Goals

• Get more clarity on your values
• Critically evaluate if the way you spend your time reflects your values
• Define actions to re-align your daily activities with your values

Introduction

What kind of person would you think you are? Not knowing about any noble intentions and ambitious dreams - solely judging what you do throughout the day. You might know deep down that eventually you'll quit your job and fully invest in that side-hustle, but your stalker-self only knows about those extra hours you regularly do to keep up with your boss's deadlines. Just like the art supplies in the basement are invisible to your stalker. They have no clue about how talented and skilled you are when it comes to painting portraits, or would be if you didn't completely neglect your creative side.

How many of your values are actually an integral part of your life? Let's find out!

What you'll need

• Record of what you typically do throughout a week (see Step 0)
• List of personal values (see Step 0)
• Pen and paper (or suitable digital alternatives)
• About 30 focused minutes

Guide

Step 0: Preparations

Stalk yourself

To start with a downer: This is where the majority of you are going to cheat. Which is fine, I won't judge. Just know that doing it the way I outlined below will increase the quality of insights you'll get from this exercise. If instead, you want to base the record on what you think you typically do, or what you would like to make yourself believe, go ahead.

For a whole week, log everything you do. It's that simple. What matters most is the total time spent on any given activity. Don't sweat the small stuff, unless it adds up. So if you take a quick 5-minute break to go to the toilet, just ignore it. Unless you do that like 20 times a day because actually, you're just checking Twitter.

There are some fancy tools out there to create such logs. In my experience, a simple sheet of paper does just as well. Or some electronic spreadsheet in case you dread the thought of adding up those numbers manually.

Get some clarity on your values

Let's not be too strict with what constitutes a value right now. We might do that in an upcoming article, you have been warned! Run while you still can. Anyways, a value in this context can be described as something important to you. Something an imaginary ideal version of yourself would put on their list of priorities. While falling asleep on the couch after watching something that barely keeps your brain occupied for a few hours might feel "important" or deserved after a long work week, I highly doubt it will make it on your list as an integral part of what makes life worth living. But I guess slacking and having enough downtime to pursue "pointless" activities or simply feeling bored from time to time could be one of those values. Other examples:

• Spreading joy
• Improving the lives of the people around you
• Making progress on some long-term goals, for instance learning a new language
• Arts and Crafts. Music, Painting, Writing, Sewing, Furniture restoration
• Freedom
• Deep study
• Charity
• Gratitude
• Traveling
• Making new friends
• Fun and exploration

For more examples, see https://jamesclear.com/core-values

The list does not have to be perfect. Chances are most of what matters most to you will end up on that list in one form or another. And if not - let's be real - it's probably not one of your top values anyway.

Brownie points for clustering and roughly ranking these values. It will make things easier later on.

Step 1: Ascribing values to activities

To what degree do your actions and activities reflect your primary values in life? It's time to evaluate and potentially face the cold, hard truth.

This is of course a hypothetical example, not related to anyone I know or share an identity with... Starting at the top, sleeping seems to be this person's most common type of activity. This is a prime example of something I would categorize as "maintenance". As human beings, we don't have any other choice than to spend a significant chunk of our lives unconsciously regenerating. Hopefully on a nice mattress, which is where today's sponsor comes into play! Psych, I don't have any sponsors, so relax everyone. Anyway - sleeping, eating, socializing, and to a certain degree your job (as it rakes in the cash to buy those sweet, sweet unsponsored mattresses, or food and shelter if you're into that) can be summarized as "maintenance".

Start by marking all of your "maintenance" activities. In the example above, the main values are color-coded (with "maintenance" being indicated by a black box). In addition to color-coding, I suggest ascribing values using varying sizes of boxes:

• A large box indicates a good match between value and activity. Example: good, high-quality sleep get's a large box for "maintenance"
• A smaller, thinner box indicates that the activity helps you live up to the respective value to some degree, but it's certainly not optimal. For example, regular workouts get a smaller box for the value category of "learn/grow/improve". Any effort of getting fit can certainly be classified as improving yourself, but in isolation, it has its limits when it comes to personal growth.
• An even thinner line indicates an activity that serves some aspects of the respective value but not to a substantial degree. It's better than nothing at least.

With "maintenance" out of the way, follow the same procedure for the rest of your values.

Step 2: Stop hitting yourself!

The first potential problem is very easy to spot. Are there any activities that serve no purpose, aka they have no values allocated to them? In the example above, there are two such activities: procrastination/task-switching and transit. Whoever this poor soul may be, they need to think about that whole work-days worth of mindless procrastination they accumulate every single week. Ever felt like you need an extra day? Well, we've just found it!

Either reduce these "pointless" activities (avoid procrastination or try task batching to minimize task switching throughout the day for the previous example) or change them up so they align with one of your values. Reading a book and therefore learning something new during transit is an easy improvement.

This next part was not in my original guide, but as some pointed out, it might be crucial for a few people out there. In some cases, your typical activities will actively work against your own values. How is this even possible?

Imagine being an addict. Gambling, drugs, alcohol, smoking, you name it. Whenever we lack total freedom when it comes to our actions, we might end up harming ourselves. Whether it's mentally, physically, or by stunting our potential. It would be irresponsible to ignore these factors. If you identify something in your life that fits this description, it might be wise to focus on it before you continue. Find a way to stop it, or at least limit its harmful impact.

To a lesser degree, the same is true for some of our professional careers. Someone with a deep-seated urge to save the environment might want to look for ways to earn money other than lobbying for deforestation. Another less extreme example: A charitable, kind-hearted person working as a developer in a company that - among others - has customers in the weapons research industry.

Depending on the severity of the conflict between some of your activities and values, focusing on them first will pay off in big ways. In these cases, you might want to look for a new job or break a detrimental habit.

Step 3: There has to be a better way...

Did you skip step 2 because all of your activities are backed up by one or multiple values? Sorry, but you're still not getting out of this without getting some homework. You might not feel like you're wasting any time since even the low-quality slack time you spend on Youtube, Twitter, etc. serves the purpose of getting new ideas and inspiration into your life. While this is true, I bet it won't take long for you to come up with much more efficient, enjoyable, or otherwise better ways to get that inspiration.

Dedicating every single second of your life to your personal goals and values in a way that causes them to be perfectly aligned is not realistically achievable. It might not even be the smartest way to go about it, since some misalignment will allow new, potentially beneficial values to sprout. Unnecessarily metaphorical phrasing aside, the example below illustrates why we would still want to critically assess the match between what we do and what we value.

At first glance, this is great! This person is earning money while living according to some of their values. But it doesn't really add up to a whole lot, does it? 40h spent on barely making a dent when it comes to expressing values is certainly not optimal. Breaking this down further reveals the large amounts of time spent in meetings or shallow work (answering emails, working on routine reports, etc.). Maybe there are a few meetings and meaningless tasks to cut, which will free up more time for the type of work that contributes to this person's values. If not, it might be time to look for something new.

Step 4: Missing pieces

Lastly, let's focus on the values themselves. Do all of them get appropriate attention in your typical week? If you find one that's severely underrepresented - or completely unrepresented - it's up to you to think of activities through which you can re-introduce these values into your life. Do you value creativity, but hardly ever do something about it? Picking up a new artistic hobby might do the trick.

Go through each neglected value. What do you need to change or add to your schedule to express it regularly?

Once you've implemented some of the ideas and actions generated above, your (hopefully just metaphorical) stalker will have a much more accurate picture of the type of person you are, and most importantly the values you stand for. So if you don't want to make these types of improvements for your own sake, at least do it for the stalker!

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