1st things 1st blog

How to Choose a Guided Meditation for Daily Practicing

Post author By Aidas Bendoraitis
Post date June 6, 2020
No Comments on How to Choose a Guided Meditation for Daily Practicing

Reading Time: 4 minutes

If you want to stay happy and peaceful, you probably practice meditation. Tried a series of different guided meditations, you would find it useful to have a meditation track on your iPhone so that you can practice it in a park, at the workplace, or even in public transport. Meditation apps like Soulvana, Omvana, Calm, or Headspace are cool, but maybe they are not your thing, and all you need is a simple MP3 with the guidance that you can listen to at any place.

You did your research and selected several guided meditations. Now you want to decide which of them to choose. Your guided meditation must meet several criteria you have. To help you prioritize, 1st things 1st comes into play.

Using 1st things 1st to prioritize guided meditations

At 1st things 1st, you create prioritization projects, where you perform these four steps:

Define criteria.
List out meditations (or other things).
Rate each meditation by each criterion.
Explore priorities.

⚙️ Project setup

At first, you will add a new project to your personal account. You will choose “Blank” from the project templates.

The project creation wizard will guide you through the essential questions:

1. The project Title and Short description – you will probably call the project “Guided Meditations”. Next!

2. Then you will set how to name things. You will change the Things to Meditations.

When you created the project, you will go to the main steps of prioritization.

🧭 Step 1. Add criteria

In the first step of prioritization, you will add the list of criteria and their evaluation types.

Can be saved on your iPhone because you want to access it anywhere.
Takes a short time because you don’t have much alone time during the day.
Improves well-being because that’s what matters to you.
Boosts energy because you need to relax and gain the focus back.
Performed in a kind tone because you don’t want to listen to unpleasant guidance regularly.

Choose Bulk add criteria and enter these criteria one per line. Set their evaluation type From “definitely not” to “definitely”

The criteria will be added to the prioritizer. Now you can edit them and change their importance.

💡 Step 2. Add guided meditations

In the next step, you will list out your guided meditations.

Arriving Meditation by Connected Business (9:30)
6 Phase Meditation by Vishen Lakhiani (15:30)
15 Minute Guided Meditation by Boho Beautiful (16:30)
Brief Mindfulness of Breathing by Dr. Miles Neale (7:15)
Guided Meditation: Focus Pt 1 by Rhys Winton (4:00)

After choosing Bulk add meditations, you will enter them line by line:

The meditations will be added to the prioritizer. You can then edit them individually.

🎚 Step 3. Evaluate meditations by criteria

Now it’s time to evaluate all guided meditations by all criteria.

For example, you can save most of these meditations on iPhone either as MP3 or as offline Spotify tracks, but “15 Minute Guided Meditation by Boho Beautiful” is from Youtube, extracting sound from it would be complicated. 15-minute meditations are probably not short, but you can practice the others in 10 minutes or less. “Arriving Meditation by Connected Business” and “6 Phase Meditation by Vishen Lakhiani” definitely improves well-being and boosts energy, whereas others are not so effective.

📊 Step 4. Explore priorities

The prioritizer will show you calculated and sorted meditations grouped into the ones:

to choose for sure,
to consider, and
to skip.

“Arriving Meditation by Connected Business” might be at the top, matching your criteria at 95%. That will be the track that you will transfer to your Music app and listen to it regularly to calm your mind and restore energy. “6 Phase Meditation by Vishen Lakhiani” could also be pretty close, matching the criteria at 85%. It’s worth having on your iPhone for more random and longer rest times.

Final words

Whether you evaluate meditation tracks or meditation apps, prioritizer 1st things 1st might be handy for you. Check it out now and make rational decisions about things that matter to you!

Cover photo by Jared Rice.

Tags meditation, mental-health, self-awareness, self-help, spirituality

Entrepreneurship

How to Strategically Select Stories for Your Weekly Newsletter

Post author By Aidas Bendoraitis
Post date May 25, 2020
No Comments on How to Strategically Select Stories for Your Weekly Newsletter

Reading Time: 4 minutes

The problem: lack of clarity

Let’s say you have a mailing list with a few thousand subscribers. You send a newsletter every week on Tuesdays at 2 pm. You want to keep your subscribers engaged with some news related to your service and some industry news and opinions from around the world.

You use Quora, Twitter, and LinkedIn feeds, medium.com blogs, and your secret source to discover new exciting information from your industry. How would you decide which of the findings to send in the newsletter? You probably don’t want to send randomly selected news, because it matters to you how many subscribers you will have and how many of them will click on your links and buy your products.

You will carefully select your stories by the following criteria:

Is it relatable to your target user?
Is the news source trustworthy?
Are the events described actual?
Is the story captivating?
Does it create positive vibes?

One of the best ways to make a decision is to use the strategic prioritizer 1st things 1st.

