Develop personal policies to guide you through life.

Corporate policies such as the customer is always right, we will not be undersold and satisfaction or money refunded have been around for over a century. They help employees make tough decisions, provide consistency and express the organization’s philosophy. They also save time.
It is similarly effective for individuals to develop a set of personal policies or value statements to help guide them through life. Policies help people make decisions regarding their personal use of time and prevent them from getting involved in activities inconsistent with their beliefs.  Here are five guidelines for setting personal policies.

1. To establish personal policies you must first determine the values you want to protect and the image you want to project. Once you are clear on your priorities and how you want to use your time, put your statements in writing and post them where they’ll be a constant reminder. This might be at the front of your planner or in your PDA or other electronic organizer.

2. Be sure to discuss your policies with family members or others who will be affected by them. You could end up modifying them, but be sure that you end up with a set of guidelines that reflect your beliefs, not those of others.

3. If you don’t have a personal mission statement, develop one first, before you establish your policies. Policies help to guide you but a mission statement determines your direction.

4. Policies are guidelines, not rules. They are flexible depending on the situation. For instance, if one of your policies is to not work overtime, you may not refuse to work overtime if your job actually depended on it. However if you were consistently confronted with overtime at the threat of losing your job, you would either start looking for another job or change your policy. You cannot continue to live in opposition to your personal values. To do so would increase stress, diminish your self-esteem and take much of the fun out of life.

5. Your policies can be modified as time passes. Your priorities may change as your situation changes. As people grow older, for instance, they may have a greater respect for free time and less respect for money. Single people may have different priorities if they marry and have children. The important thing is that we maintain control of our lives by deciding our priorities and how we spend our time. Policies help us to live by design, not by default.