23 Jan 2023 by Leave a Comment

How I did on my 2022 goals

As I do every year, I set some goals for 2022. I used Gretchen’s printable, My 22 for 22 List.

Some items were once-off (apply for high schools), some were project-based (read 100 books) and some were continual (Project Life monthly).

I really like having a mix of different types of goals so that they all don’t feel insurmountable at the same time.

So how did I do?

I got 13 done completely, 3 not done at all, and 7 partially done. With about a month since I last looked at the list, I think I was maybe too hard on myself with those 7 partially done because if I were coaching someone else, I’d consider some of them done because one of those partially done goals was at 95%, one at 62% and one at 50%. Oh well – honesty!

Still, not bad in a year that was really not the best at all.

One of the items I’m particularly happy about is getting my will done! It took 5 months of thinking, drafting, redrafting, conversations (so many conversations!), and then we finally had a final copy for signature which was done in December. Yay!

I want to talk separately about my “success” with reading because I really feel like I’ve set up good rhythms and routines that I can rely comfortably on. With almost no effort, I can get through 8 books a month. I mention it here because the one consistent thing many people talk to me about is that they want to read more, and… I can definitely help you with that.

How did you do with your 2022 goals? Can you even remember what you put on your list?

PS Gretchen’s 23 for 2023 list is here

Filed Under: Decluttering, Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Mindset, Money and finances, Personal, Planning, Time management Tagged With: , , ,
2 Mar 2022 by Leave a Comment

Monthly goals review – Feb 2022

Let’s walk through my monthly review together, shall we?

Here are my standard monthly review questions:

  1. what worked well?
  2. what’s not working and why?
  3. what energised me this month?
  4. what are my in-progress projects?
  5. how’s my word of the year working for me?

What worked well?

  • Reading – I stopped my Scribd membership for a month which means I used Libby and the actual physical library (4 books). I also read books on my Kindle (another 3 books) and two of the books on my bookshelf. At the time of writing this post, I haven’t finished the second physical book but I’m not rushing because I’m enjoying reading about personalities so much.
  • I did a Valentine’s supper for the family which they seemed to like, or maybe that was the chocolates for dessert 😉 I also saw my father in the flesh for the first time since Dec 2019.
  • I finished Project Life for December so last year is wrapped up but see in-progress projects below.
  • My work balance is holding surprisingly steady at not-crazy levels even though this was a hard month at work with lots of deadlines and staff off on extended sick leave.

What’s not working well, and why?

  • I still don’t feel like I have a good rhythm on the laundry situation. It feels like we need to do a load most days which I am loathe to do, but maybe that’s how we have to keep on top of it.
  • Our once-a-week cleaning service is still settling into its groove. I wouldn’t say it’s not working well, but maybe the rhythm needs to be more… clear. I should probably map something out on a big A4 piece of paper. It’s probably because I clean certain areas regularly and others as they need it 😮

What energised me?

  • Time spent with people – the client event last week, book club friends, other friends.
  • Listening to excellent audio books. This month I re-listened to Daisy Jones and the Six and it was 9 hours of pure delight. I want to listen to something truly outstanding every month. So far, 2/2 (Mary Jane and Daisy Jones).

What are my in-progress projects?

  • As I was wrapping up my December photos, I realised I am once again “behind” on my holiday collages. So I’ll be working on a collage every month besides my usual photo editing and Project Life. This will take me nearly the whole year to catch-up because I plan to go on 3 holidays this year too, but it’s a lovely “problem” to have as it helps me to remember happy holidays, play with images and listen to audio books or podcasts, all things I love.
  • Project Upgrade is going well and I finished three more upgrades for Feb – facecloths, kitchen cloths and the electric plug point in the lounge. I will only choose two for March because I’ll be back at the office two days a week and we’ll be on one week’s holiday – yay!
Delight

How’s my word of the year working for me?

