It can often be hard to juggle everything that goes on in life. Finding the right balance between friends and family or between work and play is complicated. But how do we know if what we focus on is true to our aspirations and values?
We can get caught up in daily life and not evaluate where we spend our precious time. The adage “if you don’t fill your time, others will” springs to mind. Today I want to explore this and understand the twelve aspects of life. The article will examine the areas of life, how you can work out where you spend your time and how to balance your life and focus on what is important to you. I will reflect on my own time and how I will implement this into my own life.
What are the twelve aspects of life?
The twelve aspects of life created by The Design Coach provide a framework that identifies the different areas of focus in life. A well-balanced life leads to greater productivity, achievement, well-being, and overall health. The different areas of life include:
Health
This area of life is one of the most crucial areas that many of us take for granted or neglect in favour of other areas of our life. We will feel run down mentally and physically by neglecting our health, impacting other areas of our life. Within this area of life, we find sub-areas:
Physical
Your overall physical health is important to ensure you can fuel the other areas of your life. Neglecting our physical health will directly impact all other areas of life. By ensuring we have a nutritional diet, exercise, and sleep right, we can ensure we remain in tip-top shape.
Emotional & Spiritual
This is your overall mindfulness and relationship with your mind. Practicing mindfulness in meditation, yoga, and journalling can aid your overall mental well-being. Through these practices, you can live longer in the present and find content in the moment.
Financial
Our financial health is a key element that props up our other areas of life. Think of money not as a goal but as a method to reach your goals. The goal of wealth is a hollow one. When people cannot meet their basic needs with their finances, this needs to be addressed first.
People
Home
These are your close relationships with whom you want to spare your precious hours of the day. These are your friends and family that provide you with support and the ability to let loose whenever you’re around. They help you when you are down and seek to lift you up in life. Unless they are toxic relationships, but that is an article for another day.
Work
These are your professional relationships, those that you wouldn’t consider home. These relationships can be strictly professional or develop into a closer connection moving into the home area of life. You may admire or aspire to be your mentor or find a work colleague that pushes you to succeed.
Wider Community
This is your connection with those in your community or if your aspirations are high, your global impact. Having a positive impact in the broader community will bring a sense of well-being as you give something back and face problems in our world. This could be through volunteering or a life goal surrounding conservation.
This reminds me of Rob Moore’s book Money, where he states that once we have taken care of ourselves and those closest to us, we should spread our resources and money. Inspiring change locally, nationally, and maybe even globally.
Environment
Adventures
We have always wanted to dive into these adventurous dreams. This could be visiting that particular place or the all-important bucket list. There is a reason why we are all excited about the next summer holiday. We get to spend time with those we love and thrive on new experiences if we are willing to dedicate time to adventure.
Work
Considering that work makes up a large portion of our time, it is essential to find something that inspires us and does not crush our souls. Unless you are young or have been lucky, we have all held a job that did not inspire us. Unfortunately, many people may never attain this joy of work, so we need to focus on what we want from work.
Home
Your home and your living space are essential. Finding the right balance in your home makes you feel comfortable in your own space. This will include our relationships at home and not just our living space. Problems at home can seep into other aspects of our life.
Growth
Rest, Play & Creativity
This is the area of life where we challenge ourselves to grow within our interests of hobbies. This could be a sport, your favourite video game, learning a skill, or starting that art project you have been putting off. Rest is needed to ensure we don’t impact our health and all aspects of life.
Career
Once we have found fulfilling work, we can grow within this field (or multiple areas within a lifetime – interests change over time). By getting recognition within our careers, we gain a sense of achievement, boosting our mood. These could be remuneration, a promotion, or a business goal.
Learning
We often need to remember the importance of learning new skills and growing our skillset after education or outside of work. Learning that skill- whether cooking, coding, or a new language – you will gain a sense of achievement and ensure your mind is enriched. Growing to a better you each day.
Opportunity Cost of Success
Unfortunately, we cannot be in twenty different places at once…
If we want a balanced life, we aim to dedicate equal time to each life area (as best we can). This only applies to those that want to gain significant success within their profession. Being the best at something in life is a great aspiration. If you have found that one thing you love, why not?
Where this becomes a problem is when the individual’s primary goal is wealth and fame with no passion for what they are doing; wealth and fame should be seen as a side effect of what you love, not the goal. Fame is a poison chalice when seen as a “purpose.” If fame comes as a side effect, use this influence to leave the world in a better place than you found it.
