{goals} 2024 reflection – 6 things that energised me this year

I felt like doing a fun reflection here today as it’s the last #write24in2024 of the year. Big, gold star to me for completion of this project!

Also, all the serious questions feel a bit too personal for the blog but are perfect for my bullet journal.

I will therefore share 6 things that energised me in 2024.

Ballito

  1. holidays/ vacations

A strange thing about me (or maybe not so strange) is that while I love going on holidays, I really don’t like planning them at all. This is probably why we go back to the same places every year because I know I can rely on a home away from home and I know I will truly recharge.

For other types of holidays, I really like people to say “pay this for that” and I do my EFT and pack a bag.

This year, we spent a week straddling 2023 and 2024 in Clarens, much as we’re doing now between 2024 and 2025, and 8 days in Ballito. I hoped to do a week in Ireland for my 50th but that was not to be; in fact, I was visiting many medical professionals that week.

2. true connection

I started saying people and while that’s a part of it, something that truly energises me is true connection.

A good phone call, tea and a chat, a video call with a friend and so on. I have fewer friends since the pandemic and while I’m not thrilled about it, it is what it is.

There were a few gatherings this year that I kind of dreaded going to and on reflection, I realised it’s because they feel too superficial. I now have another thing happening to me where it feels like I am/ the cancer is the elephant in the room. There were two friend gatherings in November where I felt like everyone was consciously avoiding/ ignoring the topic, and honestly I don’t quite know what to do, if anything. Thoughts?

Decluttering bathmats

3. getting things done

This might be boring to many of you, but I am really very energised by getting things done. When I look back at my monthly goals lists and I see projects like “got plumbing sorted outside side gate”, it is very energising to me. I mean, I hate the phoning and emailing and hounding people, but when a project is complete, YES! Also, I now have a list of people who are easy to do business with (RotoRooter – Jhb peeps).

Also, don’t minimise the natural high of an organised drawer or cupboard too. Outer order, inner calm. And there’s a very special high that comes with decluttering – woohoo! See decluttering projects here.

4. reading

I just finished book 132 of the year. There is nothing quite like getting stuck into a book and not caring about food, my phone, the internet, instagram or anything but what is going on in the book. I love when I’m driving to work and I simply have to sit in the car in the basement to finish the last 5 minutes of an audiobook. I am still to tally up and do my full 2024 reading analysis for the year but it feels like it’s been a good year of reading for me.

Zumba – last class of 2024

5. exercise

I’ve always known that exercise in a group setting (which is how I exercise) energises me, but an unexpected benefit is that exercise also helps to reduce fatigue when you’re going through radiation treatment. My oncologists said, “move as much as you feel comfortable” and I said, “Zumba?” and they said, “sounds perfect”. And it was. It’s like how regular exercise makes you less tired. Worked for me. Also, the energy of a class full of women and the odd man dancing makes me very, very happy.

6. work 

This year work also energised me. When a lot of your life is out of control, there is something to be said for being able to do things and control things that you are good at. A friend said to me, “there’s no way I’d be working through all of this but… you are an extrovert, might be good for you”. Exactly that – I loved going into the office and leaving at 2:45 daily to make my appointment time. I had time to work, time to interact with my work friends, clients, team and other colleagues, and time to go get my body sorted out.

Over to you!

What energised you in 2024?

5 places I don’t want to be a minimalist (aka multiples make your life easier)

While many of us want to live simpler lives in terms of the possessions we own, sometimes it just makes sense (and keeps you more sane) if you have multiples of an item in your home.

