Make a New Priority Grid

We are entering the 4th week of the month and it's time to consider a new month ahead. This might seem like a lot to do, on top of this next week of love practices! But you have all week to do it, and you can do as much or as little as you like. 

At the minimum, please check the links below and review the process; perhaps choose one priority area of your life to evaluate and plan for, as practice.

Monthly

Fourth week of each month (or at the waning crescent moon - time to evaluate, then surrender, rest, and recuperate.)

Make a new Priority Grid:

1. Evaluate last month's Priority Grid to notice trends, analyze your balance, make adjustments to your schedule and expectations, and identify "low-status" priorities.

2. Brainstorm and envision the best next 30-days of your life.

3. Discern your top 4-5 priorities for "regular" action, for the month ahead, and choose your top action goals, to move you in the direction of your most important reasons for living.

4. Make a Month Map, arranging your goals in an order that helps you picture your month ahead, and label it with a theme word or phrase.

5. Organize your next month goals into a Prioritiy Grid, outlining your long term, complex, task-driven projects into small chunks with a backwards calendar.

Recap of 4 Weeks and Sample Calendar

You have been getting your ducks in a row for one month now, and it's time for a recap and re-group before we launch into Part Two.

In week one, you created a Base Map of your possible life path that you can carry in your back pocket. You figured out your core values, the compass that shows you the direction to proceed down your path, and your priorities, that give your days focus and help you to decide how to best spend your time.

In week two, you learned how to discern and plan for one month at a time - how to take the Big Picture Base Map you developed and plot it out into manageable chunks, by choosing your top action goals, organizing your goals into a priorities grid, and scheduling your weekly priorities.

In week three, you learned how to make a pledge for action by setting intentions for your core values and for your top priorities. When you are intentional with your actions, you choose your path on purpose.

In week four, you planned ways to give full effort for your priorities, a mental discipline that requires attention, a spark of energy, and balance.

The ideas and techniques you've covered this month are only half of the picture. A calendar for this might look like:

Day 7: Review, and Plan

Take a few minutes to review your third week. Write about your accomplishments and what you need to work on. Did you:

• Brainstorm some exciting new ideas, new paths and approaches for this week's priorities?

• Write about the strongest, most compelling reasons you want to do them, and list possible challenges?

• Practice setting daily intentions using the action + deepest reason model?

• Identify essential intentions for some of your core values and principles, that captures the possibility of daily right action and will be useful in any situation that arises in daily life?

• Map out one of your top priorities to discern all the connections to your values and principles, and (possibly) write an intention or a series of intentions for that priority that speaks to your core values, and reminds you of your deepest, most essential, most passionate reasons for living?

• Set intentions for one or two tasks, activities, or ideas listed on your Priority Grid for your coming week, honing in on the deepest, most essential, most passionate reasons for doing these tasks?

Summary

Day 5: Map Out Priority Intentions

Besides the values you listed in Week One, you also listed your top 4 - 8 priorities for daily action - the activities, good deeds, responsibilities, people, and disciplines that matter most to you right now. Today you will use the essential intentions you wrote yesterday as inspiration to make a Mini-Map for just one of your priorities, and a list of ideas that will help you to write intentions for that priority.

• Get out your Base Map, and locate one priority that connects to a value that you defined and wrote an intention for yesterday. (I chose Home, which connects to my value of Simplicity.)

• 
  On a plain piece of paper, start a Mini-Map with this one priority in the center.

• Looking at your Base Map, follow the connecting lines to all the other values (and other priorities) that relate to this one priority, and add them to the Mini-Map.

• Have a little chat with yourself in your journal, or just make a list of the values (and other priorities) that lead you to action for this one priority. My list looks like this:

Home:

1.     Simplicity - lifestyle, simple and ecological.

2.     Earthcare - grow food, forge a connection to the earth.

3.     Love - Friends and Family - create safe, calm sanctuary.

4.     Integrity - maintain my property with honor

• If you can manage it, write an intention, or a series of intentions, for this one priority that speaks to your core values, and reminds you of your deepest, most essential, most passionate reasons for living. Or, if that's too complicated, write an intention for ONE ASPECT of your priority. Write your intentions in present tense, using the action + deepest reason model. Example:

"I intend to care for my home and my little piece of earth with integrity, maintaining my property with honor, and creating a home that is a peaceful and well-ordered sanctuary for those I love.

I intend to grow plenty of food for ourselves and to share, because home-grown food is a blessing for my family and a balm to the planet, and working the soil keeps me connected.

I intend to manage my home with simplicity, using only my share of the earth’s resources, because each person and being in the world, and future generations, and the earth itself, deserves to live with basic needs met."

• Extra effort: Over the next weeks and months, write intentions for each of your top priorities. Take it slow. If you want, you can print these out and put them into your Map Book.

Next Week Schedule, Step 1: 

Thursday- Adjust your Priority Grid for the month: Check off what you have completed, add new items you have thought of, and move anything down lower that no longer fits.

