2012 Best Practices for Government Libraries

Creating Your Total Life List for 2012
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BEST PRACTICES 2012
By Bruce Rosenstein, Author, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker‘s
Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life
As we begin 2012, many of us will be looking for new ways to organize and improve our
life. One reason that taking advantage of a new beginning can be so difficult is that most
of us have more than one dimension to our life. This is especially true for knowledge
workers with work, friends, family and possibly obligations such as volunteering for a
nonprofit or religious organization, or for a professional association such as SLA or ALA.
How do you know what aspects you’d like to improve if you’re not really sure how many
activities and people actually comprise your life? My suggestion is to create and use a
Total Life List. I created this device as a running theme in my book Living in More Than
One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life. It’s
designed for people who lead busy lives, and who want to make sure they are getting the
most out of their time, and making a positive difference in the world.
The list is simple to set up and use. It can be done on computer, or with pen and paper.
The idea is to have a framework for a visual representation of where your life stands now,
including identifying the people in your various activities and responsibilities; and what
you envision for the future.
The sections of your Total Life List:
1. Immediate family
2. Extended family
3. Work colleagues you interact with most frequently and closely
4. Friends
5. Members of your professional networks
6. Where you work now and a brief statement of your responsibilities
7. Memberships in professional associations
8. Various learning activities; formal and informal
9. Teaching activities; formal and informal
10.Volunteering
11.Involvement with nonprofits or social entrepreneurship
12.Mentoring
13.All outside activity (e.g. sports, religion/spirituality, book groups, writing, music and
other artistic endeavors, amateur interest societies, hobbies, etc.)
14.Mind-body and exercise
Give an honest accounting of where you are now in these areas, and what you’d like to
aim for in the future, including the people you’d like to add to your life. If you are on
Facebook and LinkedIn, or other social networks, some of this information will be readymade.
Your list can be as all-encompassing and elaborate as you’d like it to be. No matter
how you approach it at first, think of it as an ongoing activity for the rest of 2012 and
beyond.