What’s the tag cloud for your life?

What I love about the tag cloud for this blog (on the right) is that it really reflects what this blog is about – and, as a result, serves as a visual summary of what I’ve found interesting and blog-worthy.

The big words in my tag cloud are “storytelling,” “communications,” “philanthropy,” and “raising capital” but there’s also space for “4 in the morning,” “empathy,” “listening,” and “Moth Smoke.”  That sounds about right – a few focus areas for the blog, and the prerogative to jump around to other topics I find interesting.

So here’s the question: what would the tag cloud for your life look like?

What are the big words and what are the little ones?

What’s on the list that you’d like to see grow or shrink?

What’s missing that you’d like to see?

What I like about this idea is that it gives space for all of the different hats we wear throughout the day, and allows us to think about how we spend our time and what shifts we might make in our lives.

The nice thing is, something doesn’t have to be big to be on the list.  So you don’t have to have “exercise” or “tango dancing” or “speaking up for myself” be big to have them be part of your life.  You just need to start somewhere.

And once you get started, you might be surprised to see what grows and what fades away.

(By the way, you could take this post literally if you like: go into Microsoft Word, brainstorm a list of words that describe how you spend your day, then play with the fonts to figure out what’s big and what’s small in your life.  Voila, a tag cloud for your life.  Redo this every 6 months and revisit the old ones to see if you’re heading where you want to go.

Or, more publicly, you could create a blog that JUST has tags for each daily post.  Instant tag cloud.  And you don’t even have to write real posts if you don’t want to – just a chance to figure out how you’re spending your time.)