I remember Design Mom writing about this in relation to her daughters and hairbrushes years ago which made me think about where I own multiples:

  1. pairs of scissors – I have two pairs of scissors in my study, two in the kitchen and Dion and I each have a pair of bathroom scissors too. So useful for cutting open bags of toilet roll, my Quadrofer, any plastic packaging around the boxes some of my creams come in.
  2. wastepaper baskets – I have one in every single room and bathroom of my house and I have two in the study – normal items and paper recycling
  3. Panado – this is personal to me but let it inspire me. My body hates the heat and it’s hot in South Africa 9 months of the year, so I sometimes have to have a panado to stave off a headache. I keep Panado in my car (after I had to go to the store on the way from work to gym one evening), in my handbag, bedside table, medicine cabinet and also downstairs in the kitchen with our other vitamins.
  4. Phone chargers – I keep these everywhere: in my work laptop bag, in my car, at my bedside table and one downstairs in the kitchen. The very best thing is that I’m the only iphone user in my house so they never go missing.
  5. Tiny silicone spatulas (life changing) – I love all things miniature so I first bought a set of 5 miniature utensils because they were cute. Then once I started using them I couldn’t stop. They are awesome for getting last bits of things from jars like mayonnaise, peanut butter, pesto, yoghurt, etc. I now own about 6! Try it – you won’t regret it.

What do you have multiples of that make your life easier?

PS I am getting to be that woman who now puts teaspoons on her monthly shopping list because I can’t stand my things disappearing into the teens’ bedrooms anymore. I joked yesterday to Dion (and maybe it was genius joking) that I’m buying everyone a different set of teaspoons for Christmas. Hmmm. 😉

There are just under two months left of 2024; is there a point in still going after your goals?

I’ve heard this sentence a lot lately: “I’m so ready for 2024 to be over. I don’t even care about goals or …….” and yes, I get you. I am also ready to move on with my life.

In the work world I hear the opposite. I call it the end-of-year-crazy and my one coaching client said the same thing to me a few weeks ago (so in our focus group of two across South Africa and Australia, we already know it’s not only us). Everyone wants to squeeze a year’s worth of work into two months. Madness.

I have a few thoughts though:

  1. Two months are quick but they are not nothing. Whether you do or don’t do something, those two months are going to pass. Might as well make them count. If you wanted to read more, look through your list and choose a few books you really want to read, and read them. (I already have a folder on my Kindle with some Christmas books).
  2. When you consider what you might still want to get done this year, don’t be a time optimist. Look at the calendar and factor in Christmas, school holidays and downtime at work for about two weeks. I just counted and even though there are six weeks, I guarantee that they will not be the six most productive weeks in the year – people are tired and might have their own things they want to finish off before they go on their annual leave.
  3. Factor in the time available for the activity. E.g. with kids off school early in December, you will have more time for family things but not necessarily more time for work stuff.

The Big Planning Questions

Which one or two-step projects were important to you in January and are still important now?

Examples are getting your driver’s licence renewed (this was me!), getting your mammogram or gynae visit done (and I dearly hope your results are clear) and maybe opening that high-interest savings account (also me).

Which goals/ aims do you need to release?

I had weekends away on my list which I released long, long ago, but this is the type of thing that is probably not going to happen if it is not planned, scheduled and paid for already. Multi-step home projects may fall into this category too.

What is still on your SHORT list that you can give one last boost to before the end of the year?

I had a lot of friendship things – some can still happen but some will be deleted, definitely for this year, maybe for ever 😉

 

Milestone birthdays and unexpected happenings

I have a whole list of things to write about (which will ensure that I easily get to my write 24 in 24 goal this year) but this week, I’m pausing my usual blog content for a personal update.

Those on my newsletter list already received this news at the end of August; if you’re on the list, you can skip this and get 5 minutes of your life back. For the rest, I’m pasting the entire newsletter here.

How things change in a month!

The last time we spoke (end of July) I had had a “suspicious mammogram”, a biopsy and a fine needle aspiration. Don’t worry – you didn’t miss reading this; I didn’t say a thing.

However, it was only on Friday 2 August that the surgeon uttered those words to me: you have breast cancer. And following that, I was dispatched for bloods, an x-ray and a scan. Follow up appointments were made for a few days later and based on all those results, they would schedule a visit with the oncologist.

I started crying and shaking and this happened intermittently the entire week following that appointment.

Spoiler – my bloods did not indicate any cancer markers and both the chest x-rays and abdominal scans were clear. In case you are also new to all this lingo, they do this metastasic mark-up to see if the cancer has spread.

