The Middle Way Method

The Personal Compass, Mission Statement, and Vision Statement help us establish the direction we want our lives to take. In Finding Your Direction: Values, Mission, and Vision, we examined how these elements bring our Values, Roles, Relationships, enduring purpose, and long-term intentions into our planning. They provide a foundation for...

Planning requires us to look in two directions. We need to consider where we want to go while also managing the responsibilities and commitments already present in our lives. The Middle-Way Method brings these perspectives together through Top-Down and Bottom-Up Planning. Before we can use either approach effectively, however, we...

Planning is something we do whether we have a formal system or not. We make appointments, accept responsibilities, decide what needs to be done, and try to find time for the things we want to accomplish. Some of those decisions are made deliberately, while others are responses to whatever happens...

Planning requires us to make decisions before we know exactly what will happen. In Teaching Children to Manage Their Time, I used the example of estimating how long a task will take and then comparing that estimate with the actual result. The difference between the two provides information that can...

Learning to manage our lives means bringing together Top-Down direction with the responsibilities, commitments, Roles, and Relationships that emerge from the Bottom Up. Reviews help keep those sources aligned with the time and attention we actually have. But learning to manage all of that takes practice, and those skills don’t...