23 Sep 2024 by Leave a Comment

I’m 50; 10 things I’ve learned about relationships

This is part 4 of the Things I’ve learned by 50 series.

Part 1 – time

Part 2 – organising

Part 3 – social media

Part 4 – goals

  1. People first, then things. This applies for money, for time and for priorities. Some of our closest friendships happened because we always prioritise time with them even if it’s not the most convenient time. In the photo below, that was our anniversary but our friend was here in Jhb, unexpectedly for family stuff and we were thrilled that we got to spend time together.
  2. Always be kind. It feels like a trite thing to say but I see a lot of unkindness and it’s unnecessary 99% of the time. So much can be overcome by just being kind. I am personally undone by kindness and always will remember people fondly who showed me kindness.
  3. As far as possible, leave every interaction better than before you arrived.
  4. Smile. Most things in life can be improved by interacting with a person who smiles.
  5. Say hello and exchange a few words with cashiers, tellers, receptionists, people in the queue with you. These micro interactions are what life’s all about and might be the only time someone gets to talk to a fellow human being.

    1. Assume positive intent (I know I wrote this in the social media post too; yes, it is that important) and give people the benefit of the doubt.
    2. You don’t always have to be the one to stoke the fire of your relationships or be the only one reaching out; do your part anyway.
    3. Learn the 5 love languages, enneagram numbers and Tendencies of those closest to you, both family, friends and close work colleagues. This will help you to see things from others’ points of view and help you to improve your interactions.
    4. Choose true connection over superficiality. E.g. a 1:1 coffee date is always going to feed your soul more than light chit-chat with a group of friends.
    5. Forgive small grievances and be the low-maintenance friend.

Bonus – Sometimes friendships will break down or your friends will ghost you and you will not know why or if you did anything to cause it. This has happened to me before and another friend had to tell me, “sometimes you won’t ever find out the why”.

Tell me your relationship learnings, tips and tricks. What else can you add to my list?

Filed Under: Intentional living, Personal
16 Sep 2024 by Leave a Comment

Demerits and gold stars

Once I finish an audio book, I like to catch up on all the podcasts I’ve missed.

I finished The Connellys of County Down by Tracey Lange recently (excellent – 5*) and one of the podcasts I lneeded to catch up on is Gretchen Rubin’s Happier podcast.

Liz and Gretchen alternate at the end of every episode by giving themselves or others demerits and gold stars. They have shared before that this segment motivates both of them to do better (I agree!). If it doesn’t do the same for you, skip this piece.

I’m not sure if I’m motivated enough to do this every week but I thought I’d do so for the last week.

Gold stars

  1. I very rarely have to work at the office for 3 days at a stretch but this week I did, and I made it. Gold star to me. Double points is because two of those days had very, very long days, especially since I’m still recovering.
  2. Even though it was not on my list (!), I washed all the blankets in the lounge. We had two very hot days and it seems like a sin to not use the sun, so I did.
  3. I am listening to my body and going to bed early (for me) so that my healing can continue.
  4. For doing a piece of work four days early, and for preparing for something that is probably happening soon. Since I have no idea (yet) what my treatment plan looks like, I am not procrastinating on anything so that I am as up-to-date as I can be.
  5. I painstakingly answered and responded to a whole load of whatsapp messages yesterday and it feels good. I’m channelling Laura Tremaine and putting this piece of connection on my to-do list, and if I mess up, I’m just admitting it, apologising to the people and moving on.

Demerits

  • I decided to go and write this post at the gym in the lovely aircon while enjoying a smoothie/ tea (depending how cold it was inside) and… the Kauai was closed for renovations, so I had to leave. The last time I was at the gym was 17 August and I vaguely remembered that renovations were afoot but I guess I should have phoned to check first.
  • For impulsively responding to an email and upsetting someone at work. I have apologised but not sure it was accepted or received.
  • I also give myself a demerit for getting down on myself. Why is healing not linear? Why do I feel 9/10 some days and on other days I am back in that first week after the diagnosis? Paired with this is a tiny gold star – I recognised that I absolutely need to take my Evening Primrose Oil every single day to try and stabilise my hormones. It doesn’t work 100% of the time but there you go.

