I don’t quite know when it was that I started to suddenly feel like I was one of those circus performers…. The one holding all the poles and keeping the plates spinning in the air on the end of them.

As I look back I think I started to feel this way as I started working as a doctor whilst trying to juggle running my own business.

Add trying to function as a maturing adult into that and I started to feel like I wasn’t quite keeping track of everything. 

I wanted to focus on my fitness. I wanted to read more books. I wanted to continue to learn going on new courses. I wanted to spend quality time with my friends/family. 

Add living in the modern age into that with a phone that doesn’t stop stealing your attention & the sense that you aren’t doing enough and I started to feel VERY overwhelmed. 

The best way I describe it is feeling like I was in the passenger seat and someone else was driving the car…. 

They were driving it quite erratically though and I didn’t know where they were taking me. 

You can imagine the panic.

I realised I needed to do something about this and I couldn’t just bury my head into the sand and ignore all the other things I wanted to do…. I had already tried waiting for when I had “more time” but realised that “more time” never arrived. 

What did I do instead? 

I created my Life Quadrant Tracker. 

This is a tracker where I outline things I want to try to achieve each month in each of the 4 quadrants of my life. 

I adapted this tracker from a dashboard system used by the New York Times best-selling author Neil Pasricha who is an advocate for positivity & simple pleasures. He is best known for his book “The Happiness Equation” and his TEDx talk “The 3 A’s of Awesome” which is ranked as the 9th most inspiring TEDx talk to date.

The 4 quadrants it includes are as follows:

STRONG CORE

This includes the things I need to do to stay financially afloat aka. the work I need to do each month in order to earn money. This quadrant will look quite different for someone who’s self-employed to someone who’s employed and needs to just meet the requirements of their employer.

FASTEST LEARNING

This contains the things that I believe I need to be doing to allow me to be constantly learning & developing as a person. They are inner imperatives which provide the fuel for everything else, they allow us to expand ourselves & explore our inner talents. This includes things that force myself out of my comfort zone. For me this quadrant consists of try to read a book a month, doing at least 1 challenging out-of comfort zone activity each month & listening to an educational podcast at least 1 x per week. This quadrant could include certain hobbies/interests that you’re learning as examples.

BEST SELF

This includes any self care that I may or may not neglect. They are the things I need to do to take care or feel better about myself including my mental, physical & emotional well-being. For me this would include going to the gym 4 x per week, going for a run in the countryside 1 x per week, spending a day working in a coffee shop each month.

CONNECT FAMILY

This contains anything you need to do to remain connected to those closest around you, including your friends & family. It might be as simple as 1 x date night with your significant other each week, finding the time to call a relative each week or organising a certain number of family days together.

Once you’ve outlined the things you want to cover in your Life Quadrant Tracker you’re ready to start using it. This tracker is not to be used like any other “To Do” list.

It should be acting as a guide to help you monitor your progress each month, to see which things you’ve stayed on target with and which you need to dedicate more attention to, to keep yourself balanced.

Therefore, at the end of each month don’t tick things off that you have or haven’t completed. I would instead recommend using a coloured traffic light system where you assign a different colour to each target. At the end of the month, you can then quickly see which target(s) or quadrant(s) you’re neglecting and which you need to try to dedicate more time to. You probably won’t ever have a month where you’ve achieved everything!

The key with the tracker is it helps you to notice repeated patterns of your behaviour which you might not recognise occurring as each week passes by; however, over time neglecting these quadrants would accumulate to ultimately result in you becoming disconnected from your values, goals & happiness.

I find that my Life Quadrant Tracker helps me to identify the patches of grass that I’ve forgotten to water. You can download a copy of the tracker I use for you to fill in for yourself using this link!

I will continue to share what I can to empower & motivate others to make changes when it comes to their careers, starting a business or trying to live a better life. Did you know I offer 1:1 coaching to help others make changes in their lives? This can be related to careers, starting a business or forming healthier habits. Please just send me an email directly to elle@gabrielletodd.com if this is something you feel you would benefit from & would like to learn more about.