The solution: using 1st things 1st

The workflow of the strategic prioritizer is pretty straightforward and consists of four steps:

Defining criteria
Listing out stories (or other things)
Evaluating stories by each criterion
Exploring priorities

Let’s have a look at how to do that!

⚙️ Project setup

The project creation wizard will guide you through the essential questions:

1. Enter a project title and optionally a description. For example, you can call your project “Stories for the Newsletter”:

2. Decide how to name things. In this case, we will be evaluating Stories by Criteria.

Now when you created the project, let’s explore the main steps of prioritization.

🧭 Step 1. Add criteria

The first step of prioritization is adding criteria. Choose Bulk add criteria and enter these criteria one per line:

Relatable
Trustworthy
Actual
Captivating
Positive

Choose the evaluation type From “definitely not” to “definitely” for them.

You will get five criteria created in your project. Now to set the importance of any of the criteria less than 100%, edit that criterion.

💡 Step 2. Add stories

In the next step, you will add stories to prioritize. For example, you want to sort three stories about Augmented Reality:

Choose Bulk add stories and enter the titles one per line:

Facebook teases a vision of remote work using augmented and virtual reality

Copy and paste the real world with your phone using augmented reality

This augmented reality eyepiece lets firefighters see through smoke

You will get the stories added to the project. There you can edit each of them and, for example, add the links in the descriptions:

🎚 Step 3. Evaluate stories by criteria

Now evaluate all stories by all criteria. Go through the whole list and mark your choices. Be aware that the number of evaluations will be equal to criteria × stories.

Let’s say, the first two stories are probably relatable, because lots of people work from home and copy-paste, but the story about firefighters are possibly relatable because not so many people extinguish fires. The first two stories are definitely trustworthy, because verge.com has high Alexa site ranking, and the third story is probably trustworthy because the ranking is lower. The story about Facebook’s employees working from home is probably not very captivating, because the video is of poor quality, but the other two stories are pretty captivating.

📊 Step 4. See priorities

The prioritizer shows calculated and sorted stories grouped into the ones:

to choose for sure,
to consider, and
to skip.

As a result, all of the chosen stories are pretty strong, but the story about copying and pasting in augmented reality would be the most worth sharing in the newsletter; it got the priority of 90%. The story about firefighters got 85%; maybe you can share it next week. And the last one, the story about using Augmented Reality at the home office of Facebook employees, got 75%.

If the results are entirely unexpected, try to adjust the importance of your criteria or change the criteria to match your values.

Final words

After prioritizing your news stories, create the newsletter, describe the story of high priority or link to the original, send it, and keep the number of subscribers growing.

Check out the strategic prioritizer at 1st things 1st.

Cover photo by My name is Yanick.

Tags entrepreneurship, marketing, newsletter, priorities, prioritizer, startup, strategy

Life Progress Self-awareness

The Cycle of Long-term Success

Post author By Aidas Bendoraitis
Post date May 6, 2020
No Comments on The Cycle of Long-term Success

Reading Time: 2 minutes

In my younger days, I was obsessed with finding the formula for happiness and success. Why do some people achieve more than others? Why do some people suffer when others enjoy their lives? What is the secret of some people’s advantage against some others? What do successful people do differently from the poor ones?

At some point, I realized that happiness and success are two different things. Happiness is something that you feel yourself, whereas success is something how others perceive you. There are happy people without significant achievements as well as successful but stressed and depressed people.

Success might be random, like a toss of a coin. That will likely be short-term. Have you heard that 70% of lottery winners spend all their money just in a few years after receiving the big amounts? There has to be something else. Something better than randomness.

As of now, I know that circumstances are one of the factors. But mostly everything depends on the mindset. A human being can change their mind and then be able to change the conditions or adapt to them.

Success happens through forming better habits and sticking to your goals.

As a great thinker and author, James Clear, once tweeted

There are 3 primary drivers of results in life:
1) Your luck (randomness).
2) Your strategy (choices).
3) Your actions (habits).
Only 2 of the 3 are under your control.
But if you master those 2, you can improve the odds that luck will work for you rather than against you.

Did you notice that in life, everything happens in cycles?

I want to introduce you to the cycle of long-term success as I see it today.

Everything begins with prioritization. It can be some productive work using mind mapping, TODO lists, decision matrixes, and other tools. It can be something that you do intuitively or meditatively in your head. Or it can be something that your managers and bosses do for you.
Then there is planning. It’s dividing big tasks into small ones, assigning time for different tasks, deciding who will do what, choosing appropriate tools. Maybe you’ll also be using Trello, Monday, or Clubhouse, to name a few.
Now it’s time for action. Do what you have to do to move towards your goal. Try to make progress. Try to fit the timetable. Remove all the bottlenecks. Make that call. Write that email. Create that masterpiece. Travel to that destination.
The last step of the cycle is celebrating your successes. Or, if your actions failed, you have something from what to learn and improve for the next time.

And the cycle goes on and on again.

