You have that nice notebook now, the one with the beautiful cover that you spent more time picking than you'd like to admit. Yes, that one. Now what? Can you hear the voice in the back of your mind saying that this one just might end up in the pile with every other planner you have ever bought, got excited about, but in reality never used much or more than a couple of times? Let me try to help you deal with that.
We've all been there - chances are that if you're reading this you also hold dear love towards old fashioned pen and paper planning. We've all got that "perfect" notebook only to discover it wasn't really that enticing to use it daily. But why? The reason is not the layout - it is beautiful, clear and seems to have some really useful concepts, right? Then what's the problem? Let me share my two cents on this - it's our why. Why do we own this planner in the first place, what do we want to achieve by using it and most of all - who do we want to become in the process.
This is where the Balance Wheel comes into place. It's a fairly common concept related to productivity and self development, but let me show you how it can be used for goal setting. So what is the Balance Wheel? It is pretty much what it says on the box - a wheel with a number axis - could be 8, 9 or however many you fancy, but the fewer the better. This is how it works - each axis represents a key aspect of your life. It's completely up to you what those areas of life would be, they will probably differ from person to person, but here's my set in case in can be useful:
Health - this is the non-negotiable one (at least in my book) as it is the foundation of everything else. Whatever you want to achieve or go after in life your primary task is to make sure you have the energy the physical and mental strength to go after that and ideally enjoy the process. It is also the most underrated one and yet it's so powerful and simple. It's easy to stay up late working on that project, it's easy to get that fast food, so that you can have some extra time for other things, it's easy to skip going to the gym or exercising at home because.... fill in the blank, I'm sure there are plenty of reasons everyone of us can some up with, right?
Relationships - one of the biggest Harvard studies tracked X people across almost a lifetime trying to identify what are the things that account for happiness - is it social status, money, material possessions? None of these, not even close - it's the quality of their relationships. At the end of the day we are all social animals and in today's rat race and and urge to get more money and stuff we can easily get distracted from what is actually important, what really makes a positive difference in our lives. Why? Today's world revolves around having more and more - money, power, possessions and unfortunately society rewards this. If you interview graduates and ask them about their goals chances are most of them will give you those if not all three of the above. But is that what really matters in life? Obviously the folks from Harvard proved otherwise. The thing is having great relationships has no immediate positive impact on the economy, creation of wealth in the world and sadly that's why it's not getting as much attention. Imagine a world where we have KPIs and targets on our emotional wellbeing and quality of our relationships instead of business goals and reaching certain numbers or market share.
Balance wheel of Wheel of Life is a very useful planning concept. One that makes all our other efforts really worth it. It helps determine the area or direction that we need and want to grow in. Let me show you how.
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