For the last week, or for September so far, what are your demerits and gold stars?

Filed Under: Intentional living, Mindset Tagged With:
8 Jul 2024 by 2 Comments

My 5 favourite travel tips

I’ve just returned from our annual beach trip so I’m fresh from thinking about things that worked and things that could use a tune-up.

I thought I’d share some of my top travel tips:

1. Know your travel style and live with the consequences

I used to be a traveller who liked lots of options and also imagined that my life while on holiday was far more exciting than it usually is, which is plenty of relaxing. As such, I had a bag with just books, and about two bags full of clothes. I’d end up with half the things unworn (but wrinkled!) so they needed ironing anyway.

Then we went to England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland in 2008 and the thought of lugging around suitcases on The Tube and through Heathrow terrified me and I determined to travel with one small backpack and a small suitcase… for 21 days. I did it! What is even more impressive to me now is that it was during autumn (basically a South African winter) so I had jackets, jerseys and long pants and tops. And somehow, I made it work.

That was my turning point and since then I always travel with just one bag. I can even do a short work trip with just my rolling laptop bag (for toiletries and a change of clothes) and a big tote bag.

The consequences are that I travel with very few options and some items have to do double duty and… it is all fine. A client once told me (in the pre-days, when we travelled to meetings in other cities once a month) that she had two dresses for those travels and so far nobody had said anything to her about it because probably no-one paid that close attention to her outfits.

If you’re a heavy traveller, enjoy all your options but do know you’ll be lugging around a lot of stuff you probably don’t need. On that note…

2. Plan your eating out and staying in days for lunch and supper

One of the things I despise is the eternal question, “what’s for supper?” I cannot stand it at home and also on holiday. I therefore like to plan my eating out times. For work travel, it is easier because I’m mostly only considering myself (or friends, if I plan to see friends in the evenings).

For personal travel though, we are all happier when we have a rough idea of the meals we want to cook/ assemble and the amount of lunches/ suppers we want to eat out. This might not be a thing in your family but we used to end up with one day left and have 4 places to still try. So now we plan and it’s much nicer that way.

We actually found a new place this time in Ballito and we liked it so much, we went back for a second night. On that second night (a Friday), we also discovered they do live music (80s) on Fridays so next time we will definitely be visiting on a Friday and staying a long time (I love live music over supper!).

3. Travel light and wash some laundry if necessary

I do recommend that you travel as light as you can and rather wash some laundry if necessary.

I like holidays of 7 days so I travel with my Eco egg and do a load at around day 3 – 4. This is probably not necessary but I also don’t like knowing I have dirty laundry (and work) waiting for me once I get home. It’s much easier to throw on a load in between watching Wimbledon or going for a walk on the beach.

Fun fact – one of my team at work said to me that I probably travel with lots of stuff because I have my own desk and I have one drawer full of food, another full of stationery and the credenza with a spare pashmina, deodorant, hand cream, kettle, etc. I like to be prepared! I told her that I don’t and could be ready to leave for anywhere in 30 minutes because of my lists and my packed toiletry bag.

4. Packing lists are your friend

This will come as no surprise but I love a packing list. I have a packing list for me for…

  1. work travel
  2. personal travel to Ballito (beach), Clarens, Drakensburg and PE (my home town)

I also have packing lists for the kids for summer and winter travel.

My own packing lists include sections for clothes, toiletries, tech, stationery and if we’re driving, kitchen stuff.

Here’s the trick: update the list the minute you realise you want to make a change. With my Use up 24 in 2024, I forgot to replenish my face wash so I had to buy a bar of soap (no biggie). We were in the Drakensberg once and even though it was the heart of summer, those mountains get very cold at night so now I know to travel with long pyjamas, not “Jhb summer pjs”.