Even though I was feeling off emotionally for months and that was the reason I had nothing planned for my big birthday, I still decided to take the week off (a la Covid times) and have a staycation. Well. I am so, so glad I had that week off to cry, attend to the medical appointments and see surgeons, oncologists, etc.

What world is this where I even have an oncologist?! I actually only started to calm down about all of this (waves hands around) after that oncology appointment because the oncologist was kind, compassionate and explained everything so nicely, what each data point means and so on.

I then had a week of work and then had surgery on 20 August. The pre-surgery procedure was the worst thing ever and I think I have PTSD from it (my blood pressure was, for me, sky high at 150 – 155) as I still start tearing up every time I try to explain it or think about it.

I’m still recovering but I am cleared to go back to work from Tuesday 2 Sept although he was sure to tell me that full healing only happens 6 weeks from the surgery, so no exercise, no lifting heavy things, etc.

The results indicate no cancer in the lymph nodes and that there is no cancer in my right breast either. This was a “probably benign” situation before surgery but we wanted a definite result.

My oncologist has requested that the tissue samples be sent to the US for genetic testing (to see what the % of recurrence is) and now I wait for another three weeks for my next  oncology appointment to discuss the treatment plan.

August 2018

As for that milestone birthday…I thought that turning 50 would throw me for a loop but it turns out one is very happy to turn 50 when you’ve just received a cancer diagnosis.

While resting last week, I finally did my annual birthday review. Here’s a free printable if you want to do the same. The good news is that I wrote two columns of an A4 page on what went well over the last year and only 3/4 of a column on what didn’t go well. The didn’t go well column is still terrible but it’s smaller, right?

I have also made a list of things to do for this next year with everything (seriously, everything being held loosely) but my number 1 goal is to get through the cancer treatment. That’s it; everything else is just a cherry on top. The type of cancer is hormone receptor positive so I’m off my patch and hormone blockers will start sometime this year, I guess. What does this mean for me?

Well, I have started having little hot flashes at night which is going to be interesting as I already hate the heat. Pray for me!

 

The only action for this week’s blog is…

  • if you’re 40 or older, or you have a family history, do schedule your mammogram (I have no family history, felt no lumps and had a clean mammogram 10 months earlier than this one)
  • once you make your appointment, please comment and let me know that you’ve done so. I will be thrilled!

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

Last week I celebrated the milestone of turning 50.

I don’t take this lightly because two close friends died before their time during the Covid days.

I started making one of those lists I LOVE to read and then I decided to see if I had enough to post several lists of 10. I think I do because I’ve written one list on time and one on organising, so let’s see if I can stretch it to another few lists after I post about those two categories.

These are the 10 things I learned about prioritising, saving and using your time more effectively during my 50 years:

  1. Ask every day/ hour/ week/ month… what is the best use of my time right now?  This has the surprising ability to clarify your priorities and I ask this question at least once a day, and while I’m working, several times.
  2. If it’s going to take two minutes or less time to do something, just do it.
  3. Saying no is a big part of saying yes. If you struggle to say no, consider which parts you can’t say yes to because you’re saying no to the wrong things… right now.
  4. Work expands to fill the time available for it. If you want to clean your bedroom for two hours, you can do that. But if you only want to spend 20 minutes, you will get the most important things done during that time too.
  5. There’s always enough time if it’s important to you. I wrote a book about this called 31 days of enough time. If you find it important to exercise, you will make the time. If you want to connect with friends, you will figure out the how.

  1. Plan your week and plan your day before it even starts. This ensures that you hit the ground running, even if only in your mind. A plan doesn’t have to be a 10-item list; it can be 3 things too.
  2. Get enough sleep and your productivity will increase. This is the first thing I work on with all coaching clients – sleep. If you think it doesn’t matter, try getting a 7 – 8 hour block of time for about 4 – 5 days at a stretch and see how energetic you feel and how productive you are. Book your coaching session!
  3. Eat your frogs first but don’t put more than 3 – 5 frogs on your list every day. I like only 3 during a work day (and these days, one of them is to show up fully present, prepared and engaged!) and 3 – 5 on weekends.
  4. Before you add a commitment to your schedule, ask yourself if it sparks joy. Sometimes attending a meeting at school in itself does not spark joy but the outcome – knowing what’s going on and being connected with your child – does.
  5. Done is better than perfect. That first done level is at about 80%. Did you know that it will take as much time to do that last 20% as the first 80%? If you have the time and you’ve finished the first 80% quicker than you planned, by all means, do a bit extra, but it’s helpful to understand the metrics upfront.

