For some reason I believe some questions must be addressed here or it will be nagging for a portion of people.
1. Why divide your life into areas?
Simply put people are complex; life is complex. Attempting to look at the past year as just a chunk of time will cause you to overlook some things and focus on others simply because that is how you are made or have developed.
A friend of mine once asked me why I was not a rocket scientist after he began to realize how natural math & logic came to me and my level of understanding related fields. At that time I did not have a good answer for him, today I do, it was inspired in some book.
Sending a rocket to the moon is relatively simple. You know where the moon is today, you know where the moon will be at any point in time. You know where you are today. We know about trajectories, gravity, and other forces and elements involved in that system. You can calculate how much rocket fuel will be needed, and barring anything like a rock putting a hole in your fuel tank … you will be correct 100% of the time. People are much more complex.
People are illogical. They have emotions, desires, wants, and limited knowledge.
To understand and predict what a group of people, or an individual person will do is much more complex than sending a rocket to the moon, now add a person into that rocket and you add a lot of complexity, but still because of the controlled environment the variables and options out there that need to be taken into account are limited.
To review your life without some layout, or structure, you will either just skim the surface, or get overwhelmed.
Thus years ago I picked up on this system from Dan Miller, modified it a little, and used it as a base.
2. Why this division?
I don’t know of anything better and everything I have considered fits somewhere. Could there be a better system? Yes, and if you have one please email me, I would love to improve.
The question of why each area is important will be covered in the individual areas, but realistically all aspects are important for the best life you can. Not to say you should be equal and spend 1/7th of your time on each, but more important is to not ignore one area for too long, because each area affects the others.
