7 Aug 2017 by 6 Comments

July project update and August theme – delight :)

Happy August!

My theme for July was refresh – you can read about the 7  areas I wanted to focus on in July.

Now here’s a confession – I completely forgot about one of them (number 3) because I didn’t write it down on my monthly goals list.

But 6 out of 7 is great. Technically, the window washing happens tomorrow but July was spent getting quotes. Though, if this company does a good job, I will just diarise and get them out every time the windows need doing. I can’t WAIT to see out of clean upstairs windows again!

And now, for August, my theme is delight.

How can I delight myself this month? How can I delight others in big and small ways?

Confession time – I chose this theme because it’s my birthday month.

This month I’m going to:

  • go get a massage (to think, back in the day, I used to have a massage scheduled every two weeks!)
  • get my hair done
  • declutter my shoes (yay!!!)
  • I already threw myself a little party
  • do my birthday review and set intentions for the year ahead (I’ll post on Instagram so make sure you check in with me there)
  • write down some fun things I want to do over the next year (I’ll send out this free printable in next week’s newsletter)
  • read some fun books
  • have about 6 friend dates 🙂
  • do nice things for 7 people

What is your theme for August?

How can you delight yourself this month?

If you’d like me to help you get clear on your goals and intentions for the year/ half year/ quarter ahead, I would be happy to do that. Send me a mail.

Filed Under: Goals, Intentional living, My year of happy 2017 Tagged With:
3 Jul 2017 by 8 Comments

{My year of happy} June update and my July project – refresh

My June project’s theme was to nourish myself in 3 main areas – more sleep, more walking and eating better.

The sleep was excellent – I ended off the month on an average of 7 hrs 45 minutes. It is exactly what I said before – if I don’t track it or intentionally go to sleep more, my sleep is awful.

My goal was 4 walks and I managed 3, so not bad, but could be better. I feel really good about one of those walks though because it completely nourished my soul.

The eating better? Yes and no. I chose better meals on the whole, but I could have done much, much more. It’s just so darn cold to eat salads at home during winter. I don’t mind in an airconditioned office but at home I don’t want to see a vegetable straight from the cold fridge.

Onto July…

This month I’ve set a theme of refresh for my life.

  1. We’re going on a family holiday and I want to use the time to completely relax, read some unputdownable novels and rejuvenate my spirit.
  2. I intend to take at least one walk every day with whoever’s game, no matter the weather 🙂 I’m putting this here for accountability.
  3. I’ve been doubting my value in friendships recently and God’s been whispering to me that I am still enough (word of the year – 2015!) so I want to spend time writing down these truths and meditating on what He says about me. I feel like this is the perfect time to get filled up on His Word, just before my birthday month.
  4. We’re coming up on one year in our house so I also want to take the occasion to refresh areas of my home by doing a bit of decluttering, reorganising, sprucing up, etc.
  5. Our house also needs its upstairs outside windows cleaned. Desperately. What is the point of a house with a view if you can’t see properly through the windows, right?!
  6. Then, I think I will try one last time to get my book back from a PR company who has not returned it for a whole year. After that, I’m going to let it go.
  7. And besides all that, I have some birthday parties to throw to celebrate another circle around the sun for all 4 of us.

How are you going to refresh during July?

Filed Under: Intentional living, My year of happy 2017, Personal Tagged With: , , , ,
5 Jun 2017 by 2 Comments

{My year of happy} May update and June project – nourish

In May I focussed on my physical space and I’m pleased to say I got 5 out of 6 things done on this list…. and about 4 additional spaces not mentioned.

If you missed out, I want to point you to the two posts on hygge that I wrote.

Here is part 1 and here is part 2.

How did you work on your physical space last month?

Please do share!

And now, onto June.

By the way, I’ve been planning some half-year goals posts because I thought we were half way through the year. I think it’s because autumn is over for us in the Southern Hemisphere that it seemed like the year itself is also half over.

Oh well, all that means is that I’m super prepared for the end of June’s posts  🙂

If you’re not signed up to the newsletter yet, you can do that here. I sent out two mails in May with free printables in each of them. And you get the intentional calendar when you sign up which is what I base my monthly projects on.

My focus for June is to nourish myself.

  1. The first, very obvious thing that comes to mind is sleep.

I really need to get back to my excellent sleep in March and April. In May, I slept an average of 7 hrs 28 a night which is fine but not as good as the 7 hrs 45 – 7 hours 50 I was averaging before.

Basically, the computer needs to go off at 10 so I can prepare for bed, and read, and still get in my 7.5 hours.

2. I want to take 4 afternoon walks this month

The weather is finally cool so there really is no excuse except laziness.

I have found that I’m more likely to want to exercise if I get dressed and wear takkies (running shoes), just to make it even easier and more convenient.

3. Eating better

I’m going to bring back my winter rule of a glass of water before every cup of tea or coffee. I also see I’m going to have to heat my water for 10 seconds in the microwave to take off the chill 🙂

And veggies. I’ve been making soups which is an easy way to get in lots of vegetables, but I know that for me, if I make a salad at work, that will work (!) for me too, if accompanied by some lovely coriander and lime salad dressing 🙂

nourish

That’s my aim – to eat better, move more and sleep longer.

This is also my way of giving to myself this month. You may remember that my word of the year is give.

What about you? How will you nourish yourself this month?

PS How are you living out your word of the year?

Filed Under: Goals, Intentional living, My year of happy 2017, Personal Tagged With: , ,
5 May 2017 by 1 Comment

{my year of happy} April update and May project – physical space

So as some might remember, my April project was to look at what was not working for me and to fix those things.