 

Which are your favourite time tips?

Did one of these tips particularly resonate with you?

(I live to hear from you like old-school blogging so make my day and comment)

Work habits and routines: monthly, weekly and daily

I shared some stories on my Instagram highlights many years ago (certainly, pre-pandemic) that still get comments and questions regularly. I’m not sure what to make of that – is it strange? is it helpful? – either way, I want to write it all down here too.

I have a few things I do as part of my work – some of these will not apply to everyone, but if it strikes a chord, do try them out and let me know how it goes with you.

Our performance discussions happen at the end of each financial year. I like having this set time to reflect and think about what’s working, what’s not, and where I need to change things. It is also fun/ scary because the budget resets to R0 so we have to start putting money on that income statement all over again.

At this time I also think about some broad goals I want to set for myself and my team for the year ahead. I hold these goals loosely because things sometimes change quickly.

However, from these goals and projects, I set monthly goals. I also do a review of the month that’s passed. Yes, exactly like I do in my personal life.

My work goals are much more out of my control than my personal goals are, because I’m largely dependent on my team. Still, they are there – I like to at least know which direction we’re steering in and where I need to put more effort.

Now for the parts that most of you will actually find more interesting 😉

Weekly rhythms

I firmly believe that a good week starts before the week actually begins.

That means I plan my week on a Friday afternoon.

  1. I look at the week that’s been and wind up any matters that need attention. This is not always possible as some things may need to move to the following week.
  2. I write a ta-da list. It is rare but it does sometimes happen that all that is on that list is “I survived”. Mostly I can think of a few things that went well.
  3. I add in focus time if I haven’t already done so.
  4. I check for upcoming meetings – do I have everything I need to run them? I might have to prompt people, put in prep time or complete a piece of work.
  5. I write my “goals for the week” list – these are things that must move along. The things I work on are not one to two step projects so are hardly things I can complete in a week, but I at least want to move things forward every week. Sometimes there’s a work event like a client lunch or workshop. I think about what I want to get out of these events and write a loose plan.
  6. Lastly, I write my to-do list for Monday (or Tuesday, if Monday is a public holiday or I’m on leave)

Daily

  1. I love the idea of using your actual calendar and rewriting it so that you feel with your body if there is actually space for all the things you want to get done. For example, if I have 7 hours of meetings, probably nothing else is going to get done, so I don’t even add anything.
  2. Some days, usually on my work-from-home days, I block out focus time in the morning and take meetings from 11 onwards. For these days, I write my “frogs” right at the top of my list. These are the top 3 tasks for that day.
  3. The bottom line is: I rewrite all my meetings in my notebook and if time allows, I write 3 things that need to get done.
  4. I almost never (I started saying never, and then I realised that on Friday, I had a splitting headache so didn’t do my full routine for Monday) end one day without having a to-do list written for the next day.

Do you do monthly, weekly and daily planning as part of your work habits? Share all your tips 🙂

(Next time we’ll talk about other habits which I am worse at than planning! For some reason, 4 years after lockdown, I still haven’t developed good in-office work habits)

A life in rhythm vs a balanced life

One of my goals for this year is to (finally) finish reading the 10 physical books on my actual bookshelf – this one.

rainbow bookshelf

Therefore I need to be reading about two books a month to be done by the end of June. I had the goal set for the end of April but I realised that end of June is more realistic as I only have 2 – 3 slowish mornings a week to read, not the 7 I had in 2020 and 2021 when I read, in bed, every morning, without fail.

In January I finished Ikigai and Your Life in Rhythm.