In a nutshell, really well so far. It’s helping me choose books for pleasure over obligation, and also stop things that are not at all delightful, like walking out of that Zumba class.

How was your month?

What worked, what didn’t work, what energised you and what are you working on?

Filed Under: Goals, Intentional living, Outer order inner calm, Planning, Reading, Time management Tagged With: , ,
23 Feb 2022 by Leave a Comment

I’ve chosen a word, now what? 5 practical ways to make your word real.

It’s all very good and well to choose a word of the year but sometimes I ask people a few months in, “how’s your word of the year going?” and they can’t even remember their word.

Don’t feel bad if this is you; it is very normal but that’s not to say we should accept that, throw up our hands and just leave it be.

My 14 words from 2009 to 2022

  • 2009 – simplify
  • 2010 – consolidate
  • 2011 – courage
  • 2012 – create
  • 2013 – trust
  • 2014 – shine
  • 2015 – enough
  • 2016 – joy
  • 2017 – give
  • 2018 – fun
  • 2019 – bold
  • 2020 – light
  • 2021 – play
  • 2022 – delight

After 14 years of me choosing and living with a word, I’d like to share a few things that work for me:

  1. Set your word as your screensaver/ password or desktop wallpaper on your laptop or phone

Out of sight means out of mind. If you have to type in that word as a password several times a day, it will stick. If you see it as your wallpaper on your phone when you reach for it 80 times a day (or so the stats say), you’ll start to remember it.

2. Make a policy for yourself around your word

E.g. if your word is connect, then maybe you’d say, “every time someone asks me on a friend date, I will say yes”. When my word was fun, I weighed up every commitment with “does this sound fun?” If it didn’t, I declined. My policy this year is to stop and take the picture (a sure source of delight to me afterwards even if I don’t feel like it in the moment)

3. Set goals for your word

Ask yourself monthly, “how can I _________ this month”. Where do I need a reminder that I am enough? Where can I take delight? How can I be brave? What needs to be nourished and how am I going to do it? Who can I connect with? What can I create?

4. Review how you did at the end of every month

On a scale of 1 – 10, how much did I move? Did I take enough action? Did I rest enough? is there enough balance? And so on. Use your word and make changes for next month if what you were doing wasn’t working.

Set a reminder in your phone otherwise you will most likely not remember. I call the last day of every month Goals Night for this very reason.

5. Stay open to your word

Yes, I just said in 3 above to set goals, but also stay open. Sometimes the need for your word will appear in unexpected ways. Last year my word was play and I have not worked as hard at my job in many many years. There was a need for me to remember to play. See? My 2016 word was joy and that was the year we bought this house and struggled to sell the previous one. I had to choose joy in those 3 months!

Bonus – buy a piece of jewellery or art

I have many necklaces and rings that remind me of my words through the years. I also bought a piece of art off etsy one year for courage.

What are the tips and tricks you’d like to share?

Filed Under: Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Mindset, Personal, Planning, Work with Marcia Tagged With: , , ,
30 Sep 2020 by 2 Comments

{goals} 2020: let’s talk about the last quarter

This year’s felt like the newborn stage for me – in parts it’s flown and yet I have many times had to take it day by day to stay sane.

I see many sentiments like “let this year just end” and “can we please just get on with next year?”, and I get that. We all want to escape a year absolutely none of us expected and move on with our lives.

A lot of us are also exhausted from working too hard, or worrying too much, or having too many bills and not enough money, or a combination of all of the above.

So I think it’s time that I had a reframe. I’d love if you’d join me too. I’ll share one thought for each question to give you an idea. Write out the prompts in longhand, use the notes app in your phone or maybe talk it through with a friend.

  1. What do I want for this last quarter of the year?

I want to continue with my reading streak (I reached my goal on the weekend), I want to eat better again so I can get to a certain number (nowhere near my actual physical goal, just a mental goal) and I want to start slowly integrating back into the “new normal” of getting out and about.

