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 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.

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.