VoiceFirstPlanner
Life Planning · Values

Find your personal values — and every decision gets easier.

Your personal values — your core values — are the few things that matter most to you. Name them, and VoiceFirstPlanner keeps every task, goal and habit pointed at them.

Start freeWhat is a value?
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The pain

You get to the end of a busy day and can’t say what any of it was for.

Everything on the list got done. The important thing didn’t — it never made the list. It rarely does, because the urgent shouts and the important waits quietly. The list keeps growing and nothing in it tells you which three things actually matter, so you do the loud ones, and the day ends busy and hollow.

  • “Busy all day, and I couldn’t say what any of it was for.”
  • “I was good at the work and vague about the point of it.”
  • “Everything got a yes, so nothing got the time it deserved.”
  • “I could tell you my targets. I couldn’t tell you what mattered.”

What are personal values?

Personal values are the principles that matter most to you — honesty, family, health, freedom, craftsmanship. They are not goals: nothing ever ticks them off. They are the direction a life keeps choosing, and the reason one task earns its place and another does not.

Core values are simply the handful at the top — the few you would keep if you had to let the rest go. Three to five works well. A definition is easy; the useful part is knowing which ones are yours.

A list of personal values

Read slowly and notice which words land, even slightly. These are core values examples — the list from our Values workbook.

  • Honesty
  • Integrity
  • Courage
  • Discipline
  • Kindness
  • Family
  • Friendship
  • Loyalty
  • Compassion
  • Community
  • Growth
  • Curiosity
  • Creativity
  • Mastery
  • Wisdom
  • Health
  • Balance
  • Calm
  • Presence
  • Resilience
  • Excellence
  • Ambition
  • Impact
  • Leadership
  • Freedom
  • Adventure
  • Independence
  • Service
  • Generosity
  • Faith
  • Justice
  • Gratitude
  • Security
  • Stability
  • Order
  • Authenticity
  • Humility
  • Patience
  • Purpose
  • Simplicity

How to find your core values

A simple values exercise — a self-assessment, not a test with a score. Four steps, about four minutes.

  • Circle every value that lands.From the list above, or in your own words. Don’t overthink which ones count.
  • Narrow it to five.Keep the ones you would still choose if choosing them cost you something. Those are your core values.
  • Name the roles you hold.Parent, professional, friend, learner. Write one line on what doing each well looks like.
  • Point your goals at them.From here, every goal can carry a value and a role — and that is what makes reaching it feel like something.
The values chips, mid-add
A life role, with what doing it well looks like

The full chapter is in the Instruction Manual — free with any account.

The answer

Name what matters once. Everything else lines up behind it.

Your values as chips, and the first two life roles beneath them
The Add a value field, with the mic and the Add button

Pick your personal values from the list, or say them. Then name the roles you actually hold — parent, builder, friend — and what doing each one well looks like.

From then on, every goal you set can point at one of them. When a task earns its place, you know why. When it doesn’t, that’s easier to see too.

Think of it as a value planner: name them once, and every goal you set can point at one.

“Add health to my values”

It’s on the list — and every goal you set from here can point at it.

Life Planning › Values › tap to add

Tapping is the easier way to start. Both work.

Five values on the free plan, and the pages are all there from the start.

What the research found
Goals rooted in your own values drew more sustained effort and were reached more often — and reaching them genuinely improved well-being. Borrowed goals didn’t.

This is why Life Planning opens with values before it ever asks for a goal. The same achievement pays out completely differently depending on whose goal it was.

See the evidence →

The basics

Personal values examples: a value is a direction, a goal is a finish line.

You can run the half-marathon. You never finish being healthy.

That’s the whole difference, and it’s worth ten seconds because it’s where most planning goes wrong: people write down goals they never chose and wonder why arriving felt like nothing.

Get the value right and the goals almost choose themselves.

Examples of personal values at work

  • Healththe reason behind run a half-marathon in May
  • Craftsmanshipthe reason behind finish the boat properly, not quickly
  • Presencethe reason behind Friday afternoons off by June

I ran a paper planner for thirty-five years and it never once asked me why. It held the appointments and the lists and it did that well. But the question underneath — is this the day I meant to have — that one I had to keep asking myself.

This is the part I wish I’d had.

— Dave Rees, Founder. From boatbuilder, to business owner, to Founder.

The Values workbook takes the exercise further — the forty-word scan, the narrowing, and how to line your days up behind what you chose.

See the Values workbook →

Personal values questions

What are personal values?

The principles that matter most to you — honesty, family, health, freedom. They give a life its direction and decide which tasks earn their place.

What is the difference between personal values and core values?

Core values are your top few personal values — the ones you would keep if you had to let the rest go.

How many core values should a person have?

Three to five works well. More than about seven and they stop guiding anything.

What are some examples of personal values?

Honesty, integrity, courage, family, health, freedom, creativity, service, presence and simplicity are common examples. The full list of forty is on this page.

Know what matters. Then plan a day that shows it.

Free account. No card, no clock. Start with your values, and your daily planner follows.

Start free

More of Life Planning

Life PlanningAll five parts, and how they connect.You are here →GoalsA value with a number and a date on it.Open Goals →Bucket ListThe things you’d regret not doing, written down.Open Bucket List →HabitsShow up more days than not. Your best run stays in view.Open Habits →ReflectFive minutes at night that bank the day.Open Reflect →
Free with your free account

Three books. All free with your account.

The VoiceFirstPlanner Instruction Manual, The VoiceFirstPlanner Voice Command Guide and The Voice First Life Planning System — Starter Workbook.

$19.98 for the Starter Workbook alone — all three free when you create your free account.

Create your free accountSee what’s inside
The VoiceFirstPlanner Instruction Manual, the VoiceFirstPlanner Voice Command Guide and The Voice First Life Planning System — Starter Workbook
HomeThe voice-first personal day planner, from the beginning.Open Home →Daily PlanningFocus, tasks and appointments — the whole day on one page.Open Daily Planning →Life PlanningAll five parts, and how they connect.Open Life Planning →ShopThe workbooks, the books and the research paper.Open Shop →PricingFree to start. Every plan, side by side.Open Pricing →Earn25% recurring, rising to 40%.Open Earn →
See it in action

Plan around what matters.

Prefer YouTube? Watch the full guide there ↗