Dashboard of Life (early version)

Chatting with a friend I hadn’t spoken to in a while, he casually summarized what had been going on with him - and did so by organizing his life into the same structure I used in coaching for years. I asked if he and I had ever talked about my “Dashboard of Life” tool, but he didn’t recognize it. It got me thinking. After chatting with one of my mentors, I decided the DoL was in need of an update. As a foundation, below is Version One, for reference.

“Dashboard of Life” - a visual summary of the speaker’s own assessment of their life. A tool to get a real answer to the question “How are you?” and a great starting place to plan your future.

When you respond to “how are you?” with “fine” – almost no information is shared. Sure, if you make the assumption you are speaking the same language, you can also assume the other person is likely awake, seems capable of hearing, and can form human speech – but that’s about it.

Introducing the “Dashboard of Life”. For a long time, I used this construct in early coaching sessions to encourage increased self-reflection and sharing. Simply put, the idea is to describe your life in terms of the big buckets: Work, Home, and Personal. From there, give yourself a 1 to 10 score for each, and assess if that part of your life is improving, worsening, or staying the same. Then, think about how much sleep you’re getting and make an estimate of how you are splitting up your waking hours into the three buckets.

Fill in the Dashboard:

1. Think about your life in terms of WORK (ex: job stress, career goals, education), HOME (ex: housing, relationships, community), and PERSONAL (ex: health, stress, hobbies, mood), and sort things into each bucket.

2. For each area, score it from 1 to 10 and assess its trend (improving, worsening, stable).

3. Next, estimate how many hours per night you are sleeping.

4. Lastly, estimate how much of your waking time each bucket is getting.

Read the Dashboard:

1. GET ENOUGH REST. Sleep and self-care are your foundation. You know how much sleep you need to feel rested, and if your number is too low – the first thing to change is to get more rest. None of the waking categories can really be improved if you’re not rested.

2. IMPROVE WHAT NEEDS IMPROVING. The scores and trends tell you where to focus. The bucket(s) with the low numbers, when you think about hos things are going or what you “need to do” - should be getting your waking hours. If not, you’re not making your life better.

3. BALANCE THE EQUATION. Compare which bucket(s) need attention with how you are distributing your waking hours. Is all of your time being spent on the area that already has a high score? Are the scores lopsided? If your scores are 9/2/5, unless that 2 is temporary and you know it will improve on its own, you need to take some resources from the 9, and get that 2 up. A life with three 5’s and 6’s is better than a 10 and a couple 3s.

4. REMEMBER NOTHING LASTS FOREVER. The great thing about having all your numbers low or going down is that nothing lasts forever. The only way out is through - and you can get through this. The lousy thing about having all your numbers high or going up is that nothing lasts forever - but even if you can’t see it, you earned this good time with your past actions and decisions. Celebrate it, revel in it, swim around in it until your fingers are all wrinkly.

This tool is simplistic, dime-store drivel, not a recipe for an amazing existence. That said - you cannot manage what you don’t measure - and sometimes just thinking about your life in a new way can help you see what you should do.

Your life is your own, and how well it goes is about 93% [reference required] within your control. If you don’t give any thought to what’s working and what needs work, how will you make your life better - or are you “fine”?