future-thinkers

buckets - v0.0.2

What?

When journaling about my life I turn to four buckets. These four buckets are balanced with myself. Here’s what they typically look like:

  1. Me
  2. Buckets
    1. Family
    2. Friends
    3. Home
    4. Work

Why

In my personal exploration of what mental health looks like, I’ve found this. I have to ensure my own bucket is filled first, before I can adequately tend to the rest.

If I am not centered, then caring for my Family or Friends is a lot harder. Additionally if I over-focus on Work, then I am unable to sustain myself or Home.

Buckets Breakdown

  1. Family
    1. This is the family outside of my home. Parents, grandparents, in-laws, etc. These are the people that are both in orbit of my home and sometimes create orbits.
  2. Friends
    1. Those of which I choose to endear and be with. People that I both cherish and admire.
  3. Home
    1. This is the people, events, and things within my own space. My wife and kids make up a majority of this.
  4. Work
    1. For me, this is the bucket that gets the most time by default. 8-5pm (and more), where the most “fixed” walls. Because of this, I have to be most diligent to not overfill this bucket, as it means the others have most likely been starved.

Example usage

## 2023-10-10: Tuesday
#### Meta: 9
• Me: 8, good time to self. 
• Buckets: 
    • Home: 9, April helped so much: cooking and picking up Han. Later, Han woke up so early and wanted hangout
    • Family: -
    • Friends: 9, Was given many insights from peers 
    • Work: 8, felt great to be needed in so many ways

Notes on example above: 1. I usually scope these per day, though on occasion I do monthly, quarterly, or yearly reflections 2. The - is to signify no new plots/subplots with that bucket for the day 3. I have an “emotional spectrum” number, negative 10 to positive 10, assigned to each bucket 1. I do average this out (rounding up) for my overall meta 2. This helps me understand how fully I’ve experienced what happened that day 4. I add a little notes of what “one thing” each bucket presented, when reflecting