The Power of Life Status Updates

How to Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

Hello everyone,

I hope you’re all doing well. Today, I want to talk about something that's been on my mind recently: looking at the bigger picture in life.

Our lives are busy, and it’s easy to get caught up in day-to-day activities and deadlines. This constant hustle can be detrimental to our long-term progress and growth because we often lack the mental capacity or emotional intelligence to work towards our long-term goals. And let's face it, long-term goals are where most of the return on investment happens.

You might have seen that classic video with a teacher, a jar, and various sizes of pebbles. It’s a great illustration of why it’s important to focus on the big things in life. If you fill the jar (representing your life) with small pebbles first, there won’t be enough space for the big ones. But if you start with the large pebbles, then the medium, and finally the small, everything fits perfectly.

One of the methods I use to keep my eyes on the bigger picture is performing a life status update every few months. This helps me understand where I currently stand, where I want to head, and how I can plan to get there.

Before writing this newsletter, I did a life status update. Armed with just a pen, paper, and my Google Calendar, I found it to be an eye-opening exercise. I thought I’d have some free time after completing a gruelling fellowship grant application last night. But it turns out, I have a few key grant application deadlines coming up in July and August. On top of that, I have at least five papers that need to be worked on and submitted. So, what should I do? Work on the papers or focus on the grant applications?

After a few minutes of contemplation, I came up with a plan. I’ll work on these papers for the next 10 days and try to submit them. Once submitted, my work will be on hold as they go through peer review, which usually takes months. If I were to set them aside until after the grant submission deadlines, the whole process would be delayed. So, the smart thing to do is to tackle them quickly, and then dedicate my time to grant writing. This way, both tasks run simultaneously—grant writing will coincide with the review process—and hopefully, I can achieve more by the end of the year.

I’ve seen many people always busy working on different things but having little to show for it in the long run. I’ve suffered from this problem myself. But performing these life status updates for many years now has helped me see the bigger picture.

So, my advice to you is to take some time to sit down by yourself and figure out the bigger picture in your life. Identify what you need to achieve in the long term and set aside time for those goals. Then, you can manage the other tasks with the remaining time.

Best wishes,

Shawon