Applying the Pareto Principle to my Relationships

 

In my last post, I talked about applying the Pareto principle to my life. I broke my life down into categories and now I am going to break down each category into the things that I can apply 20% of my effort to, in order to get 80% of the output or happiness, I am looking for.

One of the ways I used to identify what makes me most happy, was looking for moments of blissful timelessness, or moments when I am able to be present in the moment, when I am happy and nothing before or after makes any difference, I am perfectly content right here and right now.

When I started paying attention, I noticed that relationships made me most happy. I am happy when I am spending quality time with the people that I love.

Ironically, when I started to track the amount of time I spent on the things that were most important, I was pretty disappointed with myself. But, this new lifestyle of mine prohibits me from focusing on what I have done wrong, all I can do is focus right now on making it right.

So, I grabbed my handy bullet journal and started writing. Quality time with people I love is something I want to do more of. I often get caught up in my work or in my anti-work (aka relaxation time) like watching TV, reading books etc. I turn down quality time with the people that are important to me, when love and relationships is absolutely one of the things that makes me happiest.

I cannot remember which book I read, that led me on an exercise (Please tell me if you know of it). In this exercise, I had to write what I want said about me at my funeral. If you could be an angel, watching your own funeral services… what are the people saying about you? More importantly… what do you want them to say about you?

Have you ever heard of someone, on their eve of death who is reflecting upon their life…. say, “I wish I had worked more!”? I haven’t. I hear people say, “I wish I had told someone that I loved them,” “I wish I had spent more time loving_______”",” I wish I had been more fearless,”

Why then.. do I spend so much time focused on my work? I could list a hundred reasons why I spend my time on work… but, really we are living in the moment and doing what makes us happy, so I wont focus there… I will focus on spending more quality time with people I love.

Did you use relationships as one of your categories? What one thing can you do to start improving your relationships? What gives you blissful timelessness?