Day 5: Make a Priority Grid

A priority grid is one way to organize your Monthly Priority Goals into the weeks of the next 30 days. It's how to take your top actions that you could possibly do this next month and see how they fit into the actual calendar.

For some of us, this might seem extremely tedious, and you might already feel resistance. Make it easy on yourself, and choose only two or three of your top priorities, and the goals, activities, and ideas that you have listed under them, and leave the rest for another month. 

These are your ducks finally lining up; it doesn't have to be perfect, nor does it have to be complete - its just a noisy framework of priorities moving in generally the same direction!

Remember we are talking priorities here - the top actions that you could do this next month to move you in the direction of your most important reasons for living - so if you have other kinds of responsibilities (things you must do, things you agreed to do but they aren't your priorities, a committee you wish you weren't on, etc.), you will need to put them somewhere else. It's probably a good idea to make a list of these things - one called NOT Priorities - just to see how many non-priority things you are doing (and then get yourself off that committee as soon as possible!)

Use some lined notebook paper and a pencil, or a spreadsheet on your computer. (I use a spread sheet now, but for many years I wrote all my grids on paper graphs, with pencil so I could make changes.):

• Make a grid with your top 3 priorities listed across the top row, and weeks of the month in the left column. 

• Begin to plug your goals, activities, and ideas into the grid-

-Some of these are daily disciplines or weekly responsibilities: List these in each week.

Week	Health	Heart	Service
1	Exercise, eat more veggies	Baby care
2	Exercise, eat more veggies;	Baby care
3	Exercise, eat more veggies	Baby care
4	Exercise, eat more veggies	Baby care

-Some are one-time events or straight-forward tasks that can be completed in a day or within a week: Add these in, spreading them out through the month as best you can.

Week	Health	Heart	Service
1	Exercise, eat more veggies; Make eye appt.	Baby care;  Adventure downtown	Kid's pumpkin Day; Earth care group meeting;  Write newsletter
2	Exercise, eat more veggies;	Baby care;  Write thank you	Bike group ride;  Children's comm. meeting
3	Exercise, eat more veggies	Baby care;  Family potluck	Support meeting
4	Exercise, eat more veggies	Baby care;  Halloween adventures

-You probably also have some long-term, complex, task-driven projects or responsibilities that need to be broken into smaller pieces before you can grid them. We will look at how to do this tomorrow, so for now, put a place holder for each of these kinds of tasks at the start date and/or the end date.

Week	Health	Heart	Service
1	Exercise, eat more veggies	Baby care;  Adventure downtown	Kid's pumpkin Day; Earth care group meeting;  Write newsletter; CRbB plans for Oct, Nov.
2	Exercise, eat more veggies;	Baby care;  Write thank you	Bike group ride;  Children's comm. meeting (plans for Fall-Winter)
3	Exercise, eat more veggies	Baby care;  Family potluck	Support meeting; CRbB: Plans for Nov. ride
4	Exercise, eat more veggies	Baby care;  Halloween adventures

Extra effort: If you enjoy charting, go ahead and chart out all your priorities!

Please post a comment below about how you managed to make your grid.