Let’s talk about your life in rhythm by Bruce Miller

The part I loved the most talks about seasonal rhythms. These are both strict seasons like autumn and winter and also “the season of being an empty nester or new parent” or “the season of going into year-end or budgeting season. Accountants feel the end of tax season to a greater effect than those who are not in a finance field.

I was then inspired to use my own Let’s Do This workbook to note down what happens in my life seasonally.

Quarterly rhythms

birthday season – all four of us celebrate our birthdays in less than a month, my mother’s one is in that same month and my mother-in-law is less than a month earlier. Not exactly sure why but I also seem to have a lot of friends who also celebrate their birthdays in July and early August. This is probably why I do “birthday month” – it takes some of the pressure off me to “celebrate” and also it’s nicer to have friend dates to look forward to the whole of August.

actual winter – as long-time readers know, I love winter and my own rhythms also change then. I leave work earlier as I don’t like driving during loadshedding when it’s dark outside. I sleep more, easily a solid 7h30 on average daily (just checked my Fitbit stats and from June to Aug last year, I averaged 7h38 last year and 7h46 in 2022). We also usually take a beach holiday in winter which I love.

happy Marcia on a beach holiday in winter

other quarterly cycles – swopping my clothes around (this happens twice a year, once in April and then in around October), spring cleaning (September and December/ January are the big ones), beginning of the school year (the big fitting on and replacing of school shoes, clothes and takkies, and of course, buying all the school books).

Weekly rhythms

I’ve always found it helpful to think of my life in a weekly rather than a daily rhythm. Thinking daily makes me feel like I’m always behind but in a week, I feel like I generally get to what I want to do.

What are some of your weekly rhythms?

Well, there are things you do during the week (like work and your kids go to school) and then there are weekend things.

It’s helpful to think about what you like to get done and see where in the week that might fit.

Exercise

I like to have three sessions a week, at least two of them cardio. I realised when I did my January review that in trying to incorporate more stretch classes, I was robbing myself of cardio because I still only have those 3 sessions available every week. (More on this in my next newsletter) At least I realised this quickly.

Big chunks of reading

I read “bits” every day – 20 – 30 mins in the morning and about the same at night, and on the days I drive into the office, I have another 90 minutes of a fiction audiobook.

I also like what I call a big chunk of reading on the weekend, 3 – 4 glorious hours to immerse myself in a book. That is not going to just happen, so my preferred rhythm is a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

Household maintenance

I also menu plan after looking through the freezer (e.g. we are going to have a lot of chicken this week because there is too much in the freezer), update the shopping list and cook something in batch, most weeks.

I also like to tidy my bedroom and bathroom on the weekend to reset for the week ahead. No, the world will not fall apart if this is not done, but my brain is calmer if it is. #outerorderinnercalm

winter is the prettiest… especially framed by red cars

What I need to work on

Personal monthly rhythms

I am great with doing a goals review every month, updating my spreadsheets and setting goals for the new month. Here’s a post where I put it all together for you.

However, I never take into account my female cycles (and I should, because it does affect my energy levels and what I can do that week). I also want to start setting up regular maintenance days for colouring my hair. I’ve been winging it and do when it looks really bad but it would be nice to be a grown-up and actually schedule a regular weekend for “upkeep”.

If you want to rethink your goals and rhythms to take the seasons into account, use page 8 in my workbook:  Let’s Do This 2023 workbook (it’s free).

Which rhythms are easier for you, and which are more difficult? Annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly or daily?

How to break up with your phone by Catherine Price

I read this book during lockdown in 2021 and at the time, I rated it 4.5*. Based on how much the concepts stayed with me and how much I still recommend this book, I have now moved it to a full 5* rating.

How to break up with your phone

I think most people lie to themselves about their phone usage. I used to do the same until I used the Moments app and these days iPhone helpfully sends me the screen stats to shock me every Sunday morning.

Why did I want to read this book?

My phone usage at the time was abysmal. And, as I’ve said before, we could all literally finish a book every four and a half hours if our phone usage was reasonable.

About the book

The book is divided into part 1 – the research, which is very interesting and easy to read – and part 2 – the how to, practical part.

