Strategize Your Life Lecture Notes

Introduction

• Concept: Strategize Your Life applies strategic thinking, used in corporate settings, to personal life.
• Objective: Develop a personal life strategy using a seven-step program.
• Background: Rainer Strack, with experience in Boston Consulting Group and physics.
• Insight: Applying methods from one discipline to another can yield new insights.

Definition of Life Strategy

• Life Strategy: An integrated set of choices that positions a person to live a great life, not just to "win."
• Contrast to Corporate Strategy: Life is about living well, not just achieving typical success metrics.

Seven Steps of Life Strategy

1. Define Success: Determine what constitutes a great life.
2. Purpose: Identify your life purpose.
3. Vision: Establish your life vision.
4. Assess Portfolio: Evaluate your life portfolio.
   • Understanding Life Portfolio: What represents your investment in various life aspects?
5. Learn from Best Practices: Incorporate insights and benchmarks.
6. Make Portfolio Choices: Central step where previous steps integrate to define choices for a great life.
7. Ensure Sustained Change: Implement strategies for successful change.

Defining a Great Life

• Common Misconceptions: Money, fame, and power are often mistaken for true success.
• Hedonic Adaptation & Social Comparison: These can diminish the perceived value of material success.

PERMA-V Model

• Components:
  • P: Positive Emotions
  • E: Engagement (Flow in activities)
  • R: Relationships
  • M: Meaning
  • A: Achievement
  • V: Vitality (Health is crucial)

Strategic Life Units

• Concept: Equivalent to business units in life, where you invest time, money, and energy.
• Example of Units: Significant other, family, sports, job, faith, etc.

Strategic Life Portfolio

• Methodology:
  • Divide time: Allocate time among 16 strategic life units from an average week.
  • Rate Importance: On a scale from 0 to 10.
  • Define Satisfaction: Satisfaction level with each unit.
• Visualization: Use a 2-by-2 matrix to plot importance (y-axis) vs. satisfaction (x-axis).

Case Study: Tony the Engineer

• Example: Identified areas like significant other and mental health as urgent priorities.
• Common Findings: Participants often have multiple urgent priorities.
• Bigger Bubbles: Areas with large time investment but potentially low value (e.g., online entertainment).

Recommendations for Adjustments

• Control Parameters: Importance, satisfaction, and size of the bubble can be altered.
• Quick Wins: Reconnect with friends or reduce time on low-value activities like social media.

Conclusion

• Right Portfolio: Align personal time investment with life purpose and vision.
• Life Strategy as Preparation: Aligns personal goals with opportunities, echoing the philosophy of Seneca on preparation and luck.