Cover photo by Grant Ritchie

Tags cycle, happiness, progress, strategy, success

Uncategorized

Will Online Courses Be the Key to YOUR Success?

Post author By Aidas Bendoraitis
Post date April 24, 2020
No Comments on Will Online Courses Be the Key to YOUR Success?

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Udemy, Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, Masterclass, Mindvalley, edX, FutureLearn, Codecademy, freeCodeCamp, and so on and forth – with so many online learning platforms and their offerings, it is not so trivial to choose the right online course for you. What if I say that there is a rational way to make the right decision? I will show you how I did that with my online-course preferences.

A great opportunity to study

Coronavirus lockdowns forced us to spend more time at home. The lucky ones got possibilities to work remotely while saving commuting time. Many others were forced to stay at home without work, and that opened even bigger time slots to learn new skills.

I am not an exception. While staying home, I noticed that there is a little more time and decided to build up my skills. For quite a while, I’ve had a dream to learn the basics of piano, I wish to learn more about digital marketing, I want to improve my memory, and I think that machine learning skills could be beneficial in my professional life.

Over time I collected a list of courses that I would like to take:

“Piano for all” by Robin Hall on Udemy, because it teaches different genres of piano music, not just the classical, and should be fun to learn.
“All Access Pass” on 42courses, because all of those courses look very lively and modern, and teach different kinds of marketing skills that I would use for my company Websightful UG.
“Superbrain Quest” by Jim Kwik on Mindvalley, because Jim Kwik is the best memory coach.
“Applied Machine Learning in Python” by Kevyn Collins-Thompson on Coursera, because one day once and for all, I want to have a good understanding of Machine Learning and be able to solve real problems with it.
“Copywriting secrets” by Len Smith and Sean Kaye on Udemy, because I want to improve the writing skills that I will use in this blog, the 1st things 1st website, and elsewhere to create content that persuades and sells.

What should I study first? And why? I made use of strategic prioritizer 1st things 1st to figure that out.

Using 1st things 1st

1st things 1st is an online tool to rate anything by multiple criteria and calculate total priorities. You can prioritize anything in these 4 steps:

Define criteria
List out things (such as online courses)
Evaluate things by each criterion
Examine the priorities

Let’s have a look at how I prioritized my selected online courses to find out the first one to study.

⚙️ Project setup

I added a new project to my personal account. From the project templates, I chose “Online Courses”. The same project template exists at an organizational account too.

The project creation wizard guided me through the essential questions:

1. The project title and description – I was alright with the defaults, so I immediately went to the next step:

2. Then I had to decide how to name things. The preselected values suggested evaluating Online courses by Criteria. That sounded pretty good to me. Next!

3. Then I could choose up to 5 criteria. I took the three ones that resonated with me mostly.

Now when I created the project, let’s explore the main steps of prioritization.

🧭 Step 1. Review and edit criteria

In the first step of prioritization, I could edit the list of criteria and change their importance or evaluation types. The default importance for all of them was 100%, and the evaluation types differed depending on the context.

For example, this is how I set the criteria for online courses:

Improves skills for personal mission because the mission itself is what defines my future.
Self-paced course because I don’t want to be bounded to specific times of the day and week for studying.
Entertaining because I like edutainment, not just dull streams of information.
Needed soon because I want to apply the knowledge gained as soon as possible before it is forgotten.
Low-cost because currently, I have other critical expenses that I need to cover.

All of those criteria mattered to me, so I set the 100% importance to all of them.

Your criteria and their importance would depend on your attitude and perspectives. For example, maybe these things mattered to you: the authority of the lecturer, the popularity of the course, direct contact with the teacher, or the certificate after the successful completion.

💡 Step 2. Add online courses

In the next step, I had to list out the courses.

I clicked on the button “Bulk add online courses” and pasted this list:

"Piano for all" by Robin Hall on Udemy
"All Access Pass" on 42courses
"Superbrain Quest" by Jim Kwik on Mindvalley
"Applied Machine Learning in Python" by Kevyn Collins-Thompson on Coursera
"Copywriting secrets" by Len Smith and Sean Kaye on Udemy

As a result, my online courses were created at the prioritizer:

🎚 Step 3. Evaluate courses by criteria

Now it’s time to evaluate all online courses by all criteria.

For example, learning piano didn’t follow my mission, but learning marketing skills did. All of those courses happened to be self-paced. The machine learning course was probably not entertaining, but the others were. Some of those courses were very affordable or even free, and some of them were very expensive.

📊 Step 4. Examine priorities

The prioritizer showed calculated and sorted courses grouped into the ones:

to choose for sure,
to consider, and
to skip.

For me, the first course to take was about copywriting secrets: it supposed to move me towards my mission, it could be interesting to study, and it was very affordable. I took it without procrastination and completed it just a few hours ago.

The other courses were also quite high in the priority list, and I would take the opportunity to study them sooner or later.

Only learning piano could wait until I reach my primary goals.

