Irons in the fire, feet on the ground, life in the trees.
When I look around the world and through history I see that my life is a precious gift and opportunity I don't want to waste. I'm confident that Life Balance and this community can help me appreciate and honor life as I find it.
A few years back my doctor started me on a path toward living mindfully as a way to reduce anxiety and enjoy life. That opened into my yoga practice, and led me to a deeper appreciation of my own self-worth, my family, my careers, my church and my house.
In my professional career, I'm a software engineer in a large, global, diverse technology and consulting company. In my whole life, one of my goals is to build and maintain interlocking foundations for my professional, volunteer, activist and retirement careers.
I am interested in many things, but not every thing and I have too much to do. Sometimes I see that as a burden, but I am happiest when I recognize it as a source of great wealth in my life. Not wealth in the form of money or compensation for doing things, but wealth in the form of having interesting, worthwhile things to do - many things.
I was primed to recognize the value of Life Balance when I came across it in one of the Palm related newsletters. I tried it for several days and saw that it is a great tool with a very promising support community and framework.
Even if I don't find a clean answer to my current "can I" question, I look forward to using Life Balance and building on the support of this community to achieve my goals and continue my journey.
My current "can I" question is this: "Can I see balance graphs for the sub-tasks of a specific task, or alternatively, can I see a balance graph showing the relative effort spent on each of multiple life balance documents?" The idea here is that I want to see the relative effort for major tasks, and I want to see the effort spent on sub-tasks within a task.
Going at this from another angle, one of my sub tasks under "Manage my careers," is "Accomplish current projects for my t&c employer." I want to be able to see how much effort I am dedicating to each of these current projects relative to each other, how much I am dedicating to "t&c projects" relative to other subtasks of "Manage my careers," and how much I am spending on "Manage my careers" relative to my other whole-life level-0 goals.
Its hard to follow this without pictures, but I have to believe you've thought of this kind of thing before and I hope you may be able to recognize it without pictures.
If you can help with this - thanks!
Either way, thanks for the Life Balance product and your website!
P.S. I decided on this user id because my home office (living room) looks out into the branches of many burl oaks.
Comments
Lovely trees...
Thank you for your wonderful introduction, and for your participation here in our community. I believe that everyone here will benefit from your experience.
I believe that I understand your "can I" question, and the answer is that we do not support "sub pies." It's a limitation. So sorry.
However, you are bringing this up in a slightly different way than I've heard before. If I'm understanding rightly, you are less interested in setting the "desired" effort allocation among the sub pies, but seeing where the effort went, the "actual" pie chart.
The effects of setting the desired allocation in the pie chart of a sub project is a smaller effect in the data engine. It has a lot less oomph toward what happens in the to do list than setting the effort for the top level goals. It is an idea that we continue to think about.
However, the idea of showing, in some form, the accomplishments (the actual tasks) filtered by sub projects is a different take on it. There could be other ways for us to think about that.
Anyway, many thanks for framing your question thoughtfully.
I will also add we absolutely agree with you -- that to have many tasks, "too much to do," where your tasks are of your own choosing and where you care deeply about each one IS a a great gift. It is what we hope for, for all our customers. It makes for a full and interesting life.
Many people these days accept too many tasks that do not contribute meaningfully to their heart's desires, to the happiness in their lives. It is easy to misunderstand how a task fits into part of the whole fabric and just plow ahead to get it done whether it matters or not. It is our hope that Life Balance helps people first to see that as a problem, and then to gradually move toward where you already are. The software becomes a way to make the pie seem bigger because the worth of each task will be higher, and completing each task brings more of that "wealth" and richness to your life. When we "spend" more of our time on the more meaningful tasks, we do receive more real "value" back. :-)
I hope that makes sense to you, or others who may read and think about this later.
Best wishes, and thanks again,
--Catherine--*
P.S. I have a view of trees here, too, and right now I can hear several geese talking to one another from the pond across the street!
Taking notice of these small things is a pleasure in my life too.
Whistling wings
I am George in the trees.
Thank you Catherine for taking the time to consider my "can I" question carefully and understanding the heart of my interest. I will have other questions later.
Thanks also for your reflection on the value in knowing why we do what we do.
Thanks again, for providing software and hosting a community to help us with these questions.
Warmest Regards
George
P.S. Occasionally, just after dawn and just after sunset, I hear the whistling wingtips of two or three geese flying along the valley just above the treetops. It is a sound of silence, and it is a pleasure.