For those who achieve great success in an area of life, there will be an opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of a decision, or picking one focus over another, is the decision to sacrifice one area of life over another.
For example, an athlete may dedicate their time to health (or, in some cases, sacrifice their health) and focus on their career. We have a limited amount of time, meaning that other areas of life must be sacrificed to provide more time for career focus. This may mean neglecting your home life, neglecting your mental and spiritual well-being, or not allowing time for rest and play.
This is a choice, and if it aligns with your life plan, perfect!
If not, maybe it is time to reprioritise those things that are important to you. It is never too late to change direction in life. Great success requires sacrifice and a degree of luck – not what many of us want to hear – but it is true.
The Story of the Mexican Fisherman
The opportunity cost of success is only sometimes the right path for many. This is especially the case if someone’s goal is wealth and fame. If we lose sight of our true values and what we want out of life, we can quickly be swept up in the “more money, more things” cycle. Keeping up with the Joneses is often the norm these days. We are buying more and more luxury items to fill a hole and endlessly comparing ourselves to others.
This reminds me of The Story of the Mexican Fisherman in the 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. The story was:
An American businessman took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctor’s orders. Unable to sleep after an urgent phone call from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to clear his head. A small boat with just one fisherman had docked, and inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.
“How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked.
“Only a little while,” the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English.
“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American then asked.
“I have enough to support my family and give a few to friends,” the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket.
“But… What do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican looked up and smiled. “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, señor.”
The American laughed and stood tall. “Sir, I’m a Harvard MBA and can help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In no time, you could buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.”
He continued, “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually to New York City, where you could run your expanded enterprise with proper management.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, señor, how long will all this take?”
To which the American replied, “15-20 years, 25 tops.”
“But what then, señor?”
The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.”
“Millions señor? Then what?”
“Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll into the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”
What is the moral of the Mexican Fisherman?
The businessman is a key example of keeping up with the Joneses. Believing they will find happiness in fame and fortune. He believes that overconsumption and the consumer mentality are the way to find meaning in life and be truly happy.
The fisherman does not understand this, as he is living in the present and is content with what he has. The pointless endeavour of collecting more money and resource by focusing on areas of life that do not matter to him.
The fisherman has found balance in his life and contentment in the everyday. There is no need for him to search for more as he has become truly present and content with what he already has. He has people, a career he loves, provides for his friends and family and loves to play guitar. He knows what he wants in life.
We spend the majority of our life working.
But what are we working towards? What are you working for?
Is it purely material, you may find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is not so lucky.
The best life goal is one that cannot be achieved. One that can be worked towards. How much is enough to achieve this?
How much is enough?
Are you focused on what is important to you?
Wasted Time
Opportunity cost when acting with intention and focus on what is important to you is a noble sacrifice (minus wealth and fame). The opportunity cost of wasted time is not living with intention and means we neglect areas of life without achieving any great success (or even success).
Wasted time creeps into all our lives through procrastination, whether ruminating, not living in the present (focused on the past or future), or using social media for comparison and escape. If you enjoy using your technology, this is well-spent time if you live a balanced life. Too much focus on rest and play while neglecting family and work is a recipe for disaster.
Wasted time is spent on activities that only detach us from the present and drain time from other areas of our life. They provide little value to your life besides detachment from your current situation. I am sure everyone has lost hours to their favourite social media platform.
TikTok is the worst for it.
You get drawn in by an algorithm that knows your interests and what makes you tick. You cannot win a fight between you and your phone. The notification hooks you, and the hyper-focused content reels you in.
Unfortunately, the world seems to gain more and more distractions by the day. Humans are running from reality into the digital. We have never lived in a world so connected yet so detached and isolated. We must account for this time to evaluate where we spend our time. We can then work to reduce our wasted time through mindfulness and to increase focus on those areas of life we deem important, as we discussed in a previous post.
How to work out where your time goes?
To improve your focus in life, you need to understand how much time you have and where it is being spent. Time can run away from you if you don’t manage it wisely.
For one week, track what you have spent your time on. You will want to ensure that you keep a calendar or diary of what you did each hour of the day. Try not to do anything out of the norm – this can be hard, as reflecting on each hour may increase your accountability and drive your productivity.
Once you have completed the diary at the end of the week, categorise each into one of the 12 areas of life. You should also have an additional category – wasted time. The definition of wasted time will depend on the person – but reflect on what I said in the previous section.
