Episode 8: Managing Priorities

Prioritizing What Matters: The Key to a Balanced Life

Are you prioritizing what you want over what you need? You're not alone, almost everyone has, and it’s crucial we have our priorities figured out. In this episode of Message for My Kids, the host shares with his children how important it is to keep priorities organized. He also shares relatable stories that most parents, teens, and children can relate to. Whether it's school, work, or personal goals, learning to focus on priorities makes things go better for us as humans. However, priorities aren’t always set in stone. Priorities can shift by the minute, requiring quick changes and flexibility.

The Struggle of Balancing Priorities

Many people face challenges in managing responsibilities. Adults will sometimes lose track of their priorities. Parents often see this struggle firsthand and aim to guide their children into getting their priorities straight. Understanding that priorities must be followed builds resilience and problem-solving skills.

Practical Ways to Set and Adjust Priorities

• Identify What Truly Matters: Determine which activities align your goals. Avoid activities that will push you further away from your goals.

• Create a Schedule: Create daily or hourly schedules for priorities to make sure they get done.

• Do what you need to before what you want to do: Not every priority is fun, but it still has to get done, learn to get the required tasks done before enjoyment.

• Adjust as Needed: Priorities can shift suddenly. Regularly reassessing them keeps us focused on what has to get done.

The Long-Term Benefits of Managing Priorities

When individuals develop strong prioritization skills, they set themselves up for success. They experience reduced stress and improved decision-making. They learn that responsibilities should come first, once the necessary work is done, there will always be time for fun.

Final Thoughts: Make Every Moment Count

Life is filled with opportunities and distractions. Those who take the time to manage their priorities find themselves leading more fulfilling and rewarding lives. By teaching these skills to the next generation, we empower them to navigate life with confidence and purpose.

Read the episode transcript below!

Welcome back to another episode. Messages for my kids. Hope you guys had a great, wonderful weekend. We did.

Family meeting on Sunday. We evaluated that it was fun and there was a couple of things we have to work on as a family. One of the things I would like to talk about is priorities.

Priorities. I cannot stress it out enough. Priorities, priorities, priorities. I literally give you guys a speech about priorities almost once a week. I give it once a week. I know it becomes redundant. I know you guys already understand what priorities are, but this message is almost in the top five.

If I had to rate my messages for you guys, priorities is up there.

And I don't know why, I don't know what it is, but I notice us as a family, we end up getting our priorities set for like a good six, eight months and then we somehow, including me, and somehow we don't do our priorities.

I don't know if that's just us being human. I don't know if that's us because we get so distracted. And then we wake up and we're like, oh man, we should not have done this. We should have did this first. We should have did that first.

Sometimes I don't even want to go to bed. I don't want to sleep. It's not that I can't sleep, it's that I don't want to sleep. If I don't want to sleep, I'm doing something different.

I'm putting things together. I'm reading. I'm working. I'm doing something.

I don't need to work. I do for bills, but I mean, like, happy work. I don't need to read. Generally, I'd love to read because I just want to stay occupied.

And I see priorities being the number one thing that really affects me in a negative way. It affects me in a negative way because sometimes I forget to realign my priorities, especially when the priorities they change.

They can change literally by the minute. One minute you want to go to the lake. The next minute you can't because you remember, I don't have enough funds to go and have fun and then come back and then be X amount of money more negative. We want to be in the green zone with funds.

So when you think of priorities, priorities are more what needs to be done or come first and to align your actions. I understand that theres priorities of actions to do, like, for instance, chores.

You're doing your chores, priority to save time. You're going to collect the garbage. You're going to put on your shoes. You're going to put on the jacket. You're going to head out the door versus put on your jacket, put on your shoes, get the garbage, take off your shoes, and then go upstairs to get the garbage, come downstairs, put on your shoes, and go.

So that's a different type of priority. What comes first?

I'm glad that I see you guys doing a very, very good job doing that.

The thing that we should work on, definitely even me, is priority changes.

It's not something that is a one-and-done deal. I believe that priorities is something that have to be worked on internally, like mentally. And then every three hours, we can recalculate our priorities. If you do a priority check every two hours, three hours, you intend to do a priority. You get used to it. You're like a priority person, which to me is fine.

I just don't want you guys to be like, oh, priority, priority, priority. I got to get this priority done. It's like you're not a rabbit in a dream. You're not late. You're not late to dinner. You're not late to the party. It's just a simple priority check.