2. Is there anything I want to start doing?

I had these two things on my original 20 in 2020 list and I can do them so I should. I have started just one session of Emily P Freeman’s Discern and Decide course (it was a pre-order bonus when her book, The Next Right Thing, released last year) and I want to finish that. I also want to read The Path Between Us, an enneagram book on relationships by Suzanne Stabile, that I also bought last year.

3. How do I want to feel at the end of the year?

Like I survived this period with grace, determination and my sanity intact. If my relationships are as good as they were or better, I’ll consider that a bonus.

4. Are there any projects I’ve started that I can finish well?

Yes, I want to run two sessions of a new workshop I’m yet to name but will help us all end this year well (whatever well looks like for you) and prepare for next year. It’s going to be the equivalent of a large part of my end-of-the-year coaching sessions but so much cheaper.

5. Is there anything I need to finalise or end for my own emotional and mental comfort?

Well, had I written this blog last week, I’d have talked about ballet. I did it though – I’ve been dithering and yet I knew I was not comfortable going back anytime soon (in fact this revelation came to me while doing session 1 of Discern and Decide). So I wrote the owner an email last week and formally resigned. I can always go back but at least she’s not left wondering about me.

Bonus – if it feels right for you and you want to make a list of 3 for the next three months, go ahead. I wrote more about quarterly goals here.

And remember, it can be as small as drinking 2 L of water a day or reading for just 20 minutes a day. It doesn’t have to be “write a book” 🙂

Who of you are joining me for the workshop on 21 November? Book your place now. It’ll be $29/ R450 but there’s be a discount for the early birds until 7 November!

If you prefer to work through these things privately in a 1:1 session, I’m offering the same content in a 75-minute coaching session for just $50. This will be for a limited time only until mid-December.

PS this is post number 2000 on this blog! Wow! 😮

Filed Under: Covid-19, Decluttering, Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Mindset, Outer order inner calm, Personal, Planning, Time management, Work with Marcia Tagged With: , , , , , ,
7 Jan 2019 by Leave a Comment

{2018 Annual review} What energised me in 2018?


  1. Zumba class every Saturday morning. I won’t lie and say my barre180 class energised me because often the only reason I dragged myself was that I knew missing it would mean I’d be so sore the next week.
  2. Kids book club. I wrote on Instagram recently that the best thing about kids’ book club is hearing these kids talk about books they love. It is the actual best.
  3. My book club. You know you should expect this of me so here goes: I keep a spreadsheet of the books we’ve read and the rating I’ve given each of those books. Last year’s average rating was higher (3.91) to this year’s rating (3.65) but this year was so energising for me due to the fantastic discussions. So even if I didn’t personally enjoy a book; I loved the discussions.
  4. My work relationships also energised me this year. Our team is in a good place where we’re all getting along well and enjoying working with one another.
  5. The Enneagram. I wrote about this earlier this year but I also took the personalised coaching and it was fabulous. I can now see when I’m in a good place by how I’m displaying the healthy parts of a 7, and how self-critical I become when I’m stressed.
  6. Walks in nature. I still hate being outside in summer but I have LOVED taking walks and chasing down beautiful things to capture in autumn and spring (jacaranda trees).
  7. Connecting with my friends. One of the best things I did as an upholder last year was to set up recurring friend dates.
  8. Last but not least, the Four Tendencies continue to energise and fascinate me. I will be running regular 4T workshops this year so put yourself on the list if you’re local. I have seen the benefit of knowing your tendency personally, and in my family, and also with clients and colleagues, and it has made my life so much easier with knowing how to approach someone and get my meaning across but also meet their needs. And best of all, I’ve successfully used the strategies for my tendency to create and build good habits 🙂

Bonus – I did a ton of decluttering and organising this year, both during Spring into Organising, and throughout the year. Getting things done always energises me and it’s been great.

What energised you in 2018?

