For the past two years, I’ve been using a life intentionality system based on my life roles. It defines what’s important to me, and helps me evaluate how I’m doing each week and make needed adjustments.
David Sparks describes the system in his Personal Retreat Video and Planning Pdf. He suggests that to set up a life roles-based system, it’s best to take a multi-day overnight retreat at a remote location.
There are advantages to doing an overnight retreat:
• You go through the whole setup process in one focused project.
• When you’re done, you come out with a list of your roles, ideal behaviors for each role, an in-depth evaluation of each role, and action items.
• You can immediately start doing weekly and quarterly reviews of all your roles and make adjustments in your life to fit your intentions.
Overall, I think it’s best if you can take a multi-day overnight retreat to set up your roles-based system. See The Benefits of Going on an Overnight Retreat: A Guide to Planning and Taking a Productive Retreat.
Problem — Not Everyone Can Take an Overnight Multi-Day Retreat
Even if they’re convinced that an overnight multi-day retreat would be beneficial for them, and they’d like to take one, many people can’t do so. I have a friend who would like to, but his child care responsibilities and circumstances won’t allow him to take that much time away from home.
There are several reasons why people can’t take an overnight multi-day retreat:
• A lack of time. People with many commitments at work and home might be unable to take several days and nights off.
• A lack of money. It can be expensive to stay at a hotel or BnB to perform a retreat.
• Child Care responsibilities. Full-time dads or moms of young children might not be able to get away for longer than a few hours.
An Option – Take a “Retreat” in Which You Tackle One Role at a Time Over a Period of Weeks
As an alternative to a multi-day overnight retreat, you might want to consider spreading the process out over many weeks or months.
You tackle one role at a time, then do weekly reviews based on the roles you have completed.
Advantages of a Staggered Process
While an overnight retreat process has advantages, a staggered process also has benefits:
• Rather than doing nothing, you’re doing something. It’s much better to take a staggered approach and build your system over time than do nothing. With a gradual approach, you’re creating your system rather than waiting for the perfect opportunity to do a multi-day overnight retreat.
• You get a sense of accomplishment as you complete each step, and you can immediately start using what you’ve created in weekly reviews.
• Over time, you’ll create the same result as if you’d taken an overnight retreat. If you stick with the process, you’ll eventually have a complete list of life roles and the best version of yourself for each role to evaluate yourself.
Of course, the danger in this method is that you won’t follow through and keep working on roles until you’re done. It’s easy to get distracted by other projects.
• You give yourself more time while working through each role for reflection and continued thinking. The “scribe” in each of us can focus on doing work and getting a lot done. But the “muse” also makes valuable contributions when given the time to work between scribe activities. Spreading out the process gives more time for your subconscious muse to chew on the material and generate new thoughts and connections.
• Using a staggered process keeps you from getting overwhelmed. Instead of starting with multiple role descriptions to review, you start with one and gradually add more. This helps the review process to be less overwhelming at the beginning.
How to Do a Staggered Retreat Process
1. Start out by identifying all of your life roles. Put them on a list. They don’t have to be organized, but you can choose to organize them in groups such as relationships (husband, father, etc.), work, and others as appropriate.
2. Select the first life role you want to work on.
3. Build an initial description of your “best version of yourself” for one role. Your goal here is to describe what you see as your ideal behavior for each role.
You might want to use bullet points, as I do. See How Using Bullet Points in Life Role Descriptions Can Supercharge Your Reviews.
4. Answer the “Big Questions” or “Tough Questions” about the role. These are questions like, “What About This Role Brings Me Delight?” And “What About This Role Brings Me Dread?” See MacSparky’s list of questions in his Retreat PDF.
5. Collect action items in a list. You might want to transfer all or some of them to your task manager. As you work through the “best version of yourself” and Big Questions for each role, you will undoubtedly recognize some items you want to act on.
6. When you’ve completed the best version of yourself and answered the Big Questions for the first role, start doing weekly reviews of that role. You can add other roles to the reviews as you complete them. For a description of how I do weekly reviews and a sample template for doing reviews, see The Power of Quarterly and Weekly Reviews.
7. When you’re done with one role, move on to the next. Repeat the process until you’ve completed your list of roles.
Keep Good Notes of Your Work
• Keep a list of your roles, your best version of yourself, and your answers to the Big Questions. You can use one document, or a separate document for each role.
• Use a method that makes it easy for you to access your notes and thoughts. You will be revising your work as thoughts occur to you during your muse times. Occasionally, you’ll think of something you want to add while working on another role. If it’s a hassle to add or revise notes, you won’t do it. Simple and easy is best.
• Consider using a MindNode mind map, an outlining app, or a word-processing document to preserve your work. Whatever works best for you is what you should use.
I found using a mind map kept everything on one page in a graphical format, and made it easy for me to jump around to other roles when I needed to revisit them. Later, I transferred my roles, best versions of myself, and review questions to a review template.
Closing Suggestions
• Schedule time on your calendar each week to work on your roles. If you don’t schedule the time to do it, the work may never be done. Keep your appointment with yourself just as you would an appointment with a doctor or business associate.
• Find a location where you can focus and get your roles work done. Have a regular place where you work on your roles. That could be a desk or table at home in a room where you can close the door, a library, or a coffee shop. Find what works best for you.
• Recognize that the life roles process will never be complete. Over time, you may add or combine life roles, and you will likely continue to modify your “best version of yourself” descriptions in response to new insights or changes in circumstances.