life pie

[matsushima]

One of the tasks in The Artist's Way that resonated with me (even tho I've never finished the whole 12 weeks) was the "life pie" (sometimes called a "life wheel"). Basically, you chart out your life in terms of spirituality, exercise, play, work, romance(/adventure), and friends, and mark how fulfilled you feel in each area; closer to the middle means you're unfulfilled, on the outer edge of your chart means you're 100% happy. (In the book, Julia Cameron says you can switch out "romance" for "adventure" if that's more relevant to you.) Here's an example of someone's life pie.

Searching around, I also found someone else's life pie with different slices: parenting, spiritual, personal growth, business/career/studies, finance/wealth, health/fitness, social/friends, family, romance/love, and recreation/fun. This one includes "physical environment" while this one is set up differently (more readable, imho) and includes "diet" and "mindset."

This year, I plan to do a life wheel every month and watch the fluctuations: is an area consistently low? is something that was high suddenly dropping? where do I feel mostly content? Like I said, I like this activity.

I'm curious (and, OK, shamelessly looking for ideas about) what "slices" you would put on your life pie. When I recently did a (related but slightly different) self care activity, the areas that I identified were: creative, enrichment, interpersonal, spiritual, embodiment, career, and rest.

Disclaimer: I don't endorse (or know anything about) any of these sites. I was only sharing examples of life pies/life wheels.

Comments

[annofowlshire]

I like the idea of these, but I'd probably break it down into specific categories with attached goals in them. Which maybe people who use this do, but don't talk about it (I didn't see it on their descriptions at a glance). So instead of Hobbies/Recreation, it would be subsectioned into "fiction writing" "journal writing" "setting up portfolio" etc. And maybe that's too detailed for what's intended, but broad categories are just to *waves hands vaguely* for me.

[matsushima]

That makes sense. Or I might keep the broader category but, rather than marking the chart based on vibes (which is how I've done it in the past), I might use that breakdown to calculate an average and then plot that number.

This also got me thinking how I might spread "writing" out across different categories: I was going to give it a slice of its own but it might make more sense to have "wellness: diary writing" and "career: writing for publication" and "recreation: fanfiction/fun stuff." (Averaging out "diary writing" and "writing for publication" and "fanfiction/fun stuff" would not give me a useful number because "diary writing" would always pull the average way up.)

[annofowlshire]

Yeah, I find diary writing is one of the most valuable forms of writing in my life, but I'm not satisfied in the long term if it's the only writing I'm doing.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

It's important to learn what works for you. My big list of goals is the result of years worth of trial and error.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I like the idea of these, but I'd probably break it down into specific categories with attached goals in them. Which maybe people who use this do, but don't talk about it (I didn't see it on their descriptions at a glance). <<

I've seen things like that. Some charts have large sections broken into subsections of related topics.

>> So instead of Hobbies/Recreation, it would be subsectioned into "fiction writing" "journal writing" "setting up portfolio" etc. And maybe that's too detailed for what's intended, but broad categories are just to *waves hands vaguely* for me.<<

Do what works for you. You could even have a Writing wheel.

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

This is a great contribution.

>> the "life pie" (sometimes called a "life wheel"). <<

Those appear in the Round Trackers post. This style is very popular so there are many examples online, including blanks where you can write your own categories.

>>(In the book, Julia Cameron says you can switch out "romance" for "adventure" if that's more relevant to you.)<<

That's nicely inclusive. You could also use friendship, family, or relationships.

>>This year, I plan to do a life wheel every month and watch the fluctuations: is an area consistently low? is something that was high suddenly dropping? where do I feel mostly content? Like I said, I like this activity.<<

That's a great idea.