Should I Do A Life Audit? Checking In On Life And Career Goals
We spend ever day checking in on others, but when’s the last time you checked in on you?
If you know me, or have read my writing over the past two years, you’ll know I’m quite a busy bee. I don’t like being bored and I’m constantly looking for ways to grow professionally. If I could, I’d bring my laptop with me everywhere I go (instead I have a phone that’s on the cusp of having no memory and an abused Filofax).
As happy as I am with where that attitude has got me, it’s hard to ignore the fact that this behaviour has absolutely drained me of energy. The past 6-7 months have been amazing, but hectic, and as I’m prone to stretching myself too thin - I think it’s time for a change of pace. Busy bodies with a similar mindset will know that you can only do so much before the quality of your work begins to suffer.
I’ve been super keen to slow down and focus on the stuff that matters in life, instead of pushing myself to the next stage of my career, I’ve been planning on focusing on improving in the stage I’m currently at, which means:
Getting more than 5 hours sleep per night
Batch creating my own content at the start of each month
Working out regularly
Reading one book per month
Aiming to pass one certification per month
In the grand scheme of things, these are much smaller goals than I normally set myself. But they’re healthy ones, and I hope by the time you’re reading this article, I’m still committing to them. They’re the bare necessities, but ones that I’ve been missing out on this year.
Looking back to early January, when I first took the time to think about what I want to be proud of by next NYE I looked for ways I could accurately write down my goals, in a way that still felt fulfilling to tick off. I ended up stumbling across the idea of a life audit.
Whats a life audit?
Similar to the usual audit, life audits ask you to take stock of where you are in all aspects of your life. That includes, health, personal life, and professional life.
Are you happy with where you are? What would you rate it out of ten? If it’s not immaculate, how do you want to improve by the next time round?
Once you’ve sat down with a coffee and taken a look at where you are in life, ask yourself what can you do next to improve that rating. Obviously a life audit can be quite intimate, so I won’t be sharing my scores or plans here. Instead I’ll show you what I set up afterwards.
Notion
Have you heard of Notion? If not you might have been living under a rock. Notion.so is a mixture of almost every productivity app imaginable, allowing you to create online spaces in whatever style you like.
Using templates shared by productivity influencers, I created my own January vision board. My own hub for my goals, important to-dos, and inspirations that I can manage and tick off pretty easily.
At the moment, I’m pretty in control of my work, I’m writing daily and batch creating content each weekend for my personal branding and for my freelance clients.
It’s a process, and will take time to master - but as I’m working on April’s content in mid January, I feel like I’m creating plenty of space to grow or take a break if I need to.
As I grow as a person, a writer and a freelancer I think it’s important to remind myself there will be slip ups this year. Nothing is perfect and if there are slip ups that’s okay. What can we learn from them? How can we try to steer away from them next time?
It’s all a journey.