Getting Ready to Use this New Decade-Calendar View
Using the Decade-Calendar View – Part 1
We have a yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily view of my calendar, but what about a decade view? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have a high level view of what can be expected in the decades of life? In this final chapter on the decade-calendar, we need to take a practical look at how we can use the decades as a calendar. We will also need to evaluate what happens when these time slots get out of sync.
Each week, I re-up my calendar a month (a rolling 30 days) in advance. During this exercise I map out how many available time slots I have for my various needs. I start by putting in the large staple slots like work, sleeping, preparing for the day, and other weekly non-negotiable activities. Once we have these settled, then I can see what we have left to work with and add in placeholders so that I know for sure what I have to work with. In this way, I’m on top of what time I have available to get something done as well when it can be done. What if we looked at the decade calendar in this way? What needs to be placed in which decade and where in the decade should it reside?
One more lap around the Decade-Calendar
If you don’t mind, now that we understand the philosophy of the decade-calendar, we will need to take one final lap around the decades to discuss what it looks like in practice. In other words, how can we use what we’ve learned about the decades of life to not only help, but take our lives to the next level? You see, the goal is always to help people go from where they are to the next level.
For each decade, we talk about it like a calendar. So for this final lap we will take each decade and discuss how we can make plans for each respective decade. Allow it to help you make the plans necessary to have the most successful life possible. How tall can a tree grow? As tall as it can. How far do we want your life to go? As far as it can.
Avoid getting your decades out of sync.
I have one warning I need to give you regarding the decades. Thanks to our friend, Ryan (we’ll give him that name so as to not reveal his true identity for privacy sake) we were able to describe this warning as we discussed the concept of the decade-calendar with him. The warning is simple. Any time the activities in any given decade fall into another decade, major problems are sure to follow. As we get into more detail, we’ll explain situations where you’ve seen this happen and actually it’s far more common than you’d think. For example, when a person begins parenting in decade-2 (10-19) as opposed to decade-3 (20-29). While there’s nothing absolutely wrong with this, such a decision will create a ripple effect in the subsequent decades. More on this as we get into it.
Let’s say God is giving you 10 decades to live.
Let’s say I were God and I’m giving you 10 decades to live. I like the sound of that. The sound of saying I’m God, not the sound of giving one only 10 decades. In fact, I’m probably being a little generous with the decades. Nonetheless, we will begin our journey here with this installment and in the next installment we will pick up with decade-1. Having 10 decades for your life would be pretty generous, don’t you think?
However, we need to dissect this idea for just a moment. When you think of it in terms of years it sounds a lot better, 100 years. But, when you think of decades it’s only 10. What’s interesting is the make up of these 10 decades.
- The first two decades are really out of your control, your parents are pretty much setting the course for your first two decades (0-19). This leaves you with eight decades that you control.
- The last two, I wouldn’t count as well. Even if you’re in the best shape and health possible at this age it’s still hard to see these decades as ones you can truly count on for producing or accomplishing your greatest dreams. Imagine what age 80-99 looks like even in the best possible light. Removing these two from the equation leaves one with six decades in which a person can live at peak performance, their most productive time. Are you with me? So far so good?
- Then there are the six decades that remain, decades 3-8 (20-79). This is where one must focus one’s attention on living their best life and no one but the individual can do that for his or her self.
Knowing this, helps you to rethink how you arrange your life and helps you take advantage of the time that should be taken advantage of. It also helps you to sort through where you are and where you wish to go. That leads me to this example involving decade-3 (20-29). Decade-3 is the hardest, most difficult decade of them all. It’s the one decade where a number of activities collide all at once. In decade-3, a person normally finds themselves:
- completing their education
- leaving their parent’s home
- starting a career
- finding one’s own place to live
- securing their own home
- getting married
- starting a family
And this is just the typical list for decade-3. So decade-3 is pretty covered up, that leaves us now with only five decades. I hope you’re getting the picture.
Over the next few installments, we’d like to pick these apart and provide insight to get you thinking at the next level about your decades. With such thinking you can shape and design your best life ever.
Question: what are your initial thoughts about having only 5-6 decades to be most productive in life?
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