I also have a list of goals for any time I travel and I check it every couple of days; otherwise I forget because I’m in holiday mode. My list includes things like 1) read 4 books 2) see friends X and Y 3) Try Rivers Church 4) go for a beach walk every day.

My lists are all paper-based and in an A5 flipfile… but I scanned the ones for the kids and store those electronically. It was also so easy to just Whatsapp it to them and say “here you go – your packing list”. What a change from having little children!

5. Keep a packed toiletry bag

I think that this is my true spark of genius. I have doubles of everything – toothbrush, toothpaste, facecloth, sponge, etc. When I return from a trip, I dry out everything and check what I need to replenish. This may take a day of that toiletry bag being out on my bathroom vanity but when I pack it away, I am ready for the next trip.

I do have a small bag (a little bigger than a make-up bag) with a checklist inside – medication, speedstick, moisturiser, BB cream, eye pencil, lip liner, nail clippers, nail polish. This is “morning of” packing because I don’t want my stuff getting old inside my toiletry bag while it waits for me to go on a trip. E.g. we returned from Clarens on 2 Jan and left for Ballito on 28 June, nearly 6 months later. I prefer to use up my stuff and just pack the latest items that morning.

Bonus!

Packing cubes

Packing cubes are my new favourite things. I love that I can use the cubes for categories – pyjamas & underwear, warm weather clothes, cold weather clothes, beach wear, or whichever categories you like. When I went on a work trip in November last year, I tagged a weekend onto my client meetings so I had a cube for weekend stuff, one for day 1 of work, and one for day 2 of work. So easy to just grab one cube; the rest of your suitcase stays neat because you only need to access that cube.

Here’s the best: I just pack the cubes onto the shelves, hang what I need, place shoes and I’m unpacked in about 3 minutes.

I do the same in reverse and packing is super quick.

 

Hope these tips helped!

Tell me, do you naturally travel heavier or lighter? Do you have packing lists? Do you keep them digitally or printed out?

 

Filed Under: Intentional living, Organising Tagged With: , ,
15 Apr 2024 by Leave a Comment

Five Senses Portrait of Saturday morning Zumba

In Gretchen Rubin’s latest book, The Five Senses, she talks about putting together a five senses portrait of various things.

Example, as we were driving home on 2 January this year from our week-long holiday in Clarens, I did the five senses exercise with my family.

What are the things that remind us of the holiday in terms of sight, sound, taste, touch and feel?

I wish I’d recorded it because, of course, at the time I thought I’d definitely remember it and then I didn’t.

(This is now my mental note to do the same when we go to Ballito in July)

Meanwhile, I think this is such a great way to remember the other things about an experience and to force yourself to extend your memories beyond what you usually remember.

The other Saturday at Zumba, I thought that I should do a five senses portrait, so here we go:

Sight

  1. My drive to Zumba is beautiful in all seasons – summer, autumn and winter.
  2. Couples walking their dogs, parents pushing babies in their prams, some runners.
  3. The light across the hardwood floors in the studio
  4. Colours of the workout gear and the shoes
  5. Ladies – smiling, confused, impassive, or in their own worlds
  6. Mirrors – one makes me look thinner than I am
  7. Instructor – all eyes are on her

Hearing

  1. The rhythms of the songs
  2. The screech of shoes on the floors
  3. Laughter (usually when we forget things)
  4. Clanging of the barbells on the machines just outside the door
  5. “Hey what’s going on” – the last song of Wednesday night Zumba (I LOVE IT)

Smell

  1. Saltiness of sweat
  2. Sometimes body odour (thankfully this is rare)
  3. Rubber (from the mats outside)

Taste

  1. Ice-cold water during class
  2. Metal taste from my water bottle
  3. Sometimes salt
  4. Tart taste of a Granny Smith apple as I leave class

Touch

  1. Cold from the aircon (delicious in summer)
  2. Warmth of my polar fleece before I’m warmed up
  3. Feel of the beats reverbing off the floor and walls
  4. Sweat on my chest
  5. Satisfied tiredness of sore muscles during stretch time

What do you want to do a five senses portrait of? It definitely makes you pay more attention to your life when you think through each aspect.