Day 7: Review, and Plan One Week

Take a few minutes to review your second week. Look through your journal. Write about your accomplishments and what you still need to work on. Did you:

• Brainstorm goals, dreams, and exciting ideas for the next month of your life, and write about what your best month would look like?

• Choose goals, activities, and ideas - at least one for each priority, and no more than about 20, total - that you can do this next month to move you in the direction of your most important reasons for living?

• Start a separate Inspiration Page for any goals and ideas that simply don't fit into this season of your year, or your life?

• Go on a vision walk to access your deeper, intuitive mind - your inner guide - and look at your month from the mountain top?

• Pick a theme word or phrase to describe your month ahead and distill it down to its essence?

• Make a Month Map, arranging your goals in an order that helps you picture your month ahead as a whole? (optional)

• Organize your next month goals into a priority grid, outlining your long term, complex, task-driven projects into small chunks?

Day 6: Create a Backwards Calendar

Today you will begin to plan just one of your long-term, complex, task-driven projects (like teaching a class, or committee work), breaking all the work into small pieces and then adding it to your priority grid. This process is often called a backward calendar because you start with the end date, if it's a fixed date, and work backwards to plan when each part needs to be completed.

This will definitely require some extra effort, so just start with one project or committee. The good news is, you can re-use these plans for similar projects in the future. Save them in your Map Book if you want. 

Choose one project or committee or event to plan.

• Brainstorm a list of all the supplies, information, and people you need to gather to complete the project or to do the work of your committee. List any skills you need to learn (including people skills, practical skills, technological skills...) and all of the steps you need to take. This is just a brainstorm with no particular order.

• Group all the tasks into chunks. It might also be helpful to estimate how long each chunk will take. For example, a chunk might read "Write agenda, send zoom invite, call P&D -1 hour".

• Organize chunks into the order they need to happen to complete the project on time. (If you have a firm deadline, start from that date and work backwards).

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.):

Day 4: Create a Month Map

What is the contour of your month ahead? Is it a straight and clear road? Are there bumps or sharp twists and turns? Is it foggy, a jungle, mountainous, arid? Do you see rivers, highways, footpaths?

• Take a few minutes to write in your journal about your month ahead and then call it a day!

Extra Effort: This is an optional project. If it sounds fun or useful, today you can make a map of your coming month. This map doesn't need to be artistic or beautiful; the act of making it is powerful, and will help you to picture your month as a whole. You might want to create a linear route from today to the end of the month, or start in the center and radiate out like a mind map.

Day 3: Month Theme Vision Walk

Now that you have some ideas about your priorities for the month, let's try to access your deeper, intuitive mind again with another vision walk. This week you will get a glimpse of what you are moving towards, an image of the near future that will help you to see the possibilities.

Visualization is a scientifically proven technique for performance improvement, based on the idea that "seeing is believing". It also helps with relaxation and self-confidence. It works because brain neurons interpret imagery as equivalent to reality. Visualization creates new neural pathways, just like a memory or a learned behavior.

Prepare by setting out your journal, and your list of month priority goals. Begin by putting yourself in a relaxed, trance-like state. Seek a leading of the spirit with an open mind and heart:

• Set the mood: Light a candle and dim the lights, and let's try this with silence this time.

• Craft a clear intention: Say something like, "Today I call on the Spirit of Love to bring me clarity and open my eyes to the possibilities of this next month."

• Relax, breathe, walk or float: With each breath, allow your awareness to deepen and become softer. No stress. No rush. Walk or float in an imaginary void (or you might feel the need to stand and walk around your actual space).

• Go through a door: When you feel ready, see yourself moving through a doorway or opening into another space. This time you are moving onto a mountain top - a sun-drenched ridge above the tree line. Find a safe spot to sit, with your back against a warm rock, and take in the view.

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  View from South Sister - Photo by Carrie Mack

Day 2: Set Month Priority Goals

Yesterday you brainstormed some lists of goals, dreams, and exciting ideas for your next month, without any judgement or discrimination, and you wrote about your most important reasons for living, and what your best month would look like. Now it's time to narrow it down a little, to the top actions that you could possibly do this next month. 

Your list from yesterday was (hopefully) wide open and a little wild. I'm not asking you to get practical now - this is not a list of the things you need to do this month; but I am asking you to choose only those ideas that fit with your current priorities, and with the "taste" of this month of your life:

Week 2: Plot One Moon at a Time + Day 1: Journal Brainstorm

One month is a natural unit, originally counted from new moon to new moon. A month is poetic and whole; a luscious scoop of time that you can almost taste. Close your eyes right now, and embrace a sense of your next month; summon up its mood and meaning - and hold onto that feeling as you move forward today.

This week you will learn the habit of planning for one month at a time; how to take the big picture Base Map you developed last week, discern your best course, and plot it out into manageable chunks.

This very idea might cause some of you to balk; we are not all prone to planning and plotting. But just like I said last week, please try this habit in the simplest format you can, because it will help to ground you. I promise you that we won't dwell in planning mode any longer than we need to!

And if you, like me, will happily plan your life away, please don't allow yourselves to get stuck... move through this material at a steady pace.