If you’re anything like me, the world is a very overwhelming place. I totally freeze up when it’s time to make decisions about what to do next– in general– and often end up doing nothing at all. These decisions that I avoid making can be about anything, from what to do next in my career to what video game to play tonight. Therefore, I wanted to share something that has helped me make decisions, and that is choosing five focuses.

Choosing five focuses for what? Anything you want. I have done it for my life in general (see below) and also my witchcraft, so you may want to do both or either. You could choose five focuses for any project you’re working on, a self-directed career, research topics, or anything else you can think of. It’s open-ended on purpose.

Why five? Five, in my opinion, is the perfect number when choosing focuses. Having five allows you to not burn out on any single activity while also narrowing down what you’re working on.

For example, my five life focuses are:

• school
• career
• gender transition
• this blog
• witchcraft/spirituality

Once you have the list, you can work backward or forward: you can use the list to generate priorities, or you can check priorities against the list. Anything that’s not related to something on the list is not a priority. That doesn’t mean you can’t do it, it just means that it’s not as important as stuff that IS on the list.

I hope some of this made sense. If you decide to do this activity, let me know how it goes!