The week that was… weekly reflections 5

This photo was taken in Cape Town during early December 2021

Wow, that was a week. All four of us said on Friday night that we were completely and utterly exhausted.

  1. We visited a high school expo to gather information for the application process. Yes, that is apparently the phase we’re in now. Also, for my US friends, high school in South Africa starts in grade 8. There was so much information and so many pamphlets…. and so I found that we needed to just discuss what is important to us and how we’re going to make the decisions.
  2. I had a wonderful catch-up with two friends this week – filled my friendship tank. Confession – I completely forgot about the one plan and only realised after I heard the 15-minute reminder. You should have seen me fly into action. We still had a lovely breakfast and I was only a few minutes late.
  3. My father was in Jhb for work and I saw him for literally 10 minutes. He is not a planner like I am otherwise we might have been able to spend more time together, but this has always been our dynamic – life on the fly!
  4. I got my hair cut this week! It feels like such a treat to visit the hairdresser. I have been seeing her since I was pregnant with the twins. Fun fact – I was exhausted during the pregnancy that I couldn’t even lift my arms to wash my hair so I started seeing her every Sunday morning from 9 – 9:30. She is very punctual and I have continued seeing her all these years.
  5. You all know I love yellow (I just realised the photo I chose for today’s post is also yellow!). No surprise when Instagram shows me yellow household items. I’d had my eye on some gorgeous yellow plates so I went to buy some yesterday. I got them home, washed them and they did not fit on either of our two draining racks despite me trying all my tricks. If something annoys me in the beginning, it’s going to annoy me a lot as time passes. So I returned them and bought plates without such a deep rim. Good news – these are just as lovely but also are a pleasure to use.

A coaching thought on number 5… are there things in your home that are annoying you? What can you do to fix them or at least reduce the annoyance?

How was your week?

Your silent to-do list

I like to think of tolerations as silent to-dos.

What are tolerations?

They’re those things that are not glaringly obvious but annoy you a little bit every time you see them or think about them.

And they definitely drain your energy. They also make you feel guilty (I really should change that lightbulb/ clear off that end table/ take that donate pile to the car) or resentful (why doesn’t person X/ Y or Z see this thing that needs to be done?!)

I’ve written about tolerations before and how lovely they were once they were taken care of. Interestingly, one of those tolerations has reared its head again. Grrr.

A toleration for you might not be one for me, and vice versa.

I can’t stand broken things or things out of place or things that have run out and not been replaced (toilet roll, roller towel, soap, etc.) so those kinds of things are my hot buttons. A photo frame or canvas that’s skew doesn’t phase me in the least unless it’s really bad.

Notice your tolerations and how they show up in your life.

  • Do you literally groan out loud when you see a toleration?
  • Does a part of your body tense up ?
  • Do you sigh? Do you frown?

Notice the physical and emotional signs that show up for you.

Now what?

Write these things down on a master to-do list or on my Get it done day list. This is a separate list aside from your House to-do list. The reason is you can knock off a whole lot of these quick things in a short time, and they’re usually really low cost.

Gretchen Rubin often talks about a power hour and that is a really good use of that time to knock off some tolerations too.

So, once you have your list, take an hour every weekend (we all have an hour!) and schedule in your get it done time (I used to do a once a month Get it done day and take 4 hours to knock off a ton of things). If you need money to take care of these things, then set aside some money every month to get some things done.

Who’s ready to tackle some tolerations this weekend?

Tag me on Instagram @organisingqueen so I can cheer you on.

What’s making me happier this week (1)

Gretchen Rubin has a little 1 – 2-minute podcast on a Monday which is called A Little Happier, just a quick inspiration for the week ahead.

I thought I would do a similar thing on this blog but I’d share a couple of small things that are making me a LOT happier.

I actually have 3 for this week but I only have a photo of the one, so I’ll post the others in weeks to come.

IMG_9172

this is the nice, bright light and bonus – it also makes cool patterns on the wall 🙂

At some point we swopped out our regular lightbulbs for the energy-efficient ones. The problem is that the energy-efficient ones were only available in a much lower wattage (?) for the fittings we had (bayonet).

A few days ago I woke up early and turning on the lamp hardly did a thing in terms of light.

That was my trigger because I really wanted to read instead of scrolling Instagram.

I went to get a proper lightbulb and I swear my happiness increased 100-fold.

OH MY WORD.

Now I love reading in bed again. I read TWO books this weekend with my nice, bright bedside lamp 🙂

I’ve previously referred to these tiny annoyances as tolerations and you can read more about them at that link.