Okay, what do I got to do? Oh yeah, you know what? I got to take the dishes out of the dishwasher. Oh, I was supposed to do laundry today. I only got one.Okay, I got to go get another load.

I think priority is totally different in every person. One person's priority is going to be more important than the other. One person has to put lotion on their hands because their hands are so dry versus drinking water.

If we work on this, I know life will be much simpler.

I know, even me. Even me. And I say even me because I'm not really a person to show my downfalls, but I'll talk about them, but I won't show them.

And what I mean by talk about them is when we have our family meetings, I don't really express what I'm doing wrong. But there’s times where I say, I even messed up. I even did this. I did that. I should have did this. I should have planned that. But it's not like I have the same problems as you guys. So that's why I say even me.

I'm not saying like even me, the most perfect person. And I'm not perfect. I'm not perfect. So don't take “even me” the wrong way.

I remember this one time, I was talking to this individual and he's like, you're busier than me. And I was like, dude, you're the president or something? I didn't say nothing. I just stood there and I'm like, yeah, well, that's how life goes. But mentally, I was like, you're the president or something?

You're not even governor. You’re not mayor. What are you doing? Don't fool yourself.

So please, don't take it as when I say even me, like I don't have any faults. I do. And you kids know that. You know that, you know dad ain't perfect.

I mean, oh my goodness, there was another one. We should have gone over the topic of venting. Venting.

Venting is something I really want to teach you guys. There was an incident that happened this weekend. So I think I'm going to cover that for the next episode.

So back to priorities.

A couple of things that happened. My oldest had finals today. Or she had pre-finals that were due today.

She came home Friday, explained to me that she had finals due and she had to practice. Quote, "I have finals due and I have to practice this weekend." So, I said okay, let's get you some time in. You got finals. It was Saturday.

We were taking a break from gaming and during dinner, we had late dinner. We always get talking at the table.

How's your day?

How was school?

What's going on?

How are your finals?

Did you get some studying in?

She did. She got some studying in.

And then she says, my pre-finals are due Monday.

I nearly choked on my food.

And I said, oh, you got pre-finals?

Now, remind you, she got accepted to a university. Her grades need to stay up, or else the acceptance gets rejected because she applied while she was in school, received the letter. The letter says you're accepted. But if your grades are not passing, they fail. We can't... will take away your acceptance.

So I nearly choked on my food, and I said, what do you mean your pre-finals are due Monday? I'm not understanding you. You told me that your finals were due, that you needed to work on your finals. And as far as I remember, you didn't tell me the due date as for your finals.

Finding out that the pre-finals were due Monday and the finals are due the following Friday.

Okay.

I looked at her and said, why are we gaming? We gamed it for like four hours. We're gaming for four hours, and you're telling me that you have pre-finals on Monday?

I was like, how come you didn't tell me this? She said she did. She’s like, "I did tell you I had finals due and I had practice this weekend." I'm like, yes, babies, you told me you had finals. You didn't inform me that you had pre-finals due on Monday.

I said, what is your game plan? Because she's smart. She is so smart. She literally has a game plan almost for everything. Literally. She'll leave her shoes in a certain area because she knows she's going to do something different.

She has a game plan almost for everything.

So her game plan was this: to get her weekend in, practice for pre-finals, and then go to school, not do pre-finals on Monday, but push it till Thursday or Wednesday, but still practice for her finals on Friday, which is fine to her because the teacher usually extends it.

I'm like, no, no, no.

That is absolutely no.

I said, I am not gaming.

No, because if you fail your pre-finals, and you can't take your finals until your pre-finals are done. And you haven't had enough time for your finals to practice, which it should be Monday through Thursday, then take your finals on Friday.

I said, no, I cannot game with you. I cannot be part of this because if anything goes south, I'm going to be the one to blame for it.

I said, this is what I would do. We cut gaming now. I know it stinks. I know it sucks. You go to bed, get some rest, seven hours of rest. You wake up on Sunday morning and you hit those pre-finals. You hit them all day. All day. It was a sad night. There was three of us. We're gaming. We're multi-playing, and we were kicking butt on the game.

We were just like, boom, boom, boom, back to back, back to back.

Which I would love to upload the games, how we play. It's so amazing. It is so amazing from my point of view.

