If you´re into productivity and personal development, then you´ve probably seen multiple times a matrix that´s used to categorize tasks based on their level of urgency and importance (and if you haven´t, I encourage you to search for it, it´s called the Eisenhower matrix, and it´s a great tool to help establish priorities).

Well, let me say that this week, I´ve had the luxury of dedicating my time to truly important things, not necessarily urgent ones.

Things that matter.

People who matter.

Moments, places and memories that matter.

No, I haven´t been spending my days doing jigsaws. This photo is not recent; it was taken a few months ago.

This jigsaw was a birthday present from my daughters, and it took us a couple of weeks to finish it; we all collaborated. I´m showing it here as an example of the idea I´m trying to convey to you: intentionally dedicating time to people and things that truly matter. For, as you´ve probably been able to verify, when you don´t set an intention, the urgent things (regardless of whether they´re important or not) end up consuming all your available time.

But the thing is, how do you find out what truly matters? The key to this is that the answer is not the same for everyone; it will be slightly different for each person because everyone´s priorities and preferences are different, even though there are certain more or less universal themes we can all relate to.

At the end of the day, it´s all about identifying our values: the fundamental principles we consider most important, the ones that guide us in our day-to-day decisionsEach of us needs to decide which values best suit us based on who we really are and what we want to experience and foster in our lives. This often involves reflecting on whether we´d like to keep the values we inherited from our family or society or add, remove, or change some of them.

The reward for doing this work of clarifying our values is being able to make more conscious and consistent decisions, as well as realizing when we're getting into an internal conflict, for example, when we hold contradictory values (either inherited or acquired) that put us in a crossroads situation, or when we act in a way that satisfies others, or that´s theoretically "the right thing to do", but that somehow violates our core values and makes us feel bad. Acting in alignment with our values allows us to live in peace with ourselves..

Ready to start? Here´s a very straightforward yet powerful exercise:

• Search for a values list (the internet has loads) and choose the ones that most resonate with you, between five and ten.
  • You can ask yourself: What´s been most important in your life? What´s most important now? What else?
• Write them down in a list format.
  • Those are going to be your core values.
  • You can ask yourself: What needs to happen for me to feel that this value is being fulfilled in my life? What needs not to happen? Am I making it easy or difficult for me to fulfil this value?
• Establish a value hierarchy, that is, put them in order of priority.
  • This step is essential to be able to make clear decisions when two or more values are in conflict.
  • A way to do this is to compare them two by two, writing a line next to the value you consider most important in each case: comparing the first one with the second one, the first one with the third one, the first one with the fourth one, and so on; then the second one with the third one, the second one with the fourth one, etc., until all of them have been compared to all of them.
  • If you find it hard to decide, consider specific examples or extreme situations. For example, if you´re comparing freedom to harmony, would you rather live in a world where everyone is free but without harmony at all? Or in a harmonious world where nobody is free?
• Rewrite your list, numbering the values.
  • Place the value with the most lines first, then the second one after it, and so on until the end.
• Review your list and double check you´re happy with it.
  • Does it resonate with you as it is? Does it feel yours? Or does it need changes?

I hope these steps help you to clarify your values; you may even surprise yourself. Also, if you want, feel free to contact me and I´ll tell you what´s on my own list...