Which tolerations are you putting up with that you can fix super-quick?

What’s making you a little (or a lot) happier this week?

{Time management} A story about tolerations

Today I want to tell you a story about my boot (trunk).

This boot had been misbehaving, but infrequently.

Sometimes it would open properly; other times I had to hold it open for a few seconds (3 – 4) and then it would stay and I could get my bags out.

For the non-South Africans, we put our handbags in our boots to avoid smash-and-grab incidents at traffic lights.

I lived with the boot for a few weeks and then told the guys who were servicing my car to please fix it.

Turns out there was such a lot wrong with my car (I don’t believe them!) and they did the most urgent thing – brake pads (that I do believe) – and made me a list of everything else I had to sort out.

Well, a few days after that the boot wouldn’t open at all without BRUTE strength.

I don’t have brute strength.

So I popped into the official car dealer to find out the price of the part and when they could fit me in. The lovely man told me they could do it there and then.

And they did.

R662 later. ($60)

That’s all.

I could NOT believe I’d lived with that annoying boot for 4 – 6 weeks and it only cost me R662 to fix!

Of course I couldn’t stop smiling once it was fixed and I may or may not have opened that boot to hear the swish a couple more times than was strictly necessary.

OH THE JOY!

I even called Dion outside that evening to “present” my boot to him, and I beamed like it was a new car 🙂

IMG_0731
Coming back to you.

These things we put up with that we really shouldn’t are called tolerations.

Tolerations drain our energy unnecessarily because most of them are quick fixes.

  • buying a decent knife for your kitchen
  • making a call to just make that appointment already (dentist, gynae, hair, etc.)
  • seeing your financial advisor (I’m with someone new and after meeting with her for an hour, she came back a week later with EVERYTHING. That would have taken me hours of phoning around and researching online. Signed a few more forms and my mo.ney is making me more mo.ney. Done!)
  • going to order books for friends online so you don’t constantly feel like you’re going to forget their birthdays (with Kindle you can schedule to send to them on the actual day – this is too snazzy for me and I love it)
  • one coaching call with a client who said “I can’t believe I’ve been doing it this way for so long. This is going to save me hours a week”.

All of these things are tolerations if left unattended.

Deal with your stuff.

Get the help you need.

You don’t have to put up with your overwhelmed life or not having the time to get to the things you want.

Register now for Help! I need more time. Class starts next Monday.

I just made a dental appointment because my filling feels loose – eek!)

What are some of the tolerations you know you need to deal with?

Are there any tolerations you need to deal with?

Each and every time you walk by something in your home and think, “I really need to sort that out” it drains your energy.

Last year a friend mentioned that she got some extra shelves installed in her kitchen and it changed her life. I instantly thought of my annoying shower door.

It wasn’t broken but it got stuck (probably from age – we’d been in the house 7 years and who knows how long the previous owners had it) daily, would pop off its rail, we’d pop it back in and then have a shower.

Super annoying.

Well, when I heard about my friend and her “changed life” I phoned up a company, got them to come replace the door, it was done within TWO days and we’ve been having happy shower days ever since.

Amazing how something so small can make such a huge difference to the quality of your life and your happiness.

By the way, that’s called a toleration and is one of the sections in this month’s resource.

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This month’s resource

Simplify your life

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Simplify your life is a 10-part e-course and will walk you through a number of important lessons.

Most of us have a very real need to simplify our lives.

It’s no wonder, really, because these days we have so many things competing for our time, attention and energy.

If you feel a craving for some simplicity, this e-course might just be for you.

Please take a look at the information page and see what you think.

I know this will help you!

Tacke it Tuesday – tolerations

Tackle It Tuesday Meme

This week I decided to tackle those irritating little things that I just haven’t been getting around to. In the coaching world, we call them tolerations and they typically drain your energy even though doing them wouldn’t take very long at all.

So this is what I did this weekend:

  1. I glued my insoles back into my boots – 3 minutes
  2. I wrote an email I’ve been procrastinating on (not to any of you bloggy friends) – 3 minutes
  3. I quickly sorted out my sock and underwear drawer – 5 minutes
  4. Caught up on my filing (weekly plus the stuff from the water debacle) while listening to a podcast – 10 minutes

Peace of mind = PRICELESS

What did you tackle this week?

BTW, in the June newsletter, I am going to talk about getting a handle on all the paper in your life.

To make sure you don’t miss out, sign up using the box in the top right corner of the blog ——->



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