Andreas von der Heydt's recent article reminds us that work is just one aspect of life. There are other crucial areas which also need to get adequate and regular attention in order for you to lead a fulfilled life: social area (family, friends, recognition), health area (sports, relaxation, diet, well-being and fitness), and spiritual area (fulfilment, religion, love, philosophy).

As you can't add days to your life, you should focus on adding life to your days. Here are 5 useful key pointers taken from the article that help you to do it: 

1) Be Fully Dedicated to Managing Yourself: It's about self-management and taking full responsibility of yourself. You can and you must pro-actively organize and live your life. No one else can do it for you. 

2) Write Down Your Personal Vision and Mission of Life: Ask yourself what's really important for you, what you would like to achieve, what you are really good at, what your values are, and what you want to look back on at the end of your life?

3) Formulate Your Life Goals: Determine and write down what you'd like to achieve in each of your life areas. This allows you to anchor your personal life vision in your on-going schedule. At the same time it will add meaningful content to your life. 

4) Weekly and Daily Priority Planning: There always will be external tasks and deadlines which you will need to comply with. It's a fact of life. Still, in order to master your life, you will also need to set your own priorities in order to concentrate on your important professional and private goals. You need to control your day in order to control your life.

5) Conduct Regular Life Quality Checks: Make sure that once or twice a week you put 10 to 15 minutes aside to review whether your daily activities and your weekly schedule are consistently aligned with your overall goals. If not, change your agenda to reflect back to what you really want to achieve in life. In case of doubt, just look at your personal life vision and mission statement. It always will give you the reassurance you might need from time to time. 
 

The original article can be viewed here