• Skip to main content
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer

Getting Results

The Agile Way

  • About
  • Articles
  • Books
  • Courses
  • Resources
    • All Resources
    • How Tos
    • Templates
    • Testimonials
    • Visuals
  • Contact

The Life Hot Spots Framework: 7 Categories for Balancing Your Life

by JD

image

You can apply Hot Spots to life.

Hot Spots are the categories I use for skilled living.

This is the big picture.  It’s how I chunk up my overall time and energy.

There are certain areas in life that if I invest in, I get rewarded.  On the other hand, if I ignore these categories, I get penalized.

7 Categories for Life

Here’s the starter set of categories I use for thinking about the areas in my life that need focus and energy:

Hot Spot Description
Mind The Mind bucket includes investing time to learn thinking techniques and keeping my mind sharp.
Body The Body bucket includes investing time to keep my body in shape. It includes learning patterns and practices for health. The most important basics are eating, sleeping, and working out.
Emotions The Emotions bucket includes investing time to keep my emotions healthy. It includes learning emotional intelligence and keeping my emotions in check. It’s about learning skills for feeling good.
Career Career includes activities and projects for my job and my professional services.
Finance includes investing time to learn patterns and practices for building and sustaining wealth.
Relationships The Relationships bucket includes relationships at home, work, and life.
Fun Fun includes investing time to for play and doing whatever I enjoy.

 

Setting Boundaries

I set minimums and maximums for my hot spots in terms of time and energy.  This keeps me from getting over-invested.  I use my hot spots to set boundaries.  For example, I set a max on career and a min on relationships, body, and fun.

Hot Spot Boundaries (minimums and maximums)
Mind –
Body Min of 3 hrs.
Emotions –
Career Max of 50 hrs.
Finance –
Relationships Min of 8 hrs.
Fun Min of 3 hrs.

 

So step one was deciding to spend no more than 50 hours each week on my career hot spot.  That forced me to bite off only what I could chew.  That’s how I started improving plate management and pushing back effectively.  I can only spread my life force over so much.  The categories help support each other.  They can also work against each other.

Tickler List of Things to Think About in Each Hot Spot

Here are some simple prompts to help you think of Hot Spots in your life.   The list is not complete or exhaustive and it’s not meant to be.  You may want to add some other Hot Spots for your life, such as spiritual or social.

The key is to have a simple heat map of what’s important for you.  It’s a high level way to remind you to spread your life force across your meaningful buckets.  It’s a way to more thoughtfully invest in yourself.

Hot Spot Examples
Body
  • Dental
  • Eating (Nutrition)
  • Exercise (Sports, weightlifting, Pilates, yoga, martial arts … etc.)
  • Health/ Medical (Disease, prevention, medicine, illness, hereditary or acquired diseases … etc.)
  • Senses (Auditory, gustatory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and visual)
  • Sleeping
  • Stress
  • Systems (Cardiovascular, digestive, endocrine, excretory, immune, skin, muscular, nervous, reproductive, respiratory, skeletal)
Career
  • Activities
  • Deliverables
  • Development
  • Expectations
  • Outcomes
  • Projects
  • Relationships
  • Roles
  • Tasks
Emotions
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Feeling Good (Dealing with depression, loss, … etc.)
  • Emotions (Acceptance, anger, anticipation, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise)
  • Empathy
  • Passion
Finance
  • Active Income
  • Budget
  • Business
  • Credit
  • Insurance
  • Investment
  • Nest Egg
  • Passive Income
  • Retirement
  • Real Estate
  • Savings
  • Spending
  • Taxes
Fun
  • Free-time
  • Hobbies / Interests
  • Indoor recreation
  • Outdoor recreation
  • Travel
  • Vacations
Mind
  • Anxiety
  • Clarity
  • Creativity
  • Critical Thinking
  • Learning
  • Mental Models
  • Optimism
  • Vision
Relationships
  • Family
  • Work
  • Other

 

If you’re not getting the results you want, explore how you’re investing in Hot Spots.

Maybe with a few tweaks of where you spend your time and energy is just the trick you need.

Category: Focus

About JD

Previous Post: « Video – The Birth of a Book
Next Post: Quick Summary of Agile Results Quick Summary of Agile Results »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Sidebar

Better Energy, Better Results!

JD I am J.D. Meier, the creator of Agile Results. My approach has been forged in the fire of the fast-moving software business. Learn more ...

What is Agile Results?

Agile Results is a simple productivity system for work and life. It helps you spend more time in your strengths, less time in your weaknesses, and do the things that matter most, with focus, clarity, and better energy. Learn more...

The Book that Changes Lives

Check out the book... Getting Results Book

The Better Productivity System for Work and Life

Agile Results is a simple system for meaningful results. Use stories, scenario-driven results, and timeboxing, to improve your results, master your time management, improve your motivation, and finally achieve work-life balance. Get a fresh start each day, each week, each month, each year.

Key Resources

  • Agile Results Manifesto
  • How Tos
  • Success Stories
  • Templates
  • Testimonials

Copyright © 2022 · Getting Results · All Rights Reserved