I like to think of a few small things I want to do around the house every month.

I thought it would inspire and motivate you to also think up a few things and tackle one small thing every week.

This is how you purposefully create a sanctuary at home. By making decluttering and organising a regular, and not just a once-off event.

For Feb my tasks are:

1. Weed out the shoe organiser behind the door in the study.
2. Declutter books.
3. Take the gazillion discs to the computer place and get them to transfer everything onto my external hard drive (they only charge R200 for all that!)
4. Errands – drop off baby clothes at the hospital, return friend’s necklace and get together with friend (Maddy!!!) to give baby gift for 2-month-old

What are your 4 organising to-dos for Feb?

P.S. If you’re ready for about 1.5 – 2 hours’ organising over a whole week, have a look at organising your home

I hate to say this but it’s true.

I’ve been using money not very intentionally but I’m happy to say I’ve turned a corner…

Bond

I was paying x on my bond and when interest rates dropped I forgot to do what I normally do in these cases which is pay in the difference every month anyway.

Well, I fixed that a couple of months ago.

Interest rates have continued to drop so I’m still paying in the difference into our bond account.

There’s something so satisfying about seeing all those “extra payment” entries on our statement.

Am I the only one who gets excited by debt reduction?

Credit Card

We get HUGE cash back every month (on average R1500) simply by using our credit card at partner stores, like Pick and Pay for groceries and ToysRUs for nappies and other baby-related purchases. Places we were shopping at anyway.

Again, we used to fritter away our cash back which is literally like a credit on your credit card, and the money seemed to just disappear.

Odd, that.

But again, since October, I’ve been adding that cashback to my trusty little spreadsheet as “extra money” coming in. So that I’m forced to budget it.

The weird thing?

We seem to have more money even though we’re not even using that extra money.

It’s the power of intention - it makes you more aware and I think, makes you wealthier.

I know it’s been said that if you respect money, it will respect you. Suze Orman?

On a scale of 1 – 10 with 1 being terrible, how good are you at managing your money?

I’d say I was an 8.

Recently someone said to me that they were confused about whether they were an early bird or a night owl because they could work in the morning and in the evening.

I think we can adapt to most situations really well but there’s a sweet spot during the day for everyone where things just flow.

My sweet spot is at night.

I’m a night owl and always have been. When I was at school I would rather stay up late to study for tests than wake up early the next morning.

I’m still the same.

That’s why I do my evening routine so thoroughly because I am useless in the mornings.

My question to this person was this – yes, you can do things at both times but when does it most feel effortless and easy?

That’s your natural rhythm.

Over to you.

Are you an early bird or a night owl?

Once you figure out the answer to the question, read this article I wrote to maximise your time.

Today I have a question for you – what does purposeful living mean to you?

For me it means being conscious about how I spend my time, making sure that the activities I choose to do contribute towards my life goals and mission, and re-evaluating it all constantly to make the necessary changes.

So share – what does it mean for you?

P.S. Have you seen my new website?

There’s a Time Management Purpose Pack waiting for you

People often ask, “how do you do it all?”

They mean working full-time, cooking, cleaning (all but 1 glorious day every week when Nester comes to attack the mountain of ironing. Remember I hate laundry), blogging, running the business, being a wife and mother and going to gym.

Aside from being mostly organised and being extremely intentional about my time, I watch almost no TV (I’ve stopped watching Survivor this year!