The Whole-Life Grid

Take an index card or sheet of paper and divide it into thirds both horizontally and vertically so that you have nine boxes, kind of like a tic-tac-toe board or the opening credits of The Brady Bunch. Seriously, do it. It’ll only take a minute, and you’ve probably got scrap paper near you. Look back at the screen when you’re done.

Okay, now that you have your nine boxes, fill each space with a word or phrase for each of the main parts of your life. I’m thinking of things like family, job, health. Just go for it and fill things in to the extent that you can with whatever comes to mind. Come back when you’re done.

The first time you do this, you may find it difficult to think of something for each box. When I first did it about a decade ago, I could only think of four things right away: family, health, teaching, and dissertation. I have also heard of people who fill up the nine boxes easily with more to add. For a lot of people, it’s one or the other.

That’s where part two of the exercise comes into play. This time, divide a card or piece of paper into nine squares and think about what needs to be in them, and I do place an emphasis on “needs.” If you found yourself with too many categories, think about what areas should define your life so that everything gets the attention it deserves. If you found yourself with too few categories, think of what you should add to enhance your life. Either way, to live a life of richness and balance, where should you place your attention? What is missing that should be there? What is there that shouldn’t be?

This exercise comes from Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers. I admit that I have not read the book, but a friend told me about this exercise, what Jeffers calls “The Whole-Life Grid,” well over a decade ago, and the book has been in print for over twenty years. The purpose of this grid is to think about your life and the areas that define it so that you live a rich, full life that also feels balanced with you in the driver’s seat. Ultimately, if you have nine areas that define you’re life, you can handle disruptions in one area more easily. For example, if things are not going well with your physical health, you might find strength in your family or friends to help you through the rough parts. If all of your eggs are in that one proverbial basket, it’s more difficult to handle problems that arise when that basket tips over. If your entire life is about your job and your job only, where do you turn when your job gets disrupted or, worse, you lose it? If you haven’t been giving any attention to other areas of your life, it can be difficult to find joy and purpose somewhere else.

My first attempt at this exercise showed me how out-of-balance my life was. And to be honest, my health and family were not getting all that much attention, which this exercise made perfectly clear and hard to deny. Today when I do this, I think of nine categories easily: my partner, friends, teaching, my book project, other professional writing, creative/personal writing, my job, emotional health, and physical health. I divide health into two categories because I feel I need to pay special attention to each kind to be healthy in both areas. I use “my job” for all of those things I have to do that are particular to my position at my institution, the committee meetings and service activities we all face. I divide writing into three categories because I have a tendency to spend time writing in one category and thinking I’ve done enough writing for the day when I have actually never touched the other two, which are just as important to me.

You will have your own categories, of course. If you have children, that may be a category, or you may create a category for each child. If you hold a significant administrative position in your job, you may separate that from other service or job responsibilities. You may just have a category for scholarship where you put all writing. You may just have one category of health or may not feel the need to give that area any attention. Obviously, the categories should not matter to anyone else but you. The point is to figure out what defines your life so that you can feel engaged and happy.

This is a good exercise to do regularly because our responsibilities change. At one point, I did have a family category. I removed it after my mother died and added the category of creative/personal writing because I resumed keeping a paper journal where I wrote about the effect her death was having on me, and I started crafting a few essays about things that were coming up in the journal. I added my book project just a few months ago when I started formalizing it, replacing the category of psychological health, which I realized over time was the same (for me) as emotional health.

What about you? What are the nine areas you have come up with? Are there any that I have not mentioned that might be useful for others to know as they think of their list? Let us know in the comments what’s on your mind after doing this.

[Creative Commons licensed photo by Flickr user nhighberg]?