Final words

Use your intuition when selecting a list of online courses, but evaluate them rationally if you want your life to lead you somewhere day after day.

Check out the strategic prioritizer 1st things 1st now and make a progressive life!

Cover photo by Noémi Macavei-Katócz.

Tags knowledge, learning, online courses, priorities, skills, studies

Entrepreneurship

How to Choose Marketing Tactics for your Service to Achieve Your Goals in Time

Post author By Aidas Bendoraitis
Post date April 18, 2020
No Comments on How to Choose Marketing Tactics for your Service to Achieve Your Goals in Time

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Do you have a product or a service, but you don’t know how to market it effectively? Today I want to show you how you can use the strategic prioritizer 1st things 1st to create the marketing strategy. We are going to evaluate a series of marketing tactics according to our chosen criteria to see on which of the tactics we should focus. To be practical, I will show you an example with the strategic prioritizer itself as a service that I want to promote.

The workflow of the strategic prioritizer is pretty straightforward and consists of four steps:

Defining criteria
Listing out tasks (or other things)
Evaluating tasks by each criterion
Exploring priorities

Note, it would be best if you could invite a marketing specialist to guide you through this.

Ready? Let’s start!

⚙️ Project setup

Add a new project to the organizational account. From the project templates, choose “Marketing Strategies”.

The project creation wizard will guide you through the essential questions:

1. Change or keep the project title and description. I will call my project “Marketing Initiatives for 1st things 1st”:

2. Decide how to name things. The preselected values suggest evaluating Tasks by Criteria. I will leave them this way. Do Initiatives or Tactics sound more reasonable to you than Tasks? Do Values or Aspects seem better than Criteria? You decide.

3. Define your mission and vision. This step is not mandatory, but it helps you get into the correct mindset.

The mission of 1st things 1st is “Assist people in defining and following their direction.”

And the vision is “1000 self-contented people and 100 successful teams in 3 years.”

4. Define the timeframe for your project. This step is also not mandatory, but when you have the start and end in mind, you can better choose the tactics for that timeframe.

As you can guess from the vision, the timeframe for 1st things 1st will be from the January 1, 2020 till December 31, 2022. After that, the strategies might need to get revisited.

5. Choose up to 5 criteria. Check what resonates with you mostly.

6. Choose some tasks that seem reasonable to you or that you would like to try. You’ll be able to enter some more tasks as free text later too.

Now when you created the project, let’s explore the main steps of prioritization.

🧭 Step 1. Review and edit criteria

Now you can edit the list of criteria and change their importance or evaluation types. The default importance for all of them is 100%, and the evaluation type is the percentage from 0 to 100% (you will see them in step 3).

For example, this is how I set the criteria for the marketing tactics that I would like to use for 1st things 1st:

Develops awareness because people need to learn how to use it.
Aims at a target market because it’s not merely for everyone like food, air, water, and wifi.
Maintains audience focus because people need to get reminded about best practices if they want to live progressively.
Ethical because of GDPR and being fair with the customers.
Value for money because marketing tactics need to bring profit to the business.

All of those criteria matter to me, so I set the 100% importance to all of them.

Your criteria and their importance will depend on your attitude and perspectives.

💡 Step 2. Review and edit tasks

In the next step, you will see the list of our chosen tasks where you can change their titles and descriptions.

For example, at the setup, I chose these things:

Add compelling design elements, because that’s what attracts my attention when I see that on other websites.
Respond to questions on Quora, because that’s a place where intellectual people gather.
Design cover images for social profiles, because it’s a proper place to strengthen your brand.
Guest write for industry blogs, because that’s a way to reach your target audiences.
Interact with consumers via social media, because that’s how you create a dialogue with your users.
Develop contests to promote a service or a product, because it would be interesting to try that.
Do competitor keyword analysis, because that’s how you can attract more visitors to your site.
Develop demonstrations or tutorials, because people need to get informed on how to use the tool.
Do networking in person. because word of mouth is one of the most effective marketing techniques.
Write tips & how-to articles to share with prospects or customers, because that’s one more way to spread the knowledge about the usage examples of the tool.
Research affiliate programs, because that’s one of the ways to get more viral spread.
Send newsletters, because this builds the audience and allows us to do A/B testing of your marketing campaigns.
Publish videos on Youtube, because videos are the most attractive and viral media type at the moment.
Comment on articles and blog posts online, because that gives voice to your brand.
Send out product samples, because positive reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations can attract more customers.
Regularly publish blog posts, because people need to know your intentions and progress.
Send thank you notes or emails to customers, because they are who keep your business running.
Develop keyword lists for SEO, because we want to get higher rankings in the search engines.

Also, I added a couple of new tasks:

Regularly post on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, because that’s where my target audience spends time.
Run ad campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, because that’s where I can find more people interested in this strategic prioritizer.

