Spice up your life

Often times we get so into our routines, that we don't question why we're doing them.  Or we get into so many different activities that are supposed to make us happy and enhance our lives that they actually introduce stress.

I was thinking about this for quite a while and decided to try to reprioritize by using something I invented:  a SPICE scale.

Take your average week and start to categorize your activities, then for each activity rate them on a scale from 0-10 on the following:

S = Stress (0 being no stress at all, 10 meaning you're about to have a freakdown)
P = Payback (0 being no payback at all, 10 meaning you get a very high payback. And it doesn't have to be financial, it can be emotional, physical or mental payback)
I = Importance (0 being almost a complete waste of time, 10 being you can't truly can't survive without it, or it's usefulness to the human race)
C= Challenging (0 being no challenge at all, 10 being extremely challenging)
E = Enjoyment (0 being you hate it, 10 being you LOVE it!)

Then you also consider how many hours per week you do the activity and plug it into a spreadsheet.  The formula I came up with is a work in progress, but it still provides some pretty interesting numbers.

Here's my SPICE chart.

Take a look, and feel free to copy the spreadsheet and plug in your own activities and ratings.  You'll be surprised at how much time you're wasting, and what activities you can do better at that really are important.

The totals, averages, and self-analysis is really interesting.  It takes time to fill this out, but should help figure out what improvements you can make in your life.