Sep 23

Sep 23 Creating a Family Plan for Extra Activities

What’s on Your Plate?

Draw a circle on a piece of paper. This is your plate. Write down everything you are responsible for doing in a week or month. Underline or highlight those you enjoy and then circle (or highlight with a different colour) those you would like to spend less time doing. You might even use a third highlighter to indicate those things you really dislike doing and a fourth for those you really wish you could spend more time at.

Write down anything that’s not on your plate but that you wish you had time to do around the outside of your circle. Give some thought to how you might remove some of the “dislikes” or change them to find more enjoyment in them. For example, walking my dog twice a day started to become a burden about six months into the task. I realized that to make it fun again I needed to do something different. I started recording teleseminars and then listening to them while I walked. It made the walks enjoyable again and helped me keep up this activity I see as important.

Sometimes it works to break down things that seem unattainable into smaller steps to see if you can add just one little piece of it into your world. Ideally, our goal would be to have twice as many things in the like category as in the dislike category.

Our plates seem to fill up quickly and easily. Becoming aware of what all is on there and which feel most important to you can help create a picture that allows you to start making changes.