🎚 Step 3. Evaluate tasks by criteria

Now evaluate all tasks by all criteria. Go through the whole list and mark your choices. Be aware that the number of evaluations will be equal to criteria × tasks.

Let’s say, answering questions on Quora builds awareness at 100%, but doing competitor keyword analysis builds awareness probably at 60%. Doing networking in person is 100% ethical, but commenting on articles and blog posts online with the intention to advertise is maybe 75% ethical. Developing demonstrations and tutorials brings 100% of value for money, but running ad campaigns of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, brings only 40% value for money. Most of those evaluations are based on my previous experiences and gut feeling. But a marketing expert could have more precise evaluations.

📊 Step 4. Analyze priorities

The prioritizer shows calculated and sorted tasks grouped into the ones:

to choose for sure,
to consider, and
to skip.

As the result, my most essential tactics are guest-writing for industry blogs, developing demonstrations or tutorials, writing tips and how-to articles to share with prospects and customers, regularly publishing blog posts, interacting with consumers on social media, publishing videos on Youtube, and sending thank-you notes. So, content, content, and more content. That’s what you can expect from this blog in the upcoming future.

Final words

After prioritizing your marketing tactics, it’s time to print the PDF version of the results, create user personas, the story you want to tell your customers, and start marketing your service or product.

Check out the organizational strategic prioritizer at our 1st things 1st.

Cover photo by Austin Chan.

Tags business, entrepreneurship, marketing, product, service, startup, strategy, tactics

Life Progress

Top 10 Things to Do at Home for the Next 2 Weeks

Post author By Aidas Bendoraitis
Post date April 4, 2020
No Comments on Top 10 Things to Do at Home for the Next 2 Weeks

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Top 10 things to do at home? As if I could know what fits for you best. You are you, and your choices are what makes you – you. I can only give advice and help you make the most favorable and rational choices. Let your days shine, while you stay home and make coronavirus spread slower so that doctors could keep all patients alive.

What can we do during home quarantine?

There are many things you could do:

You could practice your hobbies, like singing, knitting, painting, or reading books.
You could try out new hobbies, like decoupage, sculpting, creating poetry, carving, or playing cards.
You could improve your skills, like taking online classes, practicing a foreign language, or watching webinars.
You could play with your kids, spend quality time with partners, skype with relatives, or care about pets.
You could clean up the home, reorder books, or declutter the wardrobe.
You could cook dinners, bake pies, shake cocktails, and taste wines.
You could socialize online, stream your skills, or participate in web campaigns.
You could watch TV, binge-watch a series on Netflix, or play a video game.
You could do yoga, workout exercises, or lift weights.
You could work from home, build a new business, or develop something for passive income.

But there is one problem. You only have 14 days to stay home during the quarantine. For now. So which things should you choose to make the most of your time?

Maybe you want to do only fun activities? Or maybe you want to do only creative activities? Or maybe you only want to do activities that have long-lasting effects? Or perhaps all at once? Let’s have a look at how you could evaluate things by multiple criteria using the strategic prioritizer 1st things 1st and create your top 10 activities. There is even a project template for that.

⚙️ Project setup

When you go to the Projects section of the 1st things 1st prioritizer, you can start a new project and choose a project template with which to begin. A project wizard will guide you through the configuration steps.

1. Choose a project template, “What to Do at Home”:

2. Change or keep the project title and description:

3. Decide how to name things. By default, you will be evaluating activities by criteria. If you want, you can rename that to things evaluated by values or something like that:

4. Choose your initial criteria. You will be able to add some more free-text criteria later.

5. Choose your initial activities from a list of more than 150 options. You will be able to add even more free-text activities later:

Now that you set up the project, let’s go through the 4 steps of prioritization.

🧭 Step 1. Review and edit criteria

In the first step, you would edit the criteria and adjust their importance and the way of evaluating. As I prefer the word “Fun” more than “Engaging”, I renamed that criterion.

💡 Step 2. Review and edit activities

In the second step, you would edit the activities. For example, I added “Play with my son”, because I find it an essential thing to do for his development and family healthiness.

🎚 Step 3. Evaluate activities by criteria

In the third step, you would evaluate each activity by each of your criteria. For example, cleaning up the home is definitely not fun for me, but probably necessary, and taking a selfie is definitely family-friendly, but probably not mindful. Of course, you could argue about my choices, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you make correct choices for your evaluations.

📊 Step 4. Analyze priorities

In the fourth and last step, you would see all your priorities. Check the first 10 priorities – these are your top 10 activities for the next two weeks.

For example, for me, it was:

Start journaling, because it’s my way of tracking progress, and I do and like it already anyway.
Read a book together, because I find it a good activity for my child’s development, and I still need to get him used to book reading and storytelling.
Practice coding, because that is one of my most reliable professional skills.
Learn internet marketing, because I need to market the strategic prioritizer and earn more money for lots of different things and causes.
Listen to an audiobook, because that allows learning something new while relaxing the eyes.
Call a friend or a family member, because during a lockdown, I still need socialization.
Chat with someone, because of the same reason.
Coach or mentor someone, because we learn by teaching.
Play some brain games, because I need some rest too.
Play with my son, because for him playing is a fun way of learning.

