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I.Liv. Rocks size our Personal Velocity – A Quantified Measure of how much we can do in a day

The Bottom Line – Our Personal Velocity helps us set the right daily pace!

  • Often, we are either trying to get TOO MUCH done leading to constant BURNOUT, or we are getting NOT ENOUGH done, leading to feeling GUILTY or even ANXIOUS about our never-ending to-do lists.  
  • Our Personal Velocity number gives us a quantified measure of how much we can get done in a day. When used as part of intentional living practices, it becomes a powerful tool to help us curb burnout (trying to do too much) or increase productivity (not doing enough) across key aspects of our life.  
  • Our Personal Velocity number is only intended for our own personal use – it is a helpful indicator of how we are progressing along the journey of building our desired life.  

What is our Personal Velocity?

  • Personal Velocity is a key concept I.Liv. brings into practice to help us set the right daily pace and prioritize the right things.
  • Like a jar is fundamentally limited in size, our days are fundamentally limited in time. We each have a pace at which we can get stuff done and our personal velocity number helps us quantify the realistic amount we can get accomplished during the day.
  • Personal Daily Velocity:  
    • Represents the size of our personal ‘jar’ – it is a key indicator of how much we can realistically get done today. 
    • Is the sum of our completed Daily Rocks. Each rock size (XS / S / M / L / XL) translates to points (1 / 3 / 5 / 8 / 16) that add to up our personal daily velocity. 
  • As we get better at our intentional living practices, our velocity number will improve. This doesn’t mean that we have to work harder or longer – instead we reap efficiencies by prioritizing what is most important and reducing mental spin through planning and mindset training.

Personal Velocity is a Key Indicator – Not an Exact Science:  

Range. We use estimation for sizing our rock efforts, so we cannot expect perfect alignment of results. Most of us will settle into useful ranges that make sense for our life:  

  • Ex. Weekdays I usually get accomplish 22-26 points. 
  • Ex. In a typical workday, I get 10-12 points completed.  

Trends and Variations. Just like our days, velocity will vary and trend with our life flow.  

  • Ex. I notice that on weekdays, I reach 22-26 points, but the way I plan my weekends, usually I achieve 16-20 points.  
  • Ex. My Mondays I am extra productive, so can load up to 30 points, if I wish. 

Just for us. Our points are useful to only us. It is a personal indicator that reflects how we plan and think about our life and days. There is no point to compare with others, fundamentally it is a game of You versus You! 

Daily Personal Velocity by Life Quad

In the I.Liv. app, each member will be able to see their overall Daily Personal Velocity, and also will be able to see the Daily Personal Velocity by Life Quad. The purpose of this is to enable us to use quantified data to manage the overall balance in our life. For example:

  • People Quad: How much energy we regularly put into relationships in our life and supporting others.
  • Work Quad: Know how much is realistic to plan for a regular workday.
  • Health Quad: See if we regularly spend energy on taking care of our body needs.  
  • MySelf Quad: Ensure we are replenishing our energy regularly and not just depleting ourselves.

Why does our Personal Velocity matter?

Personal daily velocity is a key indicator of how much we can realistically get done today:  

  • Doing more consistently leads to burnout 
  • Doing less consistently leads to lower productivity  

How to get the most accurate Personal Velocity?

  1. Plan for your whole day, not just one aspect – We might be tempted to only define the rocks we get done at work. This is a normal tendency considering modern society, but one we want to correct with Intentional Living practices. We are much more than our work, so when we are creating a daily plan, let’s consider *all* the things we want to direct our energy to accomplish from the time we wake up to when we go to bed.
  2. Ensure we plan with internal consistency – The objective is to get a repeatable trend, so let’s aim to plan with consistency. If we size a workout at a Medium sized rock one day, let’s use Medium the next day also (if it’s a comparable energy workout). Practise makes perfect with personal velocity as with everything else. As we do it, we will inevitably come up with informal rules of thumb we use to accurately size planned efforts in our lives.
  3. Accept the fluctuations, consider a personal range versus an exact number – Our daily numbers might vary within a repeatable range (ex. my workdays are consistently between 21 and 24 points). This is to be expected as we are estimating and cannot expect perfection.
  4. Get to know your trends – In addition to daily fluctuation, we might realize that we have different velocities on different ‘types’ of days. For example, even when I fully load my weekend days with activities, my weekend trends are lower than weekdays (weekends tend to be 16-19 range). This is normal also as weekend activities differ from typical weekday activities, so we just consider them a trend of their own.