Filed Under: Intentional living, Reading Tagged With: ,
20 Mar 2023 by Leave a Comment

{Mindset} Let’s talk about social inertia

I first heard this term on a podcast during the stage of lockdown when people were just starting to feel safe about venturing out again.

I think it even might have been on the Happier podcast.

However, if you google, you won’t find the same meaning as the one I want to discuss today.

The podcast hosts described social inertia as follows: we all got used to staying indoors because we had to. Things then opened up again but now we all have a certain reluctance to venture out because we became used to not connecting in person.

Our inertia leans to not do things socially.

I often wonder about this as an extrovert.

I remember telling my father early during lockdown that I am literally the only person in my house going stir crazy from cabin fever.

And yet, I also have a form of social inertia. I enjoy being with people, I am energised when I’m out and about, but I also am not my pre-pandemic social self.

It’s probably a little normal but I also think like this now: well, if they wanted to get together, it is not all on me to initiate and make arrangements. It’s a little tough for my enneagram 1 self, I will admit.

I left a friend a voice message recently for her birthday and I said my usual thing, “when are you free? let’s get together” and then I realised afterwards that I’ve been saying the same thing for awhile and felt guilty. Straight on the heels of that guilt, I reminded myself that the phone (and arrangements) work both ways. This is unheard of for me.

How about you? Do you have social inertia? Or did you spring right back into all the plans and arrangements and socials with friends, colleagues and family?

 

Filed Under: Intentional living, Mindset Tagged With: , ,
20 Apr 2022 by Leave a Comment

{Goals} Line-a-day – a different way of journalling

I’m not a fan of journalling… at all. But I do love a project where I can look back and see what I was up to at the same time last year, three years ago, seven years ago, etc.

An example is the photo challenges I participate in on Instagram with Susannah Conway.

The challenge has a hashtag, for instance #Aprillove2022 and then I usually add my own hashtag to each of my photos, like #marciasaprillove2021.

I love looking back and seeing how different each April has been for the last so many years.

Aside from Instagram journaling (a photo with a short caption, if any) is all I’ve ever been able to keep up with. I’m just not a writing in a journal every day kind of person.

I have been intrigued with line-a-day journals though.

I figured, “how hard can it be?” and so when I saw that a local stationery story carried a line of journals, I bought one.

I started mine on 17 January and so far, so good.

I am still not a daily journaller but I catch up every 3 days or so. The trick for me is:

  1. Keep the journal handy and in plain view (it lives on my desk and doesn’t get put away at all)
  2. Schedule time every weekend to catch up (some weeks I’ve caught up with a whole week in one sitting)
  3. Give myself permission to write just one sentence and only write more if I feel like it.
  4. Keep my phone handy throughout the day so I have some photos to prompt my memory.
  5. Let go of needing it to be insightful or cute (I tell myself that in a few years I’ll appreciate knowing that it rained for 5 solid days in Jhb – unusual for us at this time of year)

I’m still more of an Instagram journaller because I see the world in visuals but I figure that my three months a year with Susannah Conway is just going to have to do.

Are you a daily journaller? Would a line-a-day journal work for you?

PS Laura Tremaine has often said that bullets and lists work just as well as free form writing. I might resort to this method in the busier months 😉

Filed Under: Goals, Intentional living, Personal Tagged With: , , , , ,
3 Nov 2021 by 2 Comments

A tribute to my friend, Suzanne

Outside the Old Town Jail in Stirling, Scotland

On the night before we went on holiday last month, I saw an email linking to a Facebook status update.

