Since I’ve been trying to become a more effective and organized employee/husband/guy (order depends on time of day), I’ve been reading a lot about systems of organization, business practice and philosophy, and the like. And nearly to a man, the authors of same claim that one must know one’s values.
Lucky me, Douglas Wagoner has thrown a binary-selection ranking algorithm at the task of sussing out just what you value. From a list of “value” words a mile long, he asks you to choose, then compare, as many or few values as you like via a series of online forms .
It is worth doing, but beware; if you choose too many values to rank, you’ll have a lot of binary selections to make, on the order of (n–1)! or some such. I chose 14 items and had to make 91 selections; (n–1)! sounds about right.
My results say a lot about me. Maybe. In a way I was surprised that the very popular choices “integrity,” “happiness,” “achievement,” or “financial independence” did not make my list. But I’m clearly busy enough with “creativity,” “brilliance,” and “attractiveness” to worry about things like that.
