve others, such as my employment with the university and the symphony and my private teaching studio

I further divided each of the four quadrants with 8 dissecting lines that vary horizontally and vertically for visual appeal. These 8 segments will represent 8 goals that I intend to accomplish in the next 90 days.

4 Quadrants with 8 Goal Lines

I also made up a blank template of these items and categories for ease of planning in the future.

I set to work on my template and made a list of 8 results or outcomes that I want to achieve in the next 90 days in each of the four areas represented by a square quadrant. I limited myself to 8 items in each of the four quadrants in order to keep my life balanced. I will admit that I found it difficult to come up with 8 items in some areas and to limit myself to 8 in other areas. Such is the difficulty of balancing life priorities.

I added three columns on the right side of my lists and labeled the columns: 30 -- 60 -- 90. I went through my lists of outcomes and results and determined which items would be completed in 30, 60, or 90 days. To my surprise, the tallies appeared to be balanced as well.

As I set about my next 90 days, I will color in the square segments as I complete items for a visually appealing representation of the work that I accomplish. There will be a few instances when an item on a list has some subtasks or subparts to complete. I will most likely partially fill in segments of the square to represent these subparts. The coloring process does not need to be exact or perfect. The color square is to be a helpful tool, not another life burden.

What's on the back side? A few items in my list needed further breakdowns or notes, and I used the reverse side to do this planning:

At the end of my 90 day period, I have set aside the subsequent month as a time to consider and plan for my next 90 day push. That means that I have basically divided my year into three larger segments of 120 days, and this breakdown seems to follow my usual routine of the year:

• January-April: This period follows the general university semester calendar.
• May-August: This time period finishes the school year and covers the summer break.
• September-December: This time period includes the fall school semester.

As you can see from this breakdown of the year into 120-day segments, the three segments seem to coincide with natural break points in the year. For the first 90 days of each 120-day segment, I plan to achieve the goals that I have set to accomplish in those three months. The fourth month will be a time to celebrate what I achieved, evaluate how well the process worked, and consider what new outcomes or results I want to achieve in the next 90 days.

I have designed my template to fit my bullet journal. I will provide more information about the bullet journal in a future article. I used my bullet journal to help me make my goal lists and plans for the 90-day square.

I hope that you will join me in this 90-day twist to goal setting. If you are interested in trying the 90 day square idea, you can find the template here.

Happy Practicing!

----- Paula -----

© 2017 by Paula E. Bird

The above book links are affiliate links (Amazon), which means that I may receive a small benefit at no additional cost to you. As always, you never need to purchase anything, but if you are in the market to do so, consider using the provided affiliate links in order to support the time and efforts of writing and producing the Teach Suzuki blog and podcast.