Final words

It makes sense to follow your top priorities because then you can mostly realize yourself and make the best out of your time. Of course, you shouldn’t limit yourself only to those activities. You will still need to do some things that you don’t like. But when you have self-defined guidelines to follow, you can make your life more progressive.

Check out the strategic prioritizer at my 1st things 1st.

Cover photo by Pierre Bamin.

Tags lifestyle, priorities, prioritizer

Life

How to Prioritize Your Necessities Today and Stay Healthy Tomorrow

Post author By Aidas Bendoraitis
Post date March 29, 2020
No Comments on How to Prioritize Your Necessities Today and Stay Healthy Tomorrow

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Last weeks have been stressful for a lot of us. Just in days, we switched from skepticism, irony, and relaxation to uncertainty, awareness, and caution. We locked ourselves at homes and got anxious about real contacts with any people around. Coronavirus changed our lifestyles a lot. We started communicating online more. Some of us began to work remotely. At last, we learned how to wash our hands properly.

What do we need during home quarantine?

While staying home, we need to have some necessities by our side. What exactly should we purchase to be able to stay home safe and healthy two weeks or even longer? There are many aspects of how we could evaluate the importance of things that we need to get. Some of those follow:

Is it something that has no alternatives?
Is it not too expensive? You know, the jobs and economy are on the risk now for many of us.
Can it stay on our shelves for a long time without expiring too soon?
Is it healthy for our bodies?
Does that make our lives more comfortable?
Is it ecological, vegan, ethical, fairtrade?
Is it something that we don’t have yet?

When there are so many perspectives, how can we make the right decision on what to buy, so that we don’t end up only with the piles of toilet paper? We are going to use the strategic prioritizer 1st things 1st to evaluate a list of necessities by multiple criteria. There is even a project template for that.

⚙️ Project setup

Start a new project. From the project templates, choose “Necessities While in Quarantine”.

The project creation wizard will guide you through the most important questions:

1. Change or keep the project title and description:

2. Decide how to name things. The preselected values suggest evaluating things by criteria. You can change that to evaluating necessities by aspects, or anything else.

3. Choose some or all criteria from a suggested list. You’ll be able to enter some more criteria as free text later.

4. Choose some or all things from a suggested list. You’ll be able to enter some more necessities as free text later too.

Now when you created the project, let’s explore the main steps of prioritization.

🧭 Step 1. Review and edit criteria

Now you can edit the list of criteria and change their importance or evaluation types. The default importance for all of them is 100%, and the evaluation type is choices from “definitely not” to “definitely” (you will see them in step 3).

For example, this is how I set the criteria and their importance:

Irreplaceable with the importance of 100% because we definitely need something that has no alternatives.
Affordable with the importance of 100% because the state of our jobs is unclear, and we have to save money.
Long lasting with the importance of 80% because we can order food online in case of running out of some necessities.
Healthy with the importance of 100% because we can’t properly function if we don’t care what we consume.
Comfortable with the importance of 50% because we can allow ourselves to live less comfortably in such critical times.
Ethical/Fairtrade with the importance of 70% because other criteria are more relevant to us when it’s a question of life.
Vegan with the importance of 70% because I am not vegan anyway.

Your criteria and their importance will depend on your attitude and perspectives.

💡 Step 2. Review and edit things

In the next step you will see the list of our chosen things where you can change their titles and descriptions.

For example, at the setup I chose these things:

Wifi because I need to work from home.
Drinking water because I drink a lot of tea and sometimes coffee.
Breads because we like sandwiches for breakfast.
Rice because it’s a food that can stay on the shelf for a long time.
Pasta because I love having Italian dishes from time to time.
Fruit because we need vitamins.
Cheese because sandwiches include something more than just bread.
Avocados don’t ask me why.
etc.

And also, I need some toddler supplies for my little son and some caffeinated drinks to stay awake and productive every day. So I am bulk-adding these things to the list:

Milk
Diapers
Wet wipes
Tea
Coffee
Club-Mate
Coca Cola

🎚 Step 3. Evaluate things by criteria

Now evaluate all things by all criteria. Go through the whole list and mark your choices. We see that fruit is probably not long-lasting, but definitely healthy. Rice is probably fairtrade, and cheese is definitely not vegan. Some things will be objective (like drinking water is definitely healthy), and some will be subjective (like cheese is probably affordable to you).

📊 Step 4. Analyze priorities

The prioritizer shows calculated and sorted things grouped into the ones:

to choose for sure,
to consider, and
to skip.

My most essential things are electricity and wifi (I should not forget to pay the bills), drinking water, and stuff from the drugstore like hand sanitizer, shampoo, diapers, soap, toilet paper, trash bags, etc. The most questionable thing is cheese (I could live without it).