Filed Under: Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Konmari, Organising, organising children's spaces, Personal, Planning, Time management Tagged With: , , ,
15 Aug 2018 by 6 Comments

My annual birthday review

I started doing a review of my year that was a few years ago. This typically happens on the first free weeknight after my birthday.

I make a cup of tea, grab my bullet journal and sit down at my desk to do some actual writing.

It’s actually not important how you do it; just that you do.

I prefer to write so that I’m not distracted by the internet, notifications, etc. but if you don’t have that problem, by all means just type out your answer.

An aside – there’s no magic time to do a life review; I just happen to think my birthday’s a good time to take stock, but you can do it tonight! Tomorrow! This weekend 🙂

Here’s a post I wrote about this before.

Me, at 43

Again, here are some of the questions I used this time, but listen to your heart and write the questions you feel you need to explore. If you don’t have a clue where to start, start with these questions:

  1. what worked well for me this year?
  2. what didn’t work well?
  3. what do I need to stop doing?
  4. are there any relationships I need to let go of?
  5. how am I living out my word of the year? do I need to choose a new word?
  6. how am I living out my values?
  7. what do I want to focus on in the year ahead?
  8. what am I grateful for?
  9. how do I want to feel this next year?
  10. what do I want to give myself this next year?

A few notes from my birthday review:

  1. I’m very happy with my current work rhythms because I mostly feel on top of things.
  2. Some of my biggest joys this year were from learning my enneagram number and taking the Discovering You and Exploring you courses with Your Enneagram Coach, and from doing the Four Tendencies deep dive course with Gretchen Rubin.
  3. I’m happy tending to my current friendships while leaving enough space for spontaneity.
  4. We’ve had three amazing family holidays this year.
  5. I read 111 books from one birthday to the next 😉
  6. I’ve chosen to let go of situations that I normally wouldn’t, because it just didn’t feel worth it any more.

And now I’m ready to tackle 44!

Have you done a birthday or life review lately? What were some of your highlights/ insights?

Filed Under: 31 days of enough time, Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Personal, Planning, Time management Tagged With: , , , ,
27 Jun 2018 by Leave a Comment

Let me walk you through your half-year review

Well, six months of the year are nearly over and it’s time to review the year thus far.

I do a slightly longer version of my monthly review with a bit more detail to flesh things about a bit.

Will you join me?

  1. Get comfortable with your bullet journal, a beverage of your choice and a nice pen.
  2. Answer the questions honestly to gain insights.
  3. Set a few new goals for the second half of the year.
  4. Get some accountability (like-minded friend, or a coach – I would love to coach you)

 

Right, let’s get to the questions:

  1. What went well during the first half of the year? Why?
  2. What didn’t work out so well? Why?
  3. Were there any detours or obstacles? How did you navigate them?
  4. What did you learn about yourself?
  5. How are your relationships doing?
  6. What do you need to let go of? Feelings, expectations, projects, etc?
  7. If you chose a word of the year, how is your word working out for you? If it’s not working, could you change your word?
  8. On a scale of 1 – 10, how has the year been so far?

At this point, rewrite the goals you still want on a fresh piece of paper in your bullet journal. This will help you have a clean start. July is the new Jan 🙂

If you’re “over” the notion of goals, why don’t you set a few broad intentions for the year ahead, like this:

  1. For the rest of the year, I want to feel _____________ in my relationships with my family and friends (connected/ loving/ generous)
  2. I choose to let go of _________________________ (the expectation that…../ comparison/ the kids’ bathroom project)
  3. I want more _________________ in my life (joy/ love/ peace/ order/ beauty/ creativity)
  4. I want less ____________________ (chaos/ toxicity/ stress/ overwhelm/ lack)
  5. I want to give myself the gift of ___________________ (acceptance/ 15 minutes a day to read/ time to nourish my body by moving)

Has this helped?

On a scale of 1 – 10, how has your year been thus far? What are you looking forward to in the second half of the year?

