🌎Curiosity × Passion × Purpose: Reverse-Engineer Your Week for Maximum Impact

Reverse engineering an aligned calendar 🗓️

Like plenty of you, I have tried every productivity framework imaginable: Eisenhower Matrix, GTD, time-blocking, Pomodoro, frogs first, rocks-and-sand…the lot. Even when I stuck to them faithfully I still found my Todoist just kept breeding tasks and more meetings in my calendar. Surely the point of these tools was to create all this wonderful space for hobbies, not more busywork?

The penny drop moment 💡

When I look a little closer, I realised I was optimising bailing water out of the boat instead of fixing the leak. I kept saying yes to everything without asking whether those commitments deserved space in my life. I now start with what I call Mission-First Filtering:

Clarify your purpose, mission, values and big goals.
Run every new opportunity through that filter.
If it passes, capture it in your to-do list and unleash your favourite tactics. If it fails, let it go.

This top-down filtering keeps every task, big or small, pointing at the same North Star. It turns throwing random ingredients from your baking drawer to make a cake into a “world-class chocolate cake” recipe. But a Life Mission is good more than chocolate cakes.

Why a mission matters 🧭

Purpose is more than touchy-feely visions and mission statements; it is biology. A strong sense of purpose is linked to:

15-30 % lower all-cause mortality
Roughly 30 % lower risk of dementia
Reduced cardiovascular disease
Better adoption of health-protective habits such as exercise and plant-forward eating

Don’t know what your Life Mission is or even where to start? You’re not alone! Large surveys show only about one in four adults feel they have a clear purpose.

Find your Life Mission: 7 journal prompts ✍️

Having gone through this process recently here are 7 questions to create expansive thinking and really got the ball rolling for me. Grab a coffee, a notebook and sit with these questions until it feels uncomfortable… then go a bit further.

🌍 What three global problems genuinely frustrate you when you see them unsolved?
🧠 If 5,000 world-class experts were at your command, what would you set them to work on?
👵 At 85, looking back, what single pursuit would make you proudest?
🎮 What activity or challenge could you keep levelling up at for years without boredom?
🏆 What do you strive to master even without external rewards?
🤝 Who do you naturally want to help, and why do they energise you?
❓ For each answer, ask “why?” three times to peel back the layers.

As patterns emerge, you will see the Venn overlap of Curiosity, Passion and Purpose—the intersection of which is where your Life Mission emerges.

From mission to calendar 🔄

Translate your Life Mission into concrete goals starting from big, lofty ones (1–5-year span) down to annual and quarterly goals.
Block non-negotiable mission-critical time first (training, deep work, family, recovery).
Funnel all new requests through the Mission-First filter before they touch your calendar.
Review the system quarterly and refine your mission annually. This is a living document, not a set-and-forget.

Pro-tip 🛠️

Schedule a 60-minute “mission audit” with yourself every January. A tiny annual investment prevents a year of drift.