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Human beings value different things, and tend to prioritize those things based on their current stage of life. What we value will inevitably guide our daily actions.
Carl Pullein and Shalom H. Schwartz have compiled lists of what they believe to be values all humans — or human societies — share. Benjamin Franklin made no such claims, but his list of 13 virtues have inspired me for decades.
Carl refers to eight values, or Areas of Focus. Their order in your life will depend on your current priorities.
This page from Carl’s blog is exactly as it appears in his book (which I paid for) and I don’t mind that one bit. It’s good to have all the info in one holdable format, and I appreciate that the guy freely shares his insights online.
Shalom H. Schwartz talks about ten basic values that he believes most cultures share. They are—
Insightful, but really not coming from the same angle as Carl’s list. The latter is a collection of life areas, each of which could be assigned subsets of Schwartz’ values.
In designing my own list I’m considering both life areas and overarching values. There’s some overlap. I’m not usually an emoji person, but for this exercise-in-progress I’m finding them helpful.
Focus Areas for the Things I Do
Key Values That Guide Every Area and Task
Currently I’m going through the exercise of tagging my projects and tasks with the area that fits them best. Each area tag begins with a capital letter, and ends with an emoji. (I’d initially put the emoji first, but that complicates auto-complete.)
Interestingly, some tasks have been difficult to categorise! It’s really making me think about the why behind items on my To Do list.
My theory is that every single task worthy of being done must relate to an area and align with one or more values. Clearly defining personal values and what they mean to me is showing my projects and tasks in a clearer light.
Whether or not I continue the practice isn’t the point; for the moment it’s guiding, reinforcing, strengthening my direction, and I love that!
FYI I’m doing this in Apple’s Reminders app, but it should work anywhere.
You may find Carl Pullein’s Areas of Focus workbook (and other downloadables) helpful in compiling your own list. Remember to consider the difference between areas of your life, and the overarching values you apply to them.
I’m optimistic that my independent website will be up and running soon. Giving up on Blot was a decision reluctantly made, due to lack of support from what appears to be the singular developer running the project. Quartz is proving harder than expected to access, so I’m experimenting with converting Markdown to HTML with the Webpage HTML Export plugin, and hosting the files it generates on Fastmail. If it looks janky, that’ll be the reason!
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