What are the real priorities that our plans and where we are flexible reveal? And what does that say about how we really prioritise?

This year I have three priorities. 1) putting my health first, which means exercising regularly, without feeling like it is being crammed in, sleeping well and consistently, and eating well. 2) being proactive in my relationships, with myself, with my partner, with my friends and family. That means regularly seeing the people that matter. 3) focus on work I enjoy and break a long-held habit by ensuring that my health and relationships are put before work. 

While perhaps a bit generic, they are clear and useful guides for me in how I choose what to do with my time. 

What I didn’t anticipate is how I plan, where I allow flexibility in plans and how that impacted priorities. 

Yes, I have largely upheld these priorities, but how I have planned for them has made it more challenging than necessary at times. I have said ‘yes’ to work that I enjoy but without the foresight to see that will mean moving exercise around and ‘yes’ to social events that have impacted sleep or the re-arranged exercise plans. 

In short, all the priorities have been fulfilled but without respecting the order of priority. I have been flexible with the top priority to enable the other two. 

This experience raises the question of what our planning and where we allow flexibility says about how we are really prioritising things. 

If you looked back at your last week, how much did it compare to your plans? And how did those plans reflect what your priorities are? 

What about across a month, six months or a year? 

While it is inevitable that plans will change (this blog has written before about the idea that plans are worthless but planning is essential), what does what you plan for and where you are flexible really show about what you prioritise? 

How does what we actually prioritise compare to what we want to be our priorities? 

What has been the impact for you?

In the example above, my flexibility has been at the expense of prioritising health as the top priority. 

The impact, health has not felt so healthy as it is forced and fit into plans that then feel too full and not fully aligned to their original intentions.

For the sake of what we really want to prioritise, what do we need to be flexible with? 

Where do we not need to be flexible?

What makes that difficult?

What do we need to plan for that we currently are not planning? 

What would be the practice of planning and following our plans that would be in best service of our priorities? 

What would make it easiest for us to respect our plans? 

Going back to the example, for me, I notice that I find it difficult to say ‘no’ to work, largely out of a fear of scarcity (“what if more work doesn’t come”), when another approach is to build creating work into plans? Interestingly the scarcity approach is more pronounced when I am tired, which highlights how the priorities I am trying to respect are important and that plans which support those priorities would be of real benefit. 

It also highlights the cycle that it can feel harder to plan the right priorities when not doing them. What if the flexibility and the planning is all avoiding the thing that really matters? What is at stake in doing what you want to prioritise, it could be fear of success or failure? How can you break that down to something that feels manageable. Like running a long distance, adopting and practising new priorities requires training. 

In those cases what is the minimal viable plan? What is the smallest version of respecting your priorities that builds the momentum to progressively do more of them? 

What do your plans say about what you prioritise?

What do you notice about where you allow flexibility? Who is that in service of? What does it support? What is the cost of that flexibility? 

What would your plans look like if they really prioritised what mattered to you?

What would support making those plans possible?

What if we all planned for what mattered more?