It's just, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. And we work as a team, as a unit. We finished off strong, and it sucked, and we were all sad.

But she understood.

She understood that, okay, I'll go to bed and all this stuff, fine.

So she followed my game plan. Let's go to bed. Well, us as in her. And then I think I went to bed like half an hour or an hour later.

I tried watching a movie with my son because he was awake, and we were watching a movie. So it was my wife, my son, me in the living room watching a movie. Daughter already went to bed, and I couldn't stay up.

I was like, oh my gosh, I'm passing out. I'm freaking. I’m trying to stay up. I'm hitting the sweets. I'm hitting the donuts, the cookies, the soda.

And I'm just like, I can't, my eyeballs...So I ended up passing out.

In the morning, well, in the afternoon, I wake up because it's already about 4 AM. The plan was to game it for the whole night, like game it till the break of sunlight. But it didn't work out that way, which is fine, totally fine, 100% good.Everything happens for a reason.

And I wake up, it's about noon. So I got my six hours of rest, maybe seven. I go downstairs, everything's getting aligned, stuff like that. Everything's good to go.

And then I find out that my second oldest forgot to do her chores. She's been up reading a book, and I was like, "Oh, good morning." And stuff like that.

Got everything going, got everything, got changed, got dressed.

I'm like, okay, how long have you guys been up for? They've been up for three or four hours already. Okay. And it's a regular routine. Wake up, eat something, snack something. Anything past noon, you eat lunch. Anything before noon, you eat breakfast. Just so you're not eating cereal at 3 PM and not eating dinner because you ate cereal. So we have everything aligned.

And it's like, okay, did you do your chores? And she's like, no. I'm like, "Babies, why didn't you do your chores? You were up for like four hours." And she's like, "I forgot." And it was laundry. It was laundry that was supposed to be done. I'm calculating in my head, calculating in my head, calculating in my head.

And I'm thinking about public laundry because there’s different types of laundries.

There's their own laundry.

There's public laundry.

And then there's the adult laundry.

The public laundry is like all the towels, all the washcloths put together.

Then the adults',

Then their individual laundry.

And their individual laundry can literally only get washed on certain days because there's so much public laundry.

And it was like the priority wasn't correct. And I'm like, okay, just uh,, and now it's running, it's running into public laundry time. And if there's not enough public laundry, it either piles up or we run out. So okay, get, get your laundry done for at least two loads. After that, inform me, we can start doing public laundry.

Perfect. Great. Grand. Good to go.

So my old, my oldest is back studying. She's been studying. And it's like seven PM, turn seven PM, we get everything done. We're playing game, talking, how's your day? How's this, kind of interacting with the kids, letting them play outside. They can't play outside for longer than 10 minutes. It's literally 16 below out. It's like, it's like one, but it feels with windchill negative 16. So okay, we understand.

And it's about turns eight PM, nine PM. Now it's like, okay, it's Sunday night. The kids are already late going to bed. We're waiting for Angela. She gets done. Bam, done. Okay, good.

And then just for a conversation, I'm like, all right, so today everybody got their chores done. Correct.

And then my third from the oldest says, no, I didn't. And I said, okay, why didn't you get your chores done? She says, well, because I got all my chores done in the beginning of the day, but I couldn't get all the chores done because you were sleeping and I had to go get the garbage around the house.

Okay, I understand that. I was like, how come you didn't ask between the time I woke up to now? It's about nine hours.

Simple question. And the response was, I forgot, or I didn't think to ask. I didn’t think to ask.

Okay.

So you did ask me if you can play a game. You asked me if you can watch a movie or TV. And like, I'm not understanding why you remember to ask about everything what you wanted, but you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing as a priorities.

So she ended up collecting the garbage, took it outside really quick, came back in. And it's a big thing that I want to work on. I want to work on this week about priorities.

Priorities, priorities, priorities.

And even through all of this, I understand you guys are teenagers, and this even teaches me as a parent that I need to get my priorities correct as well with you guys.

So I might follow as well with this because I should be asking more questions about the prefinals and finals.

At the same time, I believe that you should be informing me about the prefinals and finals using proper communication and inform the full story rather than “its just finals."

And I should be saying, okay, so I meet you halfway, you meet me halfway, and we grow. That's basically what we do. Which is great. It’s been working for the longest time because there's even things that I learned. There’s even thing things I learned where I can't just do one thing with one child and not the other child.

