I wanted to talk today about why I pick three life focuses. I feel this is especially important because when I started this journey, one of my original inspirations had seven focuses.
That inspiration was a Merril Lynch life planner. My wife and I went through this life planner, and although it tries to be great, it's a bit overwhelming. It took us forever to go through all seven categories. Especially because each of the seven categories then wants you to have two goals. That means you end up with 14 life goals. To me, that's just insane. How can you apply focus when there are 14 things on your plate?
My wife and I pushed through the process and started prioritizing these 14 goals. We could only prioritize five goals before we started having arguments between what the next priorities would be. It was ridiculous. From my years of dealing with product managers trying to prioritize feature development, it's obvious anything above a certain threshold is pointless. If it's not something you can start working on immediately, it's priority will change by the time you get to it.
As a couple, if we can only work on a few priorities at once and trying to prioritize everything beyond that top group becomes pointless, why even try to prioritize everything? So the first thing I wanted to do when I was developing my Personal Control Book was to define better these life goals (called Life Focuses within the PCB) and goals (called Beacons within the PCB). During this redefining is when I determined three was the ideal number.
One might ask, why not just have one? Then you could focus entirely on something. This concentrated focus is what I feel a lot of the FIRE community does. The subreddit is bursting with people who put FI as their top and only priority and end up negatively impacting other parts of their lives. There is no life balance.
It makes sense if you think about it. If you become a workaholic, you will never see your family. You will eat unhealthy because it's convenient, and you will never make time for exercise. Eventually, your family life will fall apart, and your health will diminish. If you become an obsessed gym rat, you won't give your career the energy it needs to flourish, and again your home life will become heavily neglected. And if you spend all of your energy building relationships with your family, then unless they are part of your fitness and career, your performance at work will suffer, and you'll never take time to take care of yourself.
Three Life Focuses don't have the downside of either having a single Life Focus or seven Life Focuses. It keeps you well rounded, yet not so well rounded that you can't make progress on anything. It's in the Goldie Locks zone.
And just because some things are not part of my three Life Focuses doesn't mean I neglect them entirely. For example, if my three Life Focuses are family, career, and health. Friendships are not directly part of that trio, but healthy friendships might be necessary to health and so are indirectly included. That's why I don't have the family as part of my Life Focuses within my PCB, because to me, having a strong relationship with everyone in my family is a critical part of health. When I focus on health, typically, things related to building stronger familial relationships is top and center.
By having three Life Focuses leading to three On-The-Horizon Beacons, it lets you focus on what you feel is most critical while ensuring you still become a well-rounded individual.
(Written 2019.06.27)
That inspiration was a Merril Lynch life planner. My wife and I went through this life planner, and although it tries to be great, it's a bit overwhelming. It took us forever to go through all seven categories. Especially because each of the seven categories then wants you to have two goals. That means you end up with 14 life goals. To me, that's just insane. How can you apply focus when there are 14 things on your plate?
My wife and I pushed through the process and started prioritizing these 14 goals. We could only prioritize five goals before we started having arguments between what the next priorities would be. It was ridiculous. From my years of dealing with product managers trying to prioritize feature development, it's obvious anything above a certain threshold is pointless. If it's not something you can start working on immediately, it's priority will change by the time you get to it.
As a couple, if we can only work on a few priorities at once and trying to prioritize everything beyond that top group becomes pointless, why even try to prioritize everything? So the first thing I wanted to do when I was developing my Personal Control Book was to define better these life goals (called Life Focuses within the PCB) and goals (called Beacons within the PCB). During this redefining is when I determined three was the ideal number.
One might ask, why not just have one? Then you could focus entirely on something. This concentrated focus is what I feel a lot of the FIRE community does. The subreddit is bursting with people who put FI as their top and only priority and end up negatively impacting other parts of their lives. There is no life balance.
It makes sense if you think about it. If you become a workaholic, you will never see your family. You will eat unhealthy because it's convenient, and you will never make time for exercise. Eventually, your family life will fall apart, and your health will diminish. If you become an obsessed gym rat, you won't give your career the energy it needs to flourish, and again your home life will become heavily neglected. And if you spend all of your energy building relationships with your family, then unless they are part of your fitness and career, your performance at work will suffer, and you'll never take time to take care of yourself.
Three Life Focuses don't have the downside of either having a single Life Focus or seven Life Focuses. It keeps you well rounded, yet not so well rounded that you can't make progress on anything. It's in the Goldie Locks zone.
And just because some things are not part of my three Life Focuses doesn't mean I neglect them entirely. For example, if my three Life Focuses are family, career, and health. Friendships are not directly part of that trio, but healthy friendships might be necessary to health and so are indirectly included. That's why I don't have the family as part of my Life Focuses within my PCB, because to me, having a strong relationship with everyone in my family is a critical part of health. When I focus on health, typically, things related to building stronger familial relationships is top and center.
By having three Life Focuses leading to three On-The-Horizon Beacons, it lets you focus on what you feel is most critical while ensuring you still become a well-rounded individual.
(Written 2019.06.27)
