Ecclesiastes 3 has always been a favorite passage of mine. It’s a gentle reminder that we all get 24 hours, 7 days each week and we need to spend it with purpose.

I try to do this, starting each morning with a list of everything I need to accomplish in that day. This generally involves goals setting, with meditation and prayer. But I seldom take the time to write it down.

One problem I’ve encountered is that I have so many different goals (goals I can’t eliminate or postpone) that it’s hard to keep them all straight. I have work goals, home improvement goals, housework goals, spiritual goals, family goals, friendship goals, marriage goals, exercise and health goals, personal goals, writing goals, publishing goals… It’s enough to make my head spin. So, I’ve been looking into different strategies to find some kind of balance and organization.

My health insurance company has started offering a coaching service, and I’ve been using it over the past couple of weeks. It has a good goal-setting feature. We also use goal-setting strategies in education, charts and such. So, why couldn’t some of these strategies work for personal life? My search led to this link with printables: http://faithandhome.blogspot.com/2012/12/monthly-goal-printable.html

Like many of you, I’m not sure when I’ll ever find the time to do everything on my list. It’s always a tradeoff to juggle between doing things for my husband, my kids, my house, my job, etc. Which thing is the most important, and what can be postponed until tomorrow? Planning sometimes just seems like one more thing to add to the list.

And yet, a life lived with purpose yields greater fruits of our labor.

What are some of the strategies you use to keep your goals organized, focus your purpose, and use your time wisely?