“My workflow process is a Datsun. It needs to become a Ferrari.”

A doctor I worked with faced a critical choice: Where to focus first?

We’d been for a bush walk discussing the challenges and opportunities they were dealing with across relationships, health, work and more.

There were many moving parts that weren’t going away any time soon.

As we sat down with coffee, I pulled out the Valued Living Questionnaire.

The Valued Living Questionnaire

The Valued Living Questionnaire is a simple, evidence-based tool from the psychological flexibility toolkit. Developed by Professor Kelly G. Wilson in 2002, it has an uncanny knack for cutting through the Gordian knot of our minds’ noise and life’s complexity.

In the midst of my own crucible in 2016 – newborn baby, shoulder operation, work challenges, father-in-law with leukemia plus my own dad’s death – this was the tool that helped me transform insane frustration to clarity in 3 mins.

Here it is below or you can download the full worksheet and instructions here >>.

When I used the Valued Living Questionnaire in the depths of my challenges in 2016, it changed the direction of my enquiry from external to internal.

It asked me questions to help me find my own answers.

The challenge of that period made sense.

The good of that period made sense.

But it was the surprise of seeing my specific scores for the Work category that sparked a shift.

I’d scored Work 9/10 in importance and 2/10 in satisfaction.

In hindsight, that 3 minute exercise provided me with the insight that began the 18 month process of resigning from the company I’d founded 13 years earlier. It gave me to clarity to head down this path of exploring the application of psychological flexibility for resilience, performance and fulfilment.

Applying the Valued Living Questionnaire

I’ve used this tool many times in the last 9 years both in one-on-one and group settings.

If you can be brutally honest with yourself, it’s the fastest way I’ve found to take stock of where you are and where you need to focus.

We can interpret the results of it in a few ways:

1. People who feel as though they are thriving often report high degrees of satisfaction in high importance categories.
2. The opposite is also true. People with low scores for high importance categories can feel “stuck”.
3. As a quick audit: Take your highest importance categories and compare them to your diary and how you’re spending your time. What does this tell you about your current priority and time management? Where are the gaps?
4. Insight: Like my experience, were there any surprises for you when you completed the scoring?
5. Focus: If you could only focus on one of these areas, which would you choose?
6. Action: What single specific action might you take to improve this domain’s satisfaction score by just 1 or 2 points in the next 24-48 hours? (What, Who, Where, When…)
7. Energy and fulfilment: How might you combine your high importance domains into a single activity? This is a key to designing activities to energise and nourish.

Back at the cafe, the doctor went through the exercise.

“Even though, based on these scores, it seems like I should be focussed on my parenting and my marriage, I think work is where I need to focus right now.

If I can learn to work with the imposter syndrome at the clinic and manage my anxiety, then I’ll be more present at home with my family and improve my productivity at work.

Also, I need to dramatically improve my productivity at work. If I can do that, I’ll be able to work within work hours, have more time for my family and benefit financially.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes. My workflow process is a Datsun. It needs to become a Ferrari.”

And so our work began.

2 months later:

• Their workflow process was dialled in and improving all the time. Through systemised prioritisation, they were triaging issues faster, proactively getting feedback sooner and speeding up the learning loop while maintaining quality.
• Productivity was measured by very specific units of output. Each week a personalised productivity ranking of all doctors was shared via email across the company. This doctor’s ranking and unit output were trending up.
• Using the full suite of tools of psychological flexibility they were better managing their imposter syndrome and anxiety.
• They were home on time and not working after the children went to bed.

For them, this wasn’t just about productivity for productivity’s sake. They were deeply connected to the impact it would have on everything they cared about.

Over the coming months as their context shifted, we revisited the Valued Living Questionnaire numbers of times to reset focus on the area most in need of attention.

12 months later they had:

• Doubled their productivity units and tripled their productivity bonus.
• Been offered and taken up a leadership position in their clinic. After 6 months in that role, they’d increased productivity of output units for the whole clinic by 5 times.
• Had multiple, multi-week family holidays.
• Navigated health challenges with their children and partner.
• Played a masters tournament of their favourite childhood sport.
• Successfully completed a new professional credential.
• Completed 8 months of strength training and were the strongest they’d been in a 10 years.

It’s clearly not all due to a 3 min exercise. There was a ton of compounding effort put in to bring these results to life.

But the insight the Valued Living Questionnaire delivers is a critical starting point.

Ambiguity Is The Enemy

As I’ve learnt, when it comes to making change, ambiguity is the enemy.

The Valued Living Questionnaire is a fast, powerful tool.

Why? Because it enables us to get specific about the challenges we’re experiencing and then specific about the action we need to take.

So go through the exercise for yourself.

What area needs your focus right now?

What committed action can you take to make progress in the next 24 hours? And beyond?

Then, if you want some accountability, let me know how you went.

I’d love to hear.