When you do your half-year review, do take a quick pic and when you post your pic on Instagram, tag @OrganisingQueen

And don’t forget to contact me if you want to book a coaching session to work through this with me.

I’ve been posting my 18 in 2018 updates on Instagram. You don’t have to have a profile to view them. Just click my Instagram handle, and below my details, you’ll find circles. Look for the 18 in 2018 pink circle and see my updates there. I’m now up to over half done.

Filed Under: Goals, Intentional living, Personal, Planning, Work with Marcia Tagged With: , , , ,
28 Dec 2017 by 3 Comments

Yay – it’s annual review time!

The week between Christmas and New Year is, hands down, my favourite time of the year.

That’s because it’s the time I prepare my diary for the next year but, most of all, it’s because I finalise my year-end review and goal-setting for the next year.

Of course, you can do an annual review whenever you feel like it.

I do a review when it’s my birthday in August, and at the end of the year. The birthday one is more about my feelings and other such introspective things, while the end-of-the-year one is about all the other areas of my life.

A colleague of mine paid me the biggest compliment recently (she doesn’t even know it!) when she told me that of everyone she knows, I’m the only one she’s ever met who is this intentional about my goals.

It’s because I firmly believe that if you drift through life, there will be tons of things left undone simply because of lack of intention.

I don’t want that to be me.

I want to hear, “well done, good and faithful servant” and know that I’ve fulfilled my purpose in life.

Anyway, back to the process…

Some of the year-end thinking can be done as you go about your life (in the shower, while driving, etc.) but there comes a point when you actually need to sit down with a gorgeous pen and notebook, or with your laptop, and make the time to write things down.

There’s tremendous power in creating a sacred space for your thoughts, dreams, intentions and goals.

It’s also the perfect time to start the New Year with a clean slate – isn’t that appealing?

I book out a half day every year for exactly this purpose. If that’s not enough time (these things sometimes take a lot longer than you plan), I’ll take another half day.

For my birthday review, two hours is usually enough time for me to do the process justice.

Some of the things I’ll be thinking and writing about are:

  • my biggest accomplishments this year
  • things I definitely don’t want to repeat
  • the things I need to let go of – commitments, relationships, emotions
  • my word/ theme for next year
  • what my definition of success for the New Year will look like
  • and finally, the actual goal-setting

and so on

What about you? Have you created your sacred space yet for goal-setting?

PS remember to grab your free Let’s Do This workbook. I’ve also put a goals mindmap page and a lovely things to do list for all possible types of people out there – those who like their intentions more free-flowing and those who don’t want to think of it as goals.

Filed Under: Goals, Intentional living, Personal, Planning, Time management Tagged With: , ,
14 Dec 2017 by 2 Comments

{Annual review} What went well in 2017?

If you’ve had a rough year, you may be tempted to just scroll on by but hang in there – there are things in your life that went well this year.

I know this because even in my worst years, there were things that were good about it, and so it will be for you too.

Step one of any annual review process for me is to note down what went well about the year.

This year, I wanted to get going and build some momentum before working through my Let’s Do This workbook, which is free if you’ve signed up to my list. If you haven’t yet signed up, go here and I’ll send it out again on Friday, and then I’ll take off all the old freebies and put up this guide for the whole of next year (remember there’s no rule about when to start working on your goals!).

I get my best momentum with thinking things when I start mindmapping. So I wrote in my bullet journal “what went well” and made some spokes for God, family, fitness, fun, friends, house and word of the year. And then I let myself loose and under each spoke, I wrote whatever was on my mind.

Try that and let me know if it works to get you loose with your thinking because sometimes the getting started is the hardest part.

That’s my tip for you 🙂

A post shared by Marcia Francois (@marcia0608) on

As for my 2017, what went well?