Final words

After prioritizing your necessities, it’s time to print the PDF version of the results, grab a couple of tote bags, and go to the supermarket.

Check out the strategic prioritizer at my 1st things 1st.

Cover photo by Şahin Yeşilyaprak.

Tags health, life, lifestyle, priorities, prioritizer

Progress

Master Your 2020 New Year’s Resolution in 4 Simple Steps

Post author By Aidas Bendoraitis
Post date January 1, 2020
No Comments on Master Your 2020 New Year’s Resolution in 4 Simple Steps

Reading Time: 4 minutes

New Year’s Resolution is a western tradition to set personal objectives for the upcoming year. People list unwanted behaviors to lose, personal goals to achieve, and new habits to which to get used. Then over the year, they try to meet them, although, for the most, it is hardly doable. Statistics say that about 40% of USA residents make New Year’s resolutions, but only 18% accomplish them.

Using 1st things 1st to prioritize your activities

Wishful thinking is good, but achiever’s mindset is even better. What if instead of trying to achieve a long list of questionable goals, you would prioritize them and seek to complete the most relevant ones? Why lose yourself in the magnitude if you can focus on the essential?

Using the strategic prioritizer 1st things 1st, you can prioritize your New Year’s Resolution, so that you could see which activities to aim for and which to let go. Let’s see how to do that.

⚙️ Project setup

From the project templates, choose “New Year’s Resolution”.

The project creation wizard will guide you through the most important questions:

1. Change or keep the project title and description:

2. Decide how to name things. The preselected values suggest evaluating activities by criteria. You can change it to evaluating goals by personal values, or anything else:

3. Change or keep the timeframe. By default, it’s the full year from the first till the last day:

4. Choose some criteria from a suggested list. You’ll be able to enter some more criteria as free text later.

5. Choose some activities from a suggested list. You’ll be able to enter some more activities as free text later too.

Now when you created the project, let’s explore the main steps of prioritization.

🧭 Step 1. Review and edit criteria

Now you can edit the list of criteria and change their importance or evaluation type. The default importance for all of them is 100%, and the evaluation type is stars (you will see them in step 3).

For example, for me, the most important criteria are:

Interesting experience
Valuable in the long term
Achievable
Affordable

💡 Step 2. Review and edit activities

In the next step we see the list of our chosen activities, for example:

Read 10 books.
Get in shape.
Sanitize your phone weekly.
Listen to audiobooks while traveling.
Write a gratitude journal.
Nurture real friendships.
Save money.
Write a business plan.

Now we can change their titles and descriptions.

Let’s bulk-add a couple of custom activities, for example:

Visit Expo 2020 in Dubai.
Start a company.

🎚 Step 3. Evaluate activities by criteria

Then think about each activity from the perspective of each criterion. For example, writing a gratitude journal is an interesting experience for me (5 stars), but getting in shape is not so interesting (2 stars). Listening to audiobooks while traveling very affordable (5 stars), but going to Dubai for Expo 2020 is not so affordable (2 stars).

📊 Step 4. Analyze priorities

The prioritizer shows calculated and sorted activities grouped into the ones:

to choose for sure,
to consider, and
to skip.

My most essential activities for 2020 are to write a gratitude journal and to nurture real friendships. The most questionable activity is traveling to Dubai for Expo 2020.

Final words

After prioritizing your New Year’s Resolution, try to set up a schedule when you will do what, and try to stick to it. That will increase your chances of achieving your essential goals. But worry not, even if you don’t make all of it this year, because another year will follow afterward.

Check out the strategic prioritizer at www.1st-things-1st.com.

Cover photo by Kelly Sikkema.

Tags new years resolution, prioritizer, twenty-twenty

Self-awareness

How to Find the Meaning of Life. Part 3

Post author By Aidas Bendoraitis
Post date December 24, 2019
No Comments on How to Find the Meaning of Life. Part 3

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Earlier I described how people are different by finding meaning either in having, or being, or doing. And then, I introduced you to the Ikigai concept and ways to figure out your Ikigai. This time I want to explore more of the territory of meaning. You shouldn’t necessarily have one true calling, monetized, and useful for others, to live a meaningful life.

Care about yourself

It is challenging to be happy with your life if you are always disappointed about yourself and your achievements. You have to love yourself and not attach your happiness only to success. Life is a rollercoaster. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But you must try your best as much as you can.

Health

Take care of your health. The life will be more fulfilling if you are fit and healthy when your body is sound, and your mind is clear.

Finances

Save some money. Have some savings at least for half a year of expenses. You never know when you might need to spend extra.

Spirituality

Learn to understand yourself at your deepest. Learn to control your attention. Calm down the storms in your head. Live life as peacefully as you can. You can!

Inspiration

Travel. Visit galleries, museums, theaters, and movie theaters. Browse exciting information online. Try foods and drinks. Explore nature. Get hobbies.

