If you are considering a life audit, we have the steps to take to begin. We recently went through some areas in our lives where we needed to closely examine where energy is being exerted and the return on investment.
Many people do not consider a return on investment with time, energy, and effort, mostly just money. When you take an audit of your life, you have a lot to work with. Breaking it down into areas to audit is much easier to tackle than the whole overall life.
We will share the steps to a life audit with you. You will walk away with an action plan for each area of your life and, hopefully, know where you can eliminate energy not wisely spent and dedicate more energy to what fills your cup.
A Step-by-Step Guide to a Life Audit
Before beginning a life audit, we will assume that you are in a period where something has to give. If you are like us, you have to break things down and assess the nitty gritty, no matter how good or bad it looks, so that you can begin setting goals to move toward improvement.
A life audit sounds daunting, but it is more attainable and less overwhelming when you break it down into micro-life audits.
Let’s go through each life audit one by one.
1. Personal Time Audit
Start with assessing how you spend your personal time, setting the foundation for understanding where your days go.
It is easy to imagine you working 6 hours on a project only to find that it took you 11.
How do you do this? Some apps, like Toggl, allow you to track your time. It has a built-in timer and can even work with your Google Calendar.
Give yourself at least a week, but it works better with a personal time audit to give yourself more like a month. The goal here is to assess every single minute.
You can track it digitally or with a pen and paper. However, the latter will take more time. Whatever works for you. You want to note how much time it took you to get ready in the morning and how much time you took for your morning walk.
Are you running errands midday or making doctor appointments? After your audit, you will see what can be eliminated, batched to more concise times, or a different schedule altogether.
For example, we found that running errands works best early on a Saturday morning rather than throughout the week.
2. Professional Time Audit
Follow with professional time to balance personal and work-life considerations.
The same process works here, but it is only designated for your work-life audit. You want to track all of the time you spend on work tasks.
We all know that task-switching is difficult. You may think you are a multitasker, but no one does it well. Can you use a Pomodoro timer and focus on only one project for a period of time?
Do you need to delegate tasks to an assistant or a colleague unsuited for your role?
We know someone who did this for a month and decided she wanted a career change. This professional life audit, like all of the areas, is powerful.
3. Physical Health Audit
Next, look at physical health since it’s essential for personal and professional productivity.
If you don’t care for your physical health, it all falls apart, right? This may be the time to assess when your last physical was. When was the last time you had bloodwork done?
Are there areas with your physical health that you should concentrate on? We’re not talking merely about losing weight or getting fit. We discuss knowing what is happening with your body and working toward better physical health.
During the pandemic, when the world shut down, Gerry and I took a life audit, and the physical health portion was something that we had undivided time to work on.
I have talked about how I lost 70 pounds during this time. I took an audit of what I was eating and how often (or little) I was moving, and I learned to love myself.
Gerry and I also began realizing how many aches and pains we had and began stretching.
Whatever your values in life, make sure you take care of your body. It does a lot for you, and a physical health audit is a way to give back to yourself.
4. Mental Health Audit
After physical health, dive into mental health to ensure a holistic view of well-being.
We are a broken record when it comes to taking care of your mental health. Mental wellness is important to everyone. It must be a priority for all ages, all genders, and people.
Ask yourself not if you are happy but if you are content.
Are there stressors that you have all the time?
Have you dealt with instances of grief or trauma in your life? Perhaps you didn’t deal with them and need to before they overflow in your cup and there is a big flood!
Maybe this is the time to find a therapist and have a general assessment. Therapy doesn’t need to be every week or every month for everyone.
You can talk to your primary care physician and ask for a mental health assessment to get a mental pulse check on your health.
Mention that you are working through a life audit and want to ensure you do all you can to improve your mental wellness.
5. Relationship Audit
Assess relationships to understand social influences on your mental and emotional state.
This is a time to examine your time spent, but with whom are you spending it? Create a list of people in your inner circle who you deal with daily, even weekly.
Every head of energy vampires? The relationship audit is where those will become evident. It’s the people who always want something from you.
