Day 8 #formationFOUNDATIONS | Choosing Three Daily Priorities
Today's the eighth day of our #formationFOUNDATIONS series. In case you're new here, you can read more about this series or start from the beginning at SacredOrdinaryDays.com/FF. Our goal for this series is to help you...
- LEARN about different spiritual practices that you can adopt for your own walk. You will learn how to make the most of your Sacred Ordinary Days planner or the FREE Essentials Workbook you got when you joined our newsletter list, which has all the most essential pages from the planner that we don't want anyone to miss out on.
- PRACTICE these things on a daily, weekly, seasonally and yearly schedule. You will be able to lay (or bolster up) a strong spiritual formation foundation by clearing the space for your new spiritual practices to deepen.
- SHARE your experience with people who speak the same language. You'll get to know the other members of our community, who are some of the wisest, most interesting, super fun, and most real people I know by following along on Instagram or Facebook or inside Common House, our ecumenical online community.
DAY 8 | Choosing Three Daily Priorities
We have been so excited about today's blog post! The 3 daily priorities are a big part of our daily page layout. We get lots of questions about these three boxes: What am I supposed to do with the three boxes on each page? What is a cue? What do you mean by rest and rewards? So here we go to unveil the mystery and help you become more productive in the process.
Three Priorities System
Think of these boxes as places to house your three biggest or most important priorities for the day. They can be all about work or all about home or a combo of both. This system is meant as a way to manage your mental energy. Choose three priorities to focus on each day.
Cues
The cue is meant to help you identify and prioritize a catalyst for a certain project. When will you start working on the priority - when something else is done? At a certain time? After some information is received? Naming a cue for each priority helps you to plan your day with more intentionality.
Rest | Reward
We'll talk all about rest and reward tomorrow.
List/Journal Space
The lines on the left. Use this space to jot down whatever notes you need. To do's, reminders, sometimes more detail from one of your daily projects, maybe even designate it as a space to journal and record thoughts throughout the day. Physically writing down your to-dos should help eliminate anxiety that you might forget something. We like to think of this as 2nd priority space. Let this tool help increase your productivity. Add check boxes if that is helpful for you.
Scheduling
I know I know, writing out appointments in a calendar probably reminds you of your dad or grandfather who probably wouldn't go anywhere without his Daytimer. It's 2017 and many of us use a digital schedule to keep track of our scheduled appointments. We totally get this. (I can't tell you how many times I have almost missed a meeting or dinner until that trusty little iCal reminder popped up on my phone.) However, we find that we are most effective when we use a hybrid method for scheduling. With digital scheduling it's easy to go a long time without noticing a disparity between your schedule and your prioritized projects. Fill up those lines with appointments, meetings, reminders, etc. There are 10 slots. If you find that this isn't enough room, consider using the white space at the bottom of each day to hold information about social/relational engagements.
You might enjoy filling out some of the next day on the day before. Or you might be in a plan-as-you-go phase. Like we have mentioned before, we're all about flexibility. If you need to use any space in a different way than we have stated, DO IT. This book is to help you lead a holy life, the book itself is not holy. Mark out things, scratch through mistakes and misspellings, replace the word "priorities" with "chores" or "activities" or whatever you might need.
Now it's your turn.
- Choose three priorities to focus on today
- Use the journal/list and scheduling space today, however it makes sense for you today. Try it. You can always try something different tomorrow.
Head over to Instagram or Facebook and share a photo of your daily page using #formationFOUNDATIONS and tag us @sacredordinarydays, please! Or, join the conversation inside Common House, our ecumenical online community.
Join us this week as we focus on daily practices! You can always see the latest blog post in the series at SacredOrdinaryDays.com/FF when it's live. So, check there each day for the latest!