When I was staying in the Philippines this year as the guest of Vince Perez at El Nido Eco-Resort (in exchange for doing several speaking engagements to the other guests), Vince and I had several lengthy conversations about the secret of his success.
In his varied career, he has been a banker, politician (Energy Minister), entrepreneur, sailor, and chairman of WWF-Philippines, as well as co-chair of the resort and CEO of a renewable power company called Altenergy. He is obviously a man who knows how to Get Things Done (also the name of David Allen’s book and brand).
He gave me an interesting insight into how he manages his life, which I’ve found very helpful so I hope he won’t mind me passing it along here.
He told me that he thinks of his life as consisting of 3 buckets. For example, maybe family, business, and environment.
If he is asked to do something that doesn’t fall within his 3 buckets, he says no. It might be something really worthwhile, but he knows he can only give due focus and attention to a limited number of things. So the buckets get overriding priority.
Sometimes the buckets start overflowing. He is still focusing on the things that are important to 
him, but he has just taken on too much. Then it is time for a purge. He will look at each bucket in turn, and figure out which of its contents are the most important to him. Anything else has to be taken out of the bucket.
Like all of us, Vince has only 24 hours in the day. But he uses them well.
Looking at the other day’s goalsetting pie chart, it would appear that I currently have 7 buckets. Hmmm…. time for a rethink – or some serious delegation.
I’m interested – what would be your top 3 buckets? If you don’t mind sharing, please post a comment and let me know!
Other Stuff:
Some Christmas reading for you. I agreed to write a piece for Tycoons Venture without knowing quite what I was getting myself into. Joseph Richter sent me some of the most soul-searching questions that I’ve ever seen. It forced me to really look within and go far beyond copy-and-paste from my FAQs page. Read the full article here.
Roz, Like you I surely have more than three buckets, but most important to me are: 1) Working to build a sustainable “community” here where I live, 2) Continuing my work to promote wise water resources management in my region, 3) Writing – right now that is mostly related to book reviews I do for a regional print and on-line magazine but i have some grander projects in the wings, 4) Maintaining my physical and emotional health and 5) Maintaining relationships with family and friends.
I am officially retired so all 24 hours of my day are directed as I choose. I know this question will help me do a better job allocating those hours to their best use.
Roz, Like you I surely have more than three buckets, but most important to me are: 1) Working to build a sustainable “community” here where I live, 2) Continuing my work to promote wise water resources management in my region, 3) Writing – right now that is mostly related to book reviews I do for a regional print and on-line magazine but i have some grander projects in the wings, 4) Maintaining my physical and emotional health and 5) Maintaining relationships with family and friends.
I am officially retired so all 24 hours of my day are directed as I choose. I know this question will help me do a better job allocating those hours to their best use.
another point of view is keeoing them full and balanced……………..
Rowing, Writing, Foundation as rowing is your signature, writing gets the word out and the Foundation ensures a future.
Roz, very thought provoking, as usual. This is very timely for me:
Bucket #1: Initiate and support a variety of climate awareness building
Bucket #2: Work in my community to lead in adopting climate policy
Bucket #3: Transition from work to sustainable encore career & play
Bucket #4: Physical/mental health & relationships with family & friends
Bucket #4 is essential on-going. Buckets #1, #2 and #3 flex as needed
Rozlings, please honor Roz by voting for her for National Geographic’s
“People’s Choice Adventurer of the Year http://j.mp/NatGeoVote4Roz
Happy New Year!
Doug
How the hell could it be possible to manage with only Three buckets ? 😉
Quite an interesting way of thinking, nevertheless.
Must try to focus on my priorities, i guess… ;-D
Evening Roz, I was taught the bucket method of management long ago.For the longest time I just filled and emptied a single bucket. It is a great measurement method. More than one makes better sense. My three buckets would be 1- family, and the journey to fill one open spot for long time love,feed the relationship daily 2- community – environment , food,renewable energy , volunteering,teaching, local government 3- self, gardening, inner growth, art , emotions, health and continuous expression.
Work on mastering the art of separate buckets and full focus on the present moment.I want to make more mistakes sooner and make each a solo event. Healing with laughter. Building connections through compromise. Living the fact that honest effort makes dreams become more reachable. Live truth daily.
If you rearranged your goal-setting piechart, so the inner circle had just the Rowing and Environmental Campaigning items (plus add one for Family and Friends), you will have your 3 buckets. Problem solved. It seemed to me that the other items that are currently in the inner circle could migrate to the next level out, under one or other of the 2 items above, as they are there to support one or other of them. Then consider, are you Rowing now to support Environmental Campaigning? or is it still something you are doing for its own sake? The answer determines whether Rowing is an inner circle item.
Buckets have hard clearly defined edges and are completely separate each from the others. I prefer ponds, closely separated by earthen levees so that their relative sizes can vary and water allowed to flow betwen them. In any case, I’m wary of analogies; they can be interpreted variously by differing people. In my case I am building a house, helping with extended family matters, designing a project for a client, and writing three books on completely separate topics. There are no rigid boundaries between those activities!
Greetings Rozlings and Roztafarians!
There is one problem with the 3 buckets (Roz alluded to above) and that is that you can end up feeding one bucket while starving the others.
I found this to be a big problem as I work freelance, so I don’t have anyone telling me when to put down one bucket and focus on another.
About a week ago I downloaded Goalscape through Roz’s link, and made my own pie chart. I assumed that the 360 degrees represents a 10-hour workday. Thus each hour takes 10% of the pie chart area.
At the beginning of the day, I start at the top of my pie chart. I use an exercise countdown timer that clips to my shirt to tell me when an hour is up and it’s time to switch tasks.
This has been working incredibly well. You just have to be OK with having your Goalscape chart mirror how you actually spend your day (including work and chores) instead of just the wonderful creative projects you WANT to spend all your time on.
Then again, maybe those ARE my 3 buckets: earning a living, daily chores, and creative projects.
Happy New Year all!
Bucket #1: Chores & house projects
Bucket #2: Family (father & husband stuff)
Bucket #3: “Me time” (very miscellaneous: reading, Internet, gaming, etc.); only indulged in when I can’t do any Bucket 2 projects and I feel I’ve done enough Bucket 1 work to deserve a little reward.
I had buckets for work and politics, but gave them up to make more time for Bucket 2.
Environmentalism doesn’t have its own bucket in my case: goals have to find homes in one or more of the main buckets.
I’m not really sure I use a bucket system, though. I can make the list easily enough, but metaphor-breaking cross-bucket activities represent a lot of my time, because I’ll always bump a twofer to the top of my list. In my case, I suspect the buckets above are little more than a constructed illusion of order akin to Ptolemaic epicycles.