Challenges and adventures

From time to time, try doing something that you haven’t done before. Visit a new country. Sing karaoke. Try a new sports activity. Speak in front of a group of people. Challenge yourself doing something for 30 days to form new habits.

Home

Clean up the mess at your home. Make your bed in the morning. Clean up your desk. Don’t keep things that bring you negative emotions in front of your eyes, but gather things that bring you joy.

Care about others

Being content with yourself is crucial, but even more important is what you do interacting with others while being self-contented.

Family and Relatives

Respect your parents and elders. There were lots of times when you got help from them. There will come a time when you will have to help them. Call or visit them regularly. Keep contact.

When or if you have children, love them and be a role model to them. They are the ones who will continue the circle of life.

Romantic Relationships

Don’t waste yourself. Try to find meaningful relationships. And when you do, cherish and appreciate the moments.

Friends

Once in a while, meet your friends. Party together, have in-depth conversations, travel as a group. Show them your most authentic self. Keep their secrets. Support them in difficulties.

Pets

If you choose to have a dog, a cat, or a chinchilla, you must take care of them no less than of your other family members. Provide food for them, take care of their health, allow them to live a joyous life.

Neighborhood

Know and respect your neighbors. Keep your stairway and yard clean. Participate in the events of the neighborhood. When you party, inform your neighbors in advance about the possible noise. If they party, be the last one to call the police.

Communities

Be a member or a board member of your local, regional, and global communities of interest. Provide help when you have time and resources, or money otherwise.

Causes

Whether you care about human rights or animal wellbeing, local communities or remote disaster relief, arts or sport, science achievements or religion; there is always some organization that acts in that area and needs your financial help. Donate some money now and then to support your cause.

Help communities and organizations with make-impact.org

You will be able to choose an organization of your interest and support them financially at user-centered donation platform make-impact.org. Until it is ready, you are welcome to do that through other channels, like their direct websites, Facebook fundraisers, or crowdfunding platforms. Use your chances to make a positive impact around you.

My Case

Do I live my full potential? I don’t get or experience everything all at once. But I try to seize the day as much as possible. If not now, then when?

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Cover photo by Miguel Perales.

Tags global awareness, positivity, self-awareness

Self-awareness

How to Find the Meaning of Life. Part 2

Post author By Aidas Bendoraitis
Post date December 18, 2019
No Comments on How to Find the Meaning of Life. Part 2

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Previously, I was describing how different people find meaning either in having, or being, or doing. Taking into account that doing plays an essential role in our lives, as it is what creates progress, I would like to introduce the Ikigai concept.

Ikigai Concept

Japanese have a concept of fulfillment that they call Ikigai. It combines what you are good at, what you like doing, what is good for the World, and for what you could get money. We could illustrate that with the following Venn’s diagram: Ikigai appears where all those areas cross each other.

To live a more fulfilling life, you might monetize one of your hobbies, find something likable in your current work activities, market what you are already doing to broader audiences, or find a niche where your products or services have a higher value. Don’t worry! Everyone’s situation and maturity are different. Maybe you won’t have your Ikigai in your twenties but will live your full potential in your fifties.

But how to find the thing about which you are genuinely passionate and would like to continue working on it if you do a lot of different joyful activities? What is the one true calling that would describe the deepest you?

One way to find that is to use the prioritizer – 1st things 1st, that I built to help people crystallize their thoughts and choices.

Using 1st things 1st to clarify your Ikigai

At 1st things 1st, you have something to prioritize and criteria by which to evaluate. When you rate each item by each measure, the tool calculates and sorts the elements from the most important to the least one.

Criteria

In the case of the searching of your Ikigai, you could have these criteria:

Do I love doing it?
Am I good at it?
Can I be paid for it?
Does the world need it?

There is a project template for that.

Activities

Then you would add all the activities that you have ever done that are very specific to you. Remember things from selling ice cream on the beach at your childhood to carving wooden figures in your free time, from enjoying movies on Netflix to visiting far-away secret locations of the World.

Evaluations

The next step would be to rate the activities by each criterion. For each activity, you would answer those questions with answers like:

definitely
probably
possible
probably not
definitely not

Only you know what you like doing most and how good you are at that. Be open-minded and creative when deciding how much the World needs your activities and how much profit you could get out of it. In the age of the Web, there are many more possibilities than before.

If you don’t agree with my evaluations, that’s OK. You would evaluate your activities according to your worldview.

Priorities

And then it would be the time to unveil your Ikigai. In the end, the tool would list you out the most valuable activities on which you should proceed to work.

For example, according to my choices and evaluations, my Ikigai is programming and writing. It is one of the reasons why I write this and other blogs, published a book about programming with the Django framework, and work on web projects.

Let me help you to find the meaning of your life at www.1st-things-1st.com.

Cover photo by Content Pixie

Tags global awareness, self-awareness