Family Life Management 7400.360
Take Home Assignment 1
RESOURCE MAPPING

Objective:
This exercise is a fun way to map out the people in your life and the resources they represent for you.
It makes you think, draw and realize several things, and you can redo it every now and then to see how your life changes.

Materials Needed: Large piece of blank paper; pencil; some colored markers – red, blue, green, yellow, black

Instructions:
1. Draw a small circle in the center of the blank page with your pencil, and label it “Me”

2. Divide the rest of the page approximately into 4 parts.
3. Label the four parts from top left clock-wise: Family(I), Friends(II), Others(III) and Institutions (IV)

4. Within each of the quarters, still using just your pencil, draw circles representing people within each group.
For instance, within Quarter I “Family”, I would draw 5 circles representing my wife, children and mom respectively.
Do not draw a circle for yourself again in any place other than the center. For someone, whom you consider part of family, but not completely in it, you may put a circle on the border of Family and Friends. Under “Others” (III), draw circles for people who are important to you but who do not fit in any of the other two. Under IV “Institutions”, come things like school, work, place of worship, volunteer work, and so on.

5. Now your sheet is filled with circles, and labels for these circles. The next step is to plot out the relationship each of these circles has to the center circle: You. To do this, keep this key in mind:

Using the colors as appropriate, start drawing arrows that go to and from each of the circles and you. For instance, because I get and give the most love to my sweetie pie, I would draw strong 2-way arrows to each of these circles in red. For some friends I might draw weaker 2-way arrows.

6. Write out an interpretation in paragraph form. Some of the things you might clarify for yourself with this exercise:

  1. Some people are more important than you had imagined before. You might want to take time to thank them.
  2. Some people give you more than you give them. Is this working for you?
  3. You may be giving more in certain relationships than you are receiving. Is this how you want it to be?.
  4. School or work may consume a lot of time, but do these activities give you what you want?
  5. There may be some circles which show all the colors going to and from them. 
    Those are most likely the most important aspects of your life.
  6. Some resources may be important to you and some may not. 
    For instance, if you are very independent, the yellow lines may not be as crucial to your daily life. 
    Decide what outcomes are and are not important in your life.
Back to the syllabus.