Pruning and Weeding Your Life Through Visual Thinking

Making time for a self-audit of your schedule, daily habits, free time activities, etc. is a great exercise to complete every quarter. This time of review not only opens up new ideas and goals, but it is a great learning experience. You can use this time to reflect on all sorts of things that you encountered during a three month period. The best part is that you can use visual thinking to do it.

To complete a visual self-audit of your schedule, we recommend gathering a few supplies first!

Things you will need:

Your calendar: digital or paper planner
Poster Board or large sheets of paper: to draw out your audit
Markers or colored pencils: to incorporate color into your audit

After you gather your materials, take time to flip through your schedule and check out your phone to review what types of things occurred over the past few months. Write down the projects you completed, the trips you took, the time you invested in your health or self-care. Whatever stands out to you, write it down. Incorporate your sketchnote skills also to illustrate specific events. Get creative!

Now for the auditing process. Get a red, green and blue marker from your materials. These will be used to circle various parts of your visual audit — memories or events that were positive, circle or highlight with green. For negative experiences, mark them with red. Areas that you see improvement or potential growth opportunities use blue to distinguish this item.

This process should be based on gut reactions. Do not overthink this part! Once you have categorized each item with your color code, take a step back and review your completed audit.

What color is the most dominant? If you are unhappy with your dominant color, what steps can you take to change your dominant color this next quarter?

Keep this process into practice throughout your year. Take photos of your posters or scan them to reference over time. See your evolution of growth and progress!

Want some tips for drawing easy visuals? Sign up for our Visual Notetaking Tip Sheet!

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Lisa

Visual Thinker | Graphic Recorder | Sketchnote Artist at See In Colors

Lisa Nelson loves combining art with life. She is the Founder and Chief Visual Strategist of See In Colors where she leads a team that designs, facilitates, and captures conversations with hand-drawn pictures. By blending the power of visuals, communication and project management, Lisa helps organization have impact for social change. See In Colors is based in the Washington, D.C. area and serves clients world-wide.