Ever feel the pressure to do absolutely everything, from maintaining friendships and climbing the career ladder to spending time with your family, maintaining a wellness regime AND a social life?
We feel ya.
So does Randi Zuckerberg, the former Director of Market Development and spokesperson for Facebook, and sister of the company’s co-founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
That’s why she developed the Pick Three Method. Randi first coined the term on Twitter and saw it go viral so decided to pen a book teaching people how to use it to their advantage. Here, she shares an excerpt of Pick Three You Can Have It All (Just Not Every Day) with GLAMOUR and we predict it will literally change your life.
So how do you do it? Randi has broken down five key areas of your life as follows…
Work
Projects where you contribute time and, in return, derive value, which could be in the form of money, passion, meaning, a sense of contribution to something greater, or a stepping-stone to a long-term goal. Value could result from a traditional job, a passion project, a class or coursework at school, an internship, a charitable initiative, etc. You are creating output for some sort of input.
Sleep
That pesky thing that eats up 30 percent of your day (if you’re lucky!).
Family
This could be the family you were born into, the family you create, the family you choose. This doesn’t have to mean your biological family, either. Maybe your church is your family. Maybe you have a ‘modern’
family, or a nontraditional family. However you need family in your life, this is the category for prioritising it.
Friends
This is my personal catch-all for things that are fun. When you think about friends, you typically think about the closest people in your life. But this is where I also think about side hobbies and outside interests —the people and activities that bring pleasure outside of work and family.
Fitness
While the term fitness conjures up images of dumbbells and sweat, to me, this category reflects a broader goal of self-care and health: physical fitness, mental fitness, emotional well-being, mindfulness, stress management, and healthy eating.
Now what?
Now is the time for ruthless prioritisation. So, sorry, you don’t get to pick all five. Not today. Not any day. If you want to be great at what you do. Pick three and only three. And don’t waste one minute feeling guilty or bad about the two you didn’t pick. Because you’ll get another chance to pick them tomorrow. Or the day after.
“While I have no doubt that every once in a while, for a day or two, you can manage to hit all five of these, it’s really not sustainable in the long run,” she says. “If you try to accomplish all five things WELL (keyword: well), you’re headed for complete and utter burnout. You’re not going to grand-slam all five at a high- functioning level. Sure, it’s humanly possible to touch upon your family, your friends, your work, your sleep, and your fitness every day. But doing all five things – even just for a day – means you’re probably not doing any of them with any real depth. We’ve been taught that imbalance is a dirty word, but I think it’s actually the key to success and happiness.
“When you focus solely on the trio you choose each day, prioritising becomes totally manageable and you give yourself the permission to do those three things with the kind of excellence that will propel you further than weeks of half-assed focus,” Randi explains. “Picking three enables you to have the best in terms of short-term focus and long-term balance.”