They may not even know that they are doing it, but when you begin to assess your relationships, you realize whether you are creating the boundaries you need for your life.
6. Environmental Audit
Evaluate your surroundings as they impact much of your life. This is where you take note of the extra clutter. For this audit, instead of focusing on the mental and digital clutter (those have their own audits), only focus on what is in your environment.
Do the things in your life serve you? Do they have a function? Are you able to enjoy them? Or are they simply burning under or behind the other stuff?
Create a sell, donate, and trash station. During this audit, you will go from room to room and consider if the environment is conducive to your vibe. Is the space promoting positive mental and physical health?
If so, we think you know what we are going to say. Get rid of it.
Need some extra help here? Consider our Declutter 365. It is a daily decluttering system that promotes one thing each day. Over the course of the year, you have decluttered your life.
7. Digital Life Audit
Move to the digital space to address modern life complexities and potential stressors.
Most of us have smartphones. These days, smartphones have trackers where you can review your digital well-being. Start there.
Did you know that most people spend an average of 35.8% of their digital activities on social media?
Begin assessing how much time you spend on social media and your phone. If you use the persona and professional time audit, you may spend even more time on digital products like your laptop and watching TV.
In this audit, keep track of all of it. We recommend taking a week off of digital life at the end of the digital life audit. It is not only one of the most rewarding things you can do, but you truly understand how often you are tied to it.
After finishing this area life audit, we now keep our phones on silent all the time. We want to choose when we are going to pick them up. If we want to take a call or text, we choose.
No more doomscrolling for us. If you want to go rogue, take a page out of Woody Harrelson’s book. He performed a digital life audit and decided to remove his phone completely.
8. Personal Growth Audit
Consider personal development and how you invest in yourself beyond day-to-day tasks.
Are there areas in which you want to gain success? Do you want to be a better gardener? Maybe you want to take up reading more.
Define what makes you happy or fulfills you in life. This area should not include your business, your online Etsy shop, or anything that could fit into the professional area of your life.
During this audit, we began watching workshops in MasterClass. I watched tutorials about gardening, and Gerry watched some about cooking and playing his guitar.
You can look at MasterClass or Skillshare and peruse them to find something you want to do personally to fill your cup.
9. Spiritual Life Audit
Conclude with spirituality, which can provide a sense of purpose and fulfillment.
This can get deep, but you want to take a look at what your purpose is. You may not know your purpose, but we feel this is an area to determine whether you are living the life that makes you feel like it would be well lived.
You may find that you want to start a meditation practice.
Are you part of any spiritual or religious communities that support you? If not, consider finding some that do. If you feel guilt or obligation to participate, you will likely not feel supported or fulfilled.
During this audit, determine if you are setting aside time to practice mindfulness. Perhaps you can start a gratitude practice.
Whatever it is that helps you work toward inner peace, do that.
A Life Audit Can Be a Transformative Experience
Conducting a life audit can be transformative and more rewarding than you imagine. It allows you to gain clarity and make intentional changes that align with your values and goals.
By breaking down your audit into specific micro audits—Personal Time, Professional Time, Physical Health, Mental Health, Relationships, Environment, Digital Life, Personal Growth, and Spiritual Life—you can get a comprehensive view of where you stand and where you want to go.
Remember, the goal isn’t perfection but to create a life that feels balanced, fulfilling, and true to yourself.
Whether spending more time on hobbies, decluttering your digital space, or deepening your spiritual practices, every step brings you closer to a more intentional and satisfying life.
Life is a journey; a life audit is a powerful tool for ensuring you’re on the right path.
Embrace the process, celebrate your progress, and keep moving forward with purpose and joy.
FAQs | Frequently Asked Questions
At least yearly. We also recommend that if you are feeling uneasy in an area of your life at any time, it may be time to perform a life audit or a micro-audit.
You can do it with someone else for accountability, but we feel that a life audit is a time to look within and audit your own practices, where energy is spent, need for improvement, etc.
Perform the one that you feel you need to work on first or where you are feeling the most uneasiness. If you are unsure, the personal time audit should be performed first as it will trickle into many of the other micro-audits.
