What’s your basis or foundation for the start of your day? Do you have a specific filter or guide that you want to see fulfilled or answered to in each day in order for it to feel really accomplished? Something when you think about it, pervades through all the noise and all that you do personally/professionally.
It’s the ingredients of the recipe for a perfect day. If those ingredients were missing in that recipe, it would be bitter or too sweet. This is what I have come to call the Rule of Three. Three ingredients that need to be present in everything from my perspective, that I am cooking up for the day to feel great about it when I look back.
Why three? Because it’s a prime number? No, no science honestly related to why I choose the rule of three. For me, it’s simple. Just three, super easy to keep in mind. We can make our choices to few and we can make that number to big from my perspective. It should be easy to keep in mind through out the day as I demonstrate self-awareness to them in my actions or choices.
For you, it can be something different. Maybe you have the capacity I don’t to keep 4-6 rules in mind. That’s fine. What’s important, is you find out what your number is, it’s your number. At the end of your day, you have to answer on whether you were true to those rules or not. If you can’t recall if you did or there were to many to include them all, time to rethink your choices.
The number isn’t really what’s important. The actual representation of what the number of rules are, is what’s most important. What are the rules? For me and my Rules of Three are: physical, mental, and spiritual. As I design my day or take more on during the day if those things don’t answer to the rule of three, they don’t get added onto to the pile of things. It has to be really important for it to land on the pile.
The rule of three also are compatible and flexible to any kind of environment I work, play, or run around in. My three are bigger than me, so they have to be ones that I choose that can be applied in bigger situations than me. Like with teams if it’s for work purposes. If it’s a strategy that gets my time mentally prepared for their next role, great, it’s going in there for the day to help them show up as the best version of themselves. Can we take a walk and talk instead of conference call or office chat? Great, it’s going to answer the rule of physical for them and me at the same time.
My Rules of Three feeds my overall health in several areas so I can prevent burn out. Physical is about my physical health. Keeping my body fit and healthy is important to me. So adding a run to my day, walk, or something that pushes me to experience a physical win needs to be in there. I can take a conference call, turn off video, and walk through a park just as well so I can achieve both a meeting and physical work out. Closing my rings out on my Apple Watch, I know I have physically achieved what I needed today to feel balanced physical health.
Each rule is a filter. It’s as a I said earlier a lens to look at everything you may have to add or are asked to add to your day/week/month/year. If there is a training that needs to be taken, how does it feed my mental rule for the day? If it feeds me mentally by giving me what I need to fill that cup up for the day, it’s going to be added because it falls into the rule. When things don’t fit into the rule, this helps me say more confidently, “…no, not now.” The Rules of Three keeps me balance, keeps me in check.
Rules if followed, can keep you in line and help you make better decisions. Adding the Rules of Three to my life has kept me balanced in areas that are truly important for me. I feel more accomplished when I journal at the end of the day about how my day went. I am more grateful for what the day’s accomplishments can teach me. And, when I can pass how I achieve onto others, the rules are a guide for living a more fulfilled life I can share easily. I also, remember my day’s accomplishments easier. The Rules of Three helps create these markers of achievement through out my day that stick. Points I can look backwards on, to make sure I make the right ones for the next day because I can truly measure the progress made.
I would love to hear about your Rule of Three or whatever you decide to make as your rules. Why did you pick what you picked? Does it feed your work/life balance? Did you pick your rules to be intentional so you can show up to each, feeling good about what you want out of it and expect? Hope this helps you get more from your work/life balance in your days ahead. It certainly has helped me feel greater about mine, kept me from burning out, and something I’ve been able to share with others to help others show up.
Have a great weekend holiday! Cheers.
✌🏻Shawn
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