Who Are You? Part 2

The Life Audit
by Caroline Righton

(Page 2 of 2)

The main function of this page, then, is to get you on your way — you won't need any soul-searching to fill in the boxes, and it will take only a few minutes to do. There is space at the top of the page in which to put a passport-size photo of yourself if you want to. This is an optional extra, and might seem an odd thing to do in a journal that is "for your eyes only." But after all, you are doing this exercise because in a sense you have lost sight of yourself, and on a page that says, "This is what you see," a picture seems rather appropriate. The first time I did the Audit I didn't bother to stick in a photo, but when it became a more formal process, I did. I found it added a dimension of connection with myself as well as augmenting the process of looking at someone I quickly realized I didn't know as well as I thought I did. Throughout the Audit process I kept going back to the Personal Information pages, and I would find myself looking rather quizzically at the picture, with varying degrees of confusion and dawning comprehension of the person in it. Don't tell me you've never talked to your reflection in a mirror while shaving or putting on your makeup — it's that sort of thing. But it's absolutely not compulsory.

At the bottom of the page there is a blank section for adding any further information that is pertinent only to you. Drawing on my experiences and those of others, I've tried to include most areas of life in the questions. But there may well be other issues, facts and statements that constitute a very important component of what makes up you, and at each stage and on most charts of the Life Audit there is space for you to add individual data about things unique to you in the statement box.

The example I've filled in here is just to get you started.

Really Personal Information —
Ambitions And Frustrations

Now, think back to the reasons that prompted you to buy this book, because those will inspire what needs to be written in this section. Presumably the idea of "auditing" your time grabbed you. Perhaps that's because you have a list of things you long to do but never get around to, or maybe you are fed up with having to spend time doing things you dislike.

Chart 2, your Really Personal Information chart, will sort out which parts of your life are worth hanging on to and which need to be minimized, if possible. It also asks you to confront those nagging regrets we all have and, most important of all, to write down your dreams, large and small.

It's a really useful exercise and you'll immediately notice some recurring themes — after all, most regrets have an opposite desire on a wish list. What you have to do is find a way to disperse the sadness of lost opportunities and realize the dreams. Don't exclude anything on the basis of it being too small or too large. If you regret picking at that spot that has now left you with an acne scar, write it down. If you wish you could change the world, put it down on paper. If you don't know where to start identifying your feelings about your current life, wishes and regrets, try some self-interrogation.

Ask yourself these questions:

• What happens in your day-to-day life that makes you grumpy?

• What things in life do you look forward to?

• Is there a theme you keep coming back to when depressed about something you regret?

• When feeling hopeful and optimistic, do you talk about plans you have for the future?

• In terms of a day, a week and a year, what would be your ideal life?

Keep coming back to this page. You should need at least one supplementary sheet before the process is over. The Life Audit is an investigation into yourself, a luxury that you have never enjoyed before, and with any luck you will be finding out all sorts of things about yourself that you hadn't known before. You may find that some of the things you are writing down at the beginning of this exercise cease to be relevant as you proceed. Don't cross them out completely. Just draw a line through and come back to them at the end, to evaluate what has happened that made them less important than when you first wrote them down.

Your Time Spreadsheet —
Making Every Minute Count

Time to get on now with the serious business of collecting the data you will need to make certain informed decisions about your life. These decisions will help you implement some of those wishes you have just articulated and scale down the irritations of life while dispensing with the regrets.

The minutes of each day are your currency, and it is important that you have a clear idea about where you are spending your time in the present so that you can make adjustments later. You are going to keep a close account of where the minutes go. There are Daily Time Logs for you to fill in, and each day also has a Day Journal and an optional Pie Chart in which you can write with explicit detail and get a visual idea of your time use.

The Life Audit will work for you whether you do it for a week, a month or any period of time in between. Decide now what period you want an overview of, and as you add up your time commitments, work them out for that timespan. At the back of the book you will find gridded sheets that represent a day, a week, a month and a year. These are note sheets to give you a rough overview of your chosen period of time, which all depends on the degree of complexity of your life, your relationships and the decisions you need to make.

I carried out my own Life Audit over a twenty-eight-day period. I found it useful to have the discipline of daily timekeeping over that span of time in order to monitor how effective small changes in my routine became. Each day's form-filling took about half an hour, and, given that the plan is to make life-changing decisions, twenty-eight days of bookkeeping in this way didn't seem an excessive amount of time to sacrifice. I then worked out the full time implications across an entire year because I wanted to get the big picture and see how big Z (Time Available, if you recall) was for long-term plans. But of course the only person you are doing this for is you, so you may decide on a different period of time. The Life Audit does not promise to change your life in X number of days — it helps you come up with a tailored plan and schedule that allows you to make well-informed changes, in your own time, related to your own individual life.

You are about to put the minutiae of that life under a magnifying glass. Remember, the more data you enter, the more material you will have to work with. It's equally important that you keep reminding yourself that, certainly for now, it is only for your eyes. This is the beginning of a very personal journey to find out all about you.

Hole-punch the three sheets for each day of this first stage and put them into your three-ring binder. If you want to jot down incidental thoughts too, get a small notebook to carry in your pocket or bag.

Copyright © 2006 by Caroline Righton. Excerpted by permission of Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Caroline Righton has worked as a broadcaster, journalist, and television producer, but decided to leave her job as a television executive after developing the Life Audit and applying it to her own life. She is now a freelance producer, consultant, and writer who travels internationally, conducting Life Audit workshops. She lives outside of London and is married with two children.