Priorities....

A couple of days ago, Caitlin at Healthy Tipping Point posted today about a presentation at the Healthy Living Summit about orgainziation and Priorities.

Caitlyn posed the following questions: What are your priorities? What do you want to pay more attention to? What extraneous commitments do you wish you could focus less on? Sometimes just putting it down on paper can help make it a reality!

Step one: Realize that there are 168 hours in the week. 56 of those hours should probably be spent asleep. In order to maximize our time and schedule in ‘free time,’ we need to be more aware about how we spend our energy.


I really try to get 8 hours of sleep a night, but realistically I get 7 or 7.5 average... I am trying, and think I'm doing much better as I used to get 6-7 hours.

Step two: List out your priorities. Some of these priorities are negotiable and some are probably non-negotiable. Of course, these priorities are different for other people.

Here’s my list in order of priority:
* My husband and kids
* Getting an adequate amount of sleep
* Working out 5 times a week/training for my upcoming half marathon
* Shopping for and preparing healthy meals
* Being there for my kids and helping at their school
* Keeping active with my husband and kids
* Sewing and Crafting
* Spending time with family and friends
* Interacting with other bloggers and reading other blogs
* Volunteering with three programs the kids are involved in
* Reading actual books, relaxing, and writing for pleasure
* Watching my favourite television shows

Step three: Identify which priorities you can downgrade or drop completely. Also identify new priorities that you would like to focus more on.


In the fall I will be taking on more care of my Grandmother as my mom will be out of town. This will include weekly trips to visit her for approximately 6 weeks. I really enjoy spending time with her and will schedule it in.

My youngest starts Kindergarten and will be attending full days (the first year of full day kindergarten available here). I will be volunteering now with 3 kids in the same school and helping in all 3 classes. I hope that I can be of assistance to the Kindergarten teacher as she transitions to teaching this new program -- there has already been a call out for volunteers with group reading, family lunch times and other activities. I will also be helping the running program at the school to get my older two kids involved again.

The volunteering include being a Spark (Girl Guide) leader, the webmaster for a dance association and the secretary for the school PAC. I hope to get organized and schedule time for these so I don't have to do anything in a rush. I want to be planned and organized ahead of time. And to keep the prep time spent on this under 1 hours a week; plus the weekly spark meeting, monthly PAC meeting and quarterly dance meeting.

Truthfully I'd love to be able to drop the shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc - but realistically that's not going to happen. I hope to work on getting a routine set to get these done while the kids are at school and meals planned ahead

Step four: Get organized by using a paper calendar or online calendar. Look for ways to plan ahead so your priorities get accomplished and you don’t feel overwhelmed.


I already use Google Calendar to plan my families activities. I also keep a paper calendar in the kitchen and a white board calendar on the fridge. It works -- most of the time!