I don’t care too much about the numbers these days because I now recognise after reading this book that most of what I use my phone for are tools like Goodreads, Mail, Camera, etc., but I’d be fooling myself if I didn’t admit that the Instagram dopamine hit is strong.

Did you know that they purposefully update likes and notifications erratically to keep us swiping and checking? Of course, once I found that out, I channelled my inner rebel and consciously don’t do it.

That’s just one of the things she talks about in the book.

If you watched the Social Dilemma on netflix a few years ago, you will recognise a lot of what is said here, but the book is still a solid, 5🌟 read.

Now for the fun!

my iphone screen

Three things that really, really help me:

  1. I can’t help thinking that I would rather have read a book than scroll some random person’s Instagram feed – that definitely helps me to stop the mindless scroll.
  2. Put your screentime widget on your front screen of your phone (see top left of screen above). Every time you pick up your phone and are confronted with your daily usage, you might reconsider what you intended to do. I added this widget in the second week of January this year and my screentime has gone down from 7 hours 11 to somewhere between 3 and 4 hours on average. More importantly, my Instagram usage has radically decreased. Here’s how to do it for Android phones.
  3. Put all your social media apps on page 2 of your phone. If you keep your tools on page 1 of your phone, you’re less likely to go straight to Instagram, Facebook, etc. Facebook is not on my phone and I maybe spend 10 minutes a month there via the web, and it’s all birthday check-ins.

Does your screentime usage bother you? Have you added the widget to your front page yet?

{Time management} When you’re too busy to sort out urgent things

Did anyone notice that I haven’t posted for weeks? No? That’s okay.

My website (and this blog) has been down for at least a week and a half before I had the time and mental space to book someone to attend to it.

Two interesting facts:

  1. I don’t believe in the phrase “I don’t have time” – exhibit A, my book, 31 days of Enough Time.
  2. It is tremendous growth for me to not “freak out” about a website being down.

With regards to number 2 above, this has happened a couple of times over the last few years. In the before times, I’d immediately book a person to attend to it and would not rest until it was sorted.

This time, I looked at the error, thought I should be able to fix it (I do like the methodical part of playing with a website, and tinkering until things are just right.) but knew I didn’t have either the mental bandwidth or early evening time (trust me when I say you should not mess around with your website if your brain isn’t fully awake – this involves emails to web people that say “help – I messed up!”).

So I just left it until I had time to look at it.

I was able to fix one tiny thing but not the bigger issue so I hired that piece out.

And lo, here I am blogging again.

Time management literature says that fixing the website is a Quadrant 1 activity – important and urgent.

However, my Quadrant 2 activity was tending to my health (sleep, stress management by putting in extra work hours so I could sleep – yes, a circular argument, and exercise) first and then once calm, I could attend to that Quadrant 1 activity.

I shared all that to say this: sometimes the best thing to do is to invest the time necessary to make you feel calm, no matter what that looks like.

Sometimes work colleagues will be adamant in talking to me about shutting off their computers at exactly 5pm. I’m not saying this is wrong but I am questioning whether 30 extra minutes of work might give you a better evening’s rest and certainly, more rejuvenating sleep.

Just a little something to think about.

Are you investing enough time in Quadrant 2 of The Time Matrix?

15-minute Fridays: organising your to-do list

I want to try sharing really short, quick tips here. The idea is that they will be quick and easy inspiration for your weekend.

I typically break up my weekend to-do list into errands (out and about), house stuff and relax.

Under the house section, I have things that are always on there (laundry, menu plan, etc.) and then I add one or two quick things – like declutter my nail polish or tidy the storeroom. In my head, these things are about 15 minutes (if they’re not, don’t tell my brain because that’s how I trick myself to actually go do them)

For this weekend, grab a notebook or your phone’s notes app and walk around your house. That’s it.

Walk into each of the rooms and note what needs sorting out. As an example…

Bedroom – declutter sock drawer, tidy nail polish, clean gym shoes, declutter t-shirts.

When you’re done with your list, you’re done.

But…. if you do feel motivated, please pick the one thing that will feel most satisfying to have done, and do it.

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