Total the amount of time for each category. You how to have a picture of where your time goes every week. The longer you track your time, the more accurate the data will be. You can use the document that I created by following the steps.
How is my time spent?
You can see my results from the first week in the image below. I waste a lot of time on YouTube and browsing Google on my phone. I will write a separate article to research the problem of Googling our problems.
Most of my time is spent on Health, Growth, and Wasted Time.
Shocking to see wasted time as my third largest portion.
People is my lowest, with most time being spread over the weekend. I work from home, so time with work colleagues is nonexistent.
Health: 60.5 hours
Growth: 48.2 hours
Wasted Time: 27.4 hours
Environment: 17.9 hours
People: 14 hours
How to focus on what is important?
Envision your perfect life. Maybe you cannot envision it – this is okay. Take a step back and think about those things you get lost in. The activities where hours feel like minutes and weeks feel like days. Activities where you are truly present, engaged, and in a flow state.
Now, look at your 12 aspects of life and the time you allocate to each area. Are you happy with what you see? Is your time being spent on attaining your envisioned life or is it taking you further away (think the Businessman and the Fisherman).
If so, set target times that you want to spend in each area of your life. Block out time on your calendar for that hobby or creative project you want to finish. Allocate more time to family. Commit to your new plan and act, spending more time on those areas of life that matter to you.
I created a document to track my progress – if you want it reach out to me. This is the same document that I will be using moving forward.
How to stop wasting time?
Unless you have the willpower of a god, you probably have wasted time during your week. The challenge is to reduce this time. Analyse the data and determine where you “waste” most of your time. Is it scrolling on your favourite social media?
Once you have worked out where your time is wasted – put an action plan in place to reduce this wasted time. In the case of social media, consider a digital well-being app that limits your time on certain apps. Go one step further and delete the app entirely. If you included your commute as wasted time – why not look for a work-from-home opportunity or make the time productive by listening to audiobooks? Doing so will move the activity from wasted time to the life area of learning.
I encourage you to read my previous article on finding focus that supports this article. Focus is complicated and can be influenced by many facets of our life.
How will I refocus my time?
Health: Considering I should be getting at least six hours of sleep, I am neglecting this area of my life, which needs improvement. I also want to boost my time on healthy eating and exercise, as this area of my life has suffered over the winter, which I am sure we can all relate to.
Growth: The wasted time also takes away from my focus on growth, with less time spent on business creation. There is also no balance between skills outside of my work. I can use time outside of work to develop my skills and find new hobbies by reducing the time wasted.
Wasted Time: My target is to hit zero time wasted (most likely unachievable, but we can always strive towards this goal). According to my tracker, this will free up a huge amount of time, 27.4 hours.
Environment: Plain sailing here. I don’t want to make any current amendments in this area. The house is always clean, and this area of my life seems to be well-balanced. I have the advantage of no commute; many people will have a much higher score here, especially those with long commutes.
People: By reducing the amount of time wasted, I will schedule more time for friends and family. This includes phone calls and messaging, but nothing can beat face-to-face interactions. More of these, please.
My targets are as follows:
Health: 65 hours
People: 25 hours
Environment: 18 hours
Growth: 60 hours
Wasted Time: 0 hours
Final Thoughts
The twelve areas of life provide a framework to look at our life and align our focus to our values and priorities. By tracking where our time is spent in these different areas, we can reprioritise our focus and reduce time wasted on activities that provide little value to our lives.
Moving forward, I will use the tracker for the next several weeks. I will update my progress at the end of the month. I will also identify any limitations of the tracker and what benefits I have attained from carrying out the exercise.
The goal will be to schedule my time so that the tracker is not used weekly. By scheduling activities in Google Calendar, I will be able to ensure that my time is spent on areas where I want to grow. The tracker can be revisited when I lose focus on what matters. The tracker can also be used at times when I feel I have no time in my day.
I am removing those activities that take me away from what matters. One day, I will outsource them to other people (Cleaners, Virtual Assistants, and Employees).
More time spent on what you love.
More time spent on finding what you love.
Less time spent wasted.
Being more intentional with your time and living in the present. The dream… finding your flow state and enjoying the ride.
References
Ferriss, T.(A. (2020) 4-Hour work week. Ebury Publishing.
Moore, R. (2018) Money: Know more, make more, give more. London: John Murray Learning.
The twelve areas of life balance (2022) The Design Coach. Available at: https://www.thedesigncoach.com.au/post/the-12-areas-of-life-balance (Accessed: January 17, 2023).