And so I learn as well, and I have to set my priorities correct where I either have to ask the correct questions, maybe we should align the chores differently. It’s not who to blame, it’s where do we grow.

I know me growing up, me growing up traditionally, it was hard at first because it was like "I'm the father, I'm the dad, I know what I say. I'm tall, you're small. I'm smart." And it’s not working. That traditional thinking for me does not work. It doesn’t work.

The reason why I say it doesn’t work is because then we start pointing fingers, blaming, not moving forward, not having fun. It just doesn't work.

It’s gotta be "Okay, what's going wrong?" There is never a one-sided blame. It's about growth, where can we grow from this?After talking with my oldest, yes, she understood what could have been done differently.

And I explained that I could have asked more questions and get more involved to understand that there was a pre-final. Which I didn't even know there was a pre-final, the first thing wasfinals. And that's okay because we grew.

She got done late on Sunday. Monday morning comes around. Before school the kids usually wake up an hour before the bus comes. And what happens is I leaned in, and she was on her electronic device doing something for school. I said, "Hey, so how does it feel to get your stuff done versus your plan?" She said, "It felt great." I said, "Good, that's awesome."

Because that was my goal, my goal was for you to feel comfortable for your pre finals and your finals. Like that was my goal.

And so it worked. It worked out. Priorities is something very, very important. It is very important. Priorities really hits me almost every day. And it sucks because right now we have a tire that is literally losing air pressure.

I can go and replace the tire, but I can’t go replace the tire if I know I’m gonna buy 4 tires and I’m waiting for a sale. So it changes the priorities. But yet the priorities is kind of like what’s best for the money, what’s best for the strategy.

It sucks because I hate putting air in the tires. It’s like going to the store, checking if the pump works, pump don’t work. Ok I’ll use my own pump, grab the pump, haul it upstairs from the basement connect it. It takes too much time.

If I didn’t have stuff to do, I wouldn’t mind it. But its become a priority enough to replace the tire when I know I want to replace all four tires and I'm waiting for a good sale, buy three, get one free. I don’t know if that’s really a good sale, but I mean to me it’s a magician trick sale.

And I believe if we had all our priorities aligned as best as possible and still grow from priorities, things would be done so much better.

It’ll work with everybody, from a personal point of view to whoever you speak to, whoever you talk to. I noticed I’ve been lacking in priorities. If I see the TV on and I’m doing something, and I’m looking up from my electronic and it’s like Saturday. I’m like "Oh yeah, I'll turn it off in a little bit." And I don’t want to go turn it off.

Fifteen minutes pass, TV is still on. And its like "Okay, I gotta my priorities right. Nobody’s watching TV. I don’t even want it on. Everybody else is doing everything else. I gotta get up and do it." Is it lazy? I don’t know. But I know that the priority isn’t there.

Is the stuff that I’m doing is it that important to not turn off the TV? Probably not. Because I come back to the electronic and the stuff is saved.

And priorities can change. Priorities can definitely change. Recalculate your priorities. They can change every minute, they can change every five minutes, ten minutes.

After doing priorities for a while, it will become easy. Because then you’ll just be a walking priority person who’s having fun.

Put a seatbelt on in a vehicle, put a seatbelt when you're driving a vehicle that's a priority. Seatbelts are priorities.

When your going for a job interview or a job, or school, homework, tying your shoes, its a priority.

From small priority to a big priority. I believe once we align our priorities and we keep working on them, life will be a lot easier and better.

You kids are doing amazing. You really are. I promise, you guys are doing amazing.

What’s so weird I don’t understand is that usually I only have to explain something once, and you’re good listeners. You guys like listen. I don’t know why... It's weird.

It's like, it's like you guys have like a internal, internal hard drive that understands.

I don't know what it is. It's so cool. Weird in a cool way.

So after our Sunday family meeting, we discussed about priorities and then we, we ended like how we always ended watching a trailer of a movie Sunday, Sunday ended with a good bang. We got gaming in, we got everything what we needed to get done.

And this week we're going to focus on priorities.

You kids are amazing. I love you kids. You guys are awesome. You guys even put me in check and I need it at times. I promise.

Next, we'll talk about venting. Something did happen this weekend. I really want to stress it out to one of you about venting.

Love you. Have a good day.

Thank you for listening everybody else.

Here's another message for my kids.