living my best life

I like lists. I like to create them and I like to use them. But, more than anything, I like to check items off of them. The latter brings me a sense of accomplishments and joy. Armed with my lists, I can look back at my day, my week, my month, my year and, really, my life, and prove, if only to myself, that I’m getting shit done.

And, as many times as it crosses my mind that I’m going to drive myself crazy with all of the lists and that I should just live my life without tracking everything, making lists is who I am. At my core, I track and I make check marks and strike throughs and squiggly lines and all of the things that mean an item has been completed.

As an admitted list lover, I recently created and began tracking my key personal indicators, or KPIs. This exercise was prompted by a combination of identifying and analyzing my core values and how I want to live my life (and discovering and, in some cases affirming, I was spending a lot of time not living how I desired). While I’ve always been one to create monthly goals and weekly most important tasks (MITs), and of course there have always been task lists and daily to-dos, and these will continue, my KPIs are focused living my best life — one day at a time.

• Did I do my best today to live my values and make choices that support them?
• Did I do my best today to be mindful and notice?
• Did I do my best today to work toward my goals and intentions for the year, month, week and day?
• Did I do my best to support the belief that we’re all doing the best we can with what we have?
• Did I do my best to let things go that are not in my control?
• Did I do my best to work an appropriate amount of hours + have good work/life balance?
• Did I do my best to begin my day of with stretching + sun salutations?
• Did I start my day with a full glass of water?
• Did I make my bed?
• Did I do my best to write down 10 ideas today?
• Did I do my best to eat a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner?
• Did I do my best to drink enough water?
• Did I do my best to limit caffeine and alcohol?
• Did I do my best to read for at least 30 minutes?
• Did I do my best to limit digital/screen/TV time?
• Did I do my best to write (journal, blog, etc.)?
• Did I do my best to honor my body with exercise for 30 minutes?
• Did I do my best to meditate?
• Did I do my best to reflect before bed?
• Did I do my best to spend time outdoors?
• Did go to bed in a room without clutter + clothes?
• Did I do my best to treat myself and others with respect + one good deed?
• Did I do my best to connect with someone?
• Did I do my best to honor my body with eight hours of good sleep?

I track daily each of the above on a scale of 1 – 10 and also record any reflections. While some can be answered by a straight forward yes or no, many are gauged on whether I did my best to accomplish the thing or spend the time on something because I, like everyone else, am only human and some days doing my best, even if it doesn’t result in a 10, is really all I can do.

What would would your daily KPIs look like? Are you using another method to ensure you’re living your best life?