  1. I’m hearing God better this year than I did last year. I started journalling and am really enjoying that process too.

2. The kids had great years at school and loved their teachers, we had two lovely family holidays and because they’re a bit older, we’ve been having more family lunches out because they can now behave 🙂 Dion and I have also had date afternoons most months. This month we went to see Bryan Adams so we’re ending on a high!

3. This has been a great year of reading – I will probably end up with about 120 books for the year, and it’s definitely the most non-fiction I’ve ever read in one year (I’m trying to finish on 40 so that it’s nice and neat :)). This alone deserves its own post but do leave a comment if you want to know something specific. These days, I get more questions about reading than I do about anything else

4. I also had a great year of sleep. I track my sleep to keep myself on track (strategy of monitoring works great for Upholders) and I will end the year over my goal of 7 hours 30 per night. It still amazes me that one has to actually be in bed much longer to get real and good sleep of 7:30.

5. I finally started a barre class and will probably end the year with about 60 walks. I’ve tried something the last two months on increasing my steps but let me work on it for another month and I’ll share next year. It’s really working for me though and if you’re not one of those 10 000 steps a day people, it may work for you too. I’ve just started back at Weigh-Less to lose some weight (I do have an actual number but I’m not putting it on the internet).

6. This year I started a book club with a friend and it has been so much fun for me. I still mostly read books no-one else reads but at least once a month, there’s something I can talk about with friends.

7. Speaking of friends, I haven’t had the best friend year but things that have worked really well is scheduling recurring meet-ups/ phone calls (again, the strategy of scheduling works great for upholders), my internal rule of always saying yes to out of town/ country friends, and I’m realising as I write this – this should probably be a post too 🙂

Now tell me, what went well for you in 2017?

Please feel free to leave me questions in the comments.

Filed Under: Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, My year of happy 2017, Personal, Planning Tagged With: , , , ,
5 Oct 2015 by

Goals review for September

It’s the time of the month where I look back at the past month and set some goals for the month ahead.

Interestingly, because of doing the #konmari on my papers, I found my Amazing Life Workbook and so I started reading through it.

Amazingly (haha!) things I completely forgot all I wrote down, like more sleep and more reading, are happening. And also the Let’s Do This course and Discover Yourself.

I’m going to do another workshop in November where we take stock of what’s happened this year, and start setting intentions for the year ahead. This workshop will be a short one (about 90 minutes), and will take via Skype so that transport/ location/ babysitting/ laziness to drive is not an option).

Basically Goals Night (for the year) on steroids 🙂

I can’t wait!

Look out for early bird pricing in the newsletter soon.

Sept goals review |www.OrganisingQueen.com

September goals review

  1. 70% overall goals reached (still terrible compared to last year’s average of 89% but better than last month’s 62%)
  2. Sleep is still going great – my average was a round 7 hours 15 minutes this month. Two very early flights means I had two short nights.
  3. I almost can’t believe this but I’m completely and utterly up to date with my photos. I only have this weekend’s to edit.
  4. There are too teensy-weensy areas in the study that haven’t been #Konmari’d but the rest of the papers and stationery was all done.
  5. I also wrote a ton of blog posts about this method. I have one more to publish (I need your help if you’ve read the book) and then I’ve put all the links in one post (this is going to be so helpful to me!).
  6. We booked a holiday for the end of the year. Yay!
  7. Just for fun, these were my top 3 performing articles on ezinearticles.com:

10 Must-Have Organising Tools  [view]

Make Your Life Easy With Effective Systems  [view]

Take Time For Self-Care  [view]

Sept goals review |www.OrganisingQueen.com

Lifetime: Top 3 Performing Articles

10 Ways To Increase Your Self-Confidence  [view]

How to Set Healthy Boundaries  [view]

I love talking about boundaries. I wrote about it here and this month, I listened to the audible version of the book again. It was great.

7 Ways to Say No Without Feeling Guilty  [view]

How was your September?

Tell me ONE thing that happened 🙂

 



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