Next, we need to define the facets of your life that go in each of your pillars and in your foundation.

To develop our facets, we’re going to use a process called Brainstorm, Group & Name.

First, we’ll brainstorm everything that you do in a specific pillar, then group related activities together and finally name the group as a facet in your portfolio.

As you work through this step, use the Create Your Facets Worksheet, which you can download at the end of this step, to develop your facets.

Brainstorm Activities

Using the Create Your Facets Worksheet, pick a pillar to start with and write down all things you spend time on within that pillar, such as:

• Projects
  Pieces of work with a fixed scope that you do for a specific period of time. For instance, building a treehouse or finding a new job.
• Roles & Responsibilities
  Roles you play or responsibilities you have. For instance, volunteering for an organization or doing the dishes twice a week.
• Hobbies & Interests
  Ongoing activities you do within a certain area of interest or with a specific social group.
• Other Activities
  Anything else you do within the context of the pillar that takes time.

To ensure you’ve captured everything, it can be useful to mentally walk through your day, starting from when you wake up and ending when you go to sleep.

If you do different activities on different days, do each of those days separately. Also do a similar mental scan of your week, month and year, to capture more infrequent activities.

Group Into Facets

Take your list of activities and group related activities together.

On your worksheet, start with your first activity and put a number 1 next to it. Then put a number 1 next to all of the other activities related to that activity. Go to the next unnumbered activity and put a number 2 next to it. Rinse and repeat until all of the activities have a group number next to them.

When grouping activities together, aim to put activities that provide a similar level of value and enjoyment to you together.

For instance, I group “exercise” and “massage” together; while I enjoy getting a massage more, I also enjoy exercise and they both provide the same value in helping me renew my body. If you hate exercise and love massage, then you should put them in separate categories.

Name Your Facets

Choose a short 1-3 word title for each of your groups. The title should represent the category or common thread of the activities within that group. It doesn’t need to be descriptive to others; it just has to mean something to you.

Keep it short to make it easier to read on your portfolio and to ensure it’s a category and not a miscellaneous basket of activities. I often search an online thesaurus to find the right words that make the most sense to me for each group.

If you need to elaborate on a title, use subtitles to represent any sub-facets within a facet. For instance, under Swing Asheville, I have “teaching, volunteering”.

Don’t Forget Your Foundation

After you do all of your pillars, create the facets for your foundation. These will be activities that don’t neatly fall within a single aspect of your life. Instead, they support your foundation.

Activities like sleeping and eating are critical to maintain life; others like showering, exercising and doing your finances are important to support the activities within your pillars. I also put activities here such as organizing, learning and strategizing (e.g. developing life plans ?) that help me be more effective in my pillar activities.