I tapped through and read that my friend, Suzanne, had died. Of course I couldn’t believe it – we are the same age and she was SO full of life. How can this be? I kept asking myself.

Suzy’s mom and I are instagram friends so I sent her a direct voice note to check my understanding because the message was (typically) Suzanne and maybe (hopefully) I’d misinterpreted the odd message. But indeed, Suzy had died from the Delta variant of Covid-19.

Instead of wallowing in the sadness that is the enormous loss of her life, I thought I’d write about the Suzanne I knew.

  1. Suzanne was one of my first real friends that I made on the internet in the good old days of blogging when we would actually reach out to strangers after commenting on each others’ blogs.
  2. She was a veteran podcaster and her first podcast was called Let’s Talk Organizing (in the old days, we listened on our computers).
  3. One day I sent her an email, announced that Dion and I would be visiting Scotland and if she was ready for her next visit, maybe we could spend a few days together. She crunched her numbers and we made it work. We met up in Stirling, Scotland for 3 wonderful days in 2008.
  4. We wrote a free ebook together with Beth Dargis and Ariane Benefit, 100 Surefire ways to organize your busy life, and Suzy and I wrote a course together too, How to be a professional organizer.
  5. My favourite piece of organising advice from Suzanne is “don’t put it down; put it away”. I wrote more in this post.
  6. Four years ago, she interviewed me for her new podcast, So Suzy. Here’s the post. Fun fact – after I appeared on the podcast, she sent me a thank-you pack of so many pens and that is how I was introduced to Papermate Inkjoy gel pens 🙂 🙂 I still have a few of the pens from that original pack.
  7. I also had the opportunity to give her some advice. Here’s her desk after she took up my challenge.
Typical Suzy 🙂

More than all that, I knew Suzanne to be a happy, optimistic and extremely fun person who always made me think I could do things and encouraged me when I wasn’t sure. She also taught me through her own life that changing your mind and moving onto new things don’t have to be scary but are often necessary actions for growth.

We had some hard conversations too but she always had a can-do attitude and was a great problem-solver.

I am so glad and honoured that I had the opportunity to meet and know Suzanne, and I’m thankful that I can still connect to her through her mama!

Thanks for reading, friends. Do any of you remember Suzanne from the good old days of blogging?

Loch Lomond – so cold and so beautiful
Filed Under: Covid-19, Intentional living, Personal Tagged With: ,
30 Aug 2021 by Leave a Comment

My birthday month review

August is my birthday month and so I thought I’d share just some of my thoughts.

A reminder that I happen to use this review format around my birthday. You can do the same or if it doesn’t matter to you, then pic a random date and do an annual review, like now.

The end of the year is not a good time for me because kids are doing exams, then schools are closing, Christmas, holidays, etc. I do my annual review in November but I like the time around my birthday to do a more personal review.

Here’s the free printable birthday review PDF I made for us to use.

I didn’t want to use the same questions here, and I saw Jessica Honegger (founder of Noonday) talk about this method, so let’s try a start, stop, keep. list.

Start

  • Monthly one-on-one dates with the kids. These were going so well for 11 years and then… Covid. I need to bring these back again before it becomes even more difficult.
  • Dates with Dion. We left the kids alone for an hour and 10 minutes the other day and… nothing happened. It’s a start to the old life 🙂

Stop

Working so hard and work smarter. I’ve already started putting a few new things into practice like being very good with daily focussed time

Keep

Reading – I’m reading at least 10 books a month on a consistent basis and have found a really good rhythm of audio, physical and ebooks that works well for me

Friends – I connect with one friend a week, on average, and I have one book club a month for fiction, and another book club every 6 – 8 weeks for non-fiction

Exercise – Zumba and Barre classes are going well. And due to Covid restrictions, if I miss out on a live class, I now know I have the option of an online workout. E.g. the other weekend the wind was howling outside (atypical Jhb weather) and we all slept through so I missed my Zumba class, but then I did an online workout.