Before I tell you about that, let me give you some fabulous news about my no-spend month for books. I did buy 4 titles from my list before our holiday because I wanted a good holiday read. But I still ended up only spending 66% of my allowance this month. It’s the first time in years I’ve come in under-budget so I’m doing the happy dance.

Personal email

I got completely up to date with my email. It needs a tweak now so I’ve put it on my weekly goals list for next week to spend 30 minutes saving documents to sort it out

Blogs in my feedly

This one I’m particularly proud of. I started off with 80, deleted 20 and could probably delete about 15 more. I also reordered them all and deleted some categories so that I have fewer, more descriptive categories.

Podcasts

Here I started off with 20 and I now have 12 I’m subscribed to, and 4 occasional ones.

I was also supposed to go through my instagram properly but I’m doing that more organically, like if I notice I’m following an account that I’ve already commented on from my other profile, I’ll just pop into the other profile and unfollow from there.

I was on such a roll that I also went through my Kindle sorting the entire thing out. The good news is it’s super sorted but the bad news is I had many more books unread than I thought I did, so am working through those now. And until I get where I’m happy with the number of unread books, I’ll be continuing my no-spend on books.

So that was April and I’m very happy with all of that sorted.

What about May?

In May, the OrganisingQueen intentional calendar (which you can get here) says:

It’s time to focus on your physical space. How can you make your space more inviting? How can you make your physical environment work better for you?

  1. I’m going to get up some blog posts this month focussing on physical spaces.
  2. I need to buy some Queen-size winter sheeting.
  3. I want to buy a few throws for use in the lounge. Is there anything better than cuddling up with a warm blanket, tea and a book? No, I think not.
  4. There are two things on my car that need sorting out.
  5. Our fridge is leaking. We just put a mat underneath but I need to get a fridge person in to look at it.
  6. Before any of those things can get done though, I need to sort out our budget after our holiday 🙂

What’s on your list for May?

Filed Under: Goals, Intentional living, My year of happy 2017, Organising, organising children's spaces Tagged With: , , ,
3 Apr 2017 by 5 Comments

{My year of happy} April project goals

Happy April!

So, my happy project for March was to see what was working and to replicate that in other areas of my life.

How did I do?

Scheduling – this one worked a treat. I pre-scheduled friend dates, dates with D, etc. I also scheduled my weekly planning time and it’s been great.

Environment – I kept the phone in the bedroom most of the month BUT I was elsewhere so I almost didn’t care to even look at it. I read on a chair in my pyjama lounge and the phone is never with me so I’m not distracted.

However, I was very, very naughty this very last week of March in terms of sleep ….. on the bright side, my sleep average for March is a whopping 7 hrs 46 minutes. It’s not been that high for years and years (possibly, even pre-kids!)

Batching – this one is working well too. Monday is writing night and Wednesday is photo night 🙂

What about April?

This month, my goal is to see what’s not working for me and see how I can stop that, and make it better.

So which projects do I have in mind?

Personal email

I’m not sure what I’ve been doing but I can’t seem to get a handle on my personal email. It’s out of control. I need to go through all my notifications and newsletters to see where I can unsubscribe.

By the way, I recently sent out a newsletter. Did you get your copy? If you’re not on the list (you get 3 cool freebies!), you can sign up here.

 Blogs in my feedly

There are blogs I’m not that into anymore, those with only sponsored posts/ giveaways, and that’s not why I read blogs. I don’t mind a good sponsored post (CupofJo does these beautifully) but they are 1 in 10.

So I need to go on a big unsubscribe mission again.

Instagram

This is not bad…. but since I have two accounts, there are some feeds I follow on both @marcia0608 and @organisingqueen, which is inefficient. And then Instagram advertising, because I’m sure there are some feeds that have appeared without my officially following them.

Can you see Kendra and Connor in the bokeh on the right? I took this photo on a photowalk with the kids.

So, tell me. What’s not working in your life?

Can you stop doing it?

How can you change things to make it a better, more pleasant situation for yourself?

Filed Under: Decluttering, Goals, Intentional living, My year of happy 2017, Organising, Time management Tagged With: ,
2 Feb 2017 by 5 Comments

My happiness project for Feb

This year I’ve decided to do a focussed goals project for each month of the year, starting in February and ending in November.

You can read about that here.

January was about setting it all up – deciding what to focus on in each month. Eventually I decided I’m overcomplicating things so I decided to follow the themes on my intentional calendar.

(If you’re on my mailing list, you would have received a link with the calendar. If not, when you sign up, you’ll receive it within minutes.)

 

So onto February!

February is traditionally the month of love 🙂 I’m extending that definition to answer this question:

How can I connect more deeply with friends and family this month?

I have some specific goals around this, which are:

  • Send out two birthday cards
  • Send a get well soon card
  • Get the kids to write to their cousins (I’ve bribed them with temporary tattoos to get this done 🙂 No one likes the process but we all love having done it!)
  • Get the kids to send Valentines cards to their grannies
  • Send some cards myself
  • Schedule a few dates with friends. You know what? Something kept me back from doing this (maybe the thought that it’s too structured?) but why not set up systems to make life easier? I do it at work, so why not in my personal life?!
  • Start a book club
  • Schedule the next supper club. This is just a few friends who like to eat (so many people don’t enjoy their food anymore but there are a few who still like to eat carbs :)) and we said only once every 2 months or so.
  • And of course, my monthly dates with my own family members, a permanent goal for me.

Over to you!

Have you downloaded the intentional calendar?

How can I connect more deeply with friends and family this month?

If the idea of coaching with me resonates with you, I’d like to invite you to contact me. Let’s make magic together 🙂

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