Time of your life

The life auditer has to sit down and work out just how much of the available 24 hours she or he is spending on health, relationships, image, work, "soul", money and so on. Then it’s a case of working out how to prioritise the time differently if there are changes that need to be made.
Like many such schemes, the life audit idea has developed out of the author’s personal story. It is clear from a glance at her packed CV that Caroline Righton is no slouch: after jobs in print and radio journalism, she moved into television and by the age of 45, she had an extremely successful career as controller of features at Carlton TV. She also had a happy family life with her management consultant husband and two teenage sons. But this didn’t stop her feeling as though she’d somehow lost her way and wasn’t really living the life she wanted.
"It’s easy to look from the outside in and think, ’My goodness, that person’s sorted, they’ve ticked all the boxes and aren’t they lucky,’" she points out. "But everybody you look at is probably howling quietly inside. I think part of the impetus behind me doing the life audit was because I felt guilty at not being fully sorted out. If I did have a great career, a loving family, live in a nice part of Britain [Devon], and have my health, then what on earth entitled me to feel not fully fulfilled?"
When events conspired to keep her husband and sons away from home during the week, Righton realised that she had been using family responsibilities as an excuse for not dealing with the question of what she really wanted from life.
"It was an intangible thing; I felt as though up to then I’d only been reacting to things. When my children were there, I was in mother mode, doing their mountains of washing. Career opportunities had come my way, and in the main I’d been in a position to make the most of them. But I’d never stood outside myself and said, ’Come on, what do you want to do?’"
She decided to try to get an objective picture of her life, making comprehensive lists of how she was spending her time each day. "I wrote it all down, and I thought, ’How do I feel about this?’ each time, listening to my inner voice. There were so many little revelations: that I prefer a really windy morning to nice weather, or that I feel happier on the mornings when my favourite mug isn’t in the dishwasher needing a clean.
"I realised pretty quickly that the currency I was dealing with in my own personal ’audit’ was time, and that I went to bed at the end of each day happy, sad, fulfilled or not fulfilled, according to how I’d spent the minutes of that day."
"Time keeps on being hijacked, whether it’s because of the amount of time you have to spend on your journey to work, or because the kids are always late coming out of school, or because you’re hanging on the phone trying to get through to someone in a call centre. The minutes of the day end up not being owned by you. If I could somehow work out what had to be done and get it out of the way, I might be able to liberate some time to use as I wanted."
Righton’s own self-examination bore fruit rapidly; she began her life audit in January and by September of the same year she had given up the job she had thought she loved, realising that in fact she was rather bored with it. "I set up a consultancy, and I started on the six life ambitions that I wanted to have a go at."
Her aims included learning golf, getting a puppy and spending more time with friends; another goal was to start to write about the life audit idea. "A friend who is the editor of Woman & Home asked me to write a piece for the magazine, and it had a great response from readers, saying ’I tried it and it worked for me.’"
A book beckoned, so Righton got volunteers of both sexes and different ages to try out the audit idea for case studies. "I got some great stories." One of the most consistently talked-about elements of the plan, she says, has always been the section on friendships. In the book, Righton suggests that you stocktake your friends, being honest with yourself about which friendships are working for you--and which aren’t. It causes controversy because we rarely admit to doing it, she says.
"Everyone always says, ’I wish I could audit some people out of my life.’ We’re so polite in relationships, but people can be very destructive and make you feel dreadful, and you just sit there and think, ’Why am I spending time with you?’ But you just get swept along.
"All the book does is say, ’Well, think about it. You are spending time with this person at the expense of somebody else. Be more conscious of the decision you are making, and be a bit braver.’ It’s not that you are a bad person, you are just prioritising, maybe saying ’There’s a new person that I’d like to know better and invest a little time in.’"
* Publicity to include comprehensive coverage in women’s magazines, including New Woman, Elle and Glamour.
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