Holidays – we tried one new place in this crazy year and it was a delight for my senses, especially during autumn, the most beautiful season 🙂

Play – remembering my word of the year and saying yes to different things to keep it front of mind.

Some other birthday review posts:

My annual review in 2016

My annual birthday review in 2018

I made a birthday list in 2020

Do you do a birthday review?

What do you want to start, stop and keep in this next journey around the sun?

Filed Under: Goals, Intentional living Tagged With: , ,
14 Jun 2021 by Leave a Comment

Meal tip Monday – Know yourself

One of the secrets to menu planning and meal success is to know yourself. But not only to know yourself, to accept yourself.

Let me give you a few examples:

  1. you might be a cook who likes leisurely weekend cooking sessions but hate the haste of weeknight cooking, or the opposite
  2. you might like the fact that you have to get a meal prepped and put on the table within 30 minutes because the torture is then done
  3. you might be a batch cook once a month and a heater-upper of food
  4. you might be an excellent assembler of random food (do you remember Cher in Mermaids?!)
  5. you might be an excellent orderer of food, or picker-up of convenience meals at the grocery store on the way home

Why is this important?

You know what works, you accept that this is who you are, and you remove decision fatigue thinking through options all the time.

I’ve shared before on the blog that my mother-in-law lives alone and hates cooking (although she’s good at it!) so she cooks four-portion meals for 5 nights every month, eats one and freezes the other three.

These meals change according to the seasons (soups and casseroles feature more in winter) but this system works really well for her.

She doesn’t concern herself with what other people are doing, or that others (like me) would be bored eating the same meal every Tuesday for a month. It works and that’s it.

I am a combination of a Saturday afternoon/ Monday evening leisure batch cook but I also like the competitiveness of getting a meal on the table in 30 minutes or less. I love variety (more on this later) so I like a combination of mixing up some freezer meals with one or two freshly cooked meals too.

The great thing is I know I’m never ever going to like cooking complicated meals so if I glance over a recipe, see that it’s complicated, I can swipe through with wild abandon. No, not for me.

What is your meal planning style? Have you accepted it yet?

I’m actually going through slight boredom with my meals at the moment. Any quick and easy winter meals that you recommend? I would love to hear because I’m tired of chilli con carne, curries and bolognaise. And if you have some tried and tested, easy chicken recipes, I would love those too.

Filed Under: Intentional living, Menu Planning Tagged With: , , , ,
12 May 2021 by Leave a Comment

Weekly planning – should you or shouldn’t you?

I started off with the question in the title because we are all different.

I can definitely say that weekly planning helps me in my life, but I recognise that we all prefer to do things in different ways.

If you’re very happy with your current non-weekly planning process, I’m delighted! However, if you feel like things could work a bit better here and there, then, as I always tell my coaching clients, test it and see. At the most, you’ve had two weeks that were more structured and a learning that the exact way you did it wasn’t optimal for you. But who knows? The opposite is also true – you might love something and never stop doing it (menu planning for me the last 15 years).

If you do decide you want to play with weekly planning, here are some ideas you can try planning:

  • meals (supper, or all meals) for 5 or 7 days – put down some ideas and pick from your list every day
  • exercise days – my gym requires that we book our classes to avoid capacity issues
  • connection time with family and friends
  • personal goals – like reading a book or working on your photos
  • house goals – organising your clothes
  • work/ side hustle projects

Please note all of these are just ideas – the thought of doing all of that might overwhelm you. Don’t let it. Pick what you want and leave the rest.

I know that Laura Vanderkam recommends one goal in three areas every week: work, personal, and relationships.

If you don’t like those three categories, choose your own 😉

Who’s ready to try weekly planning? Which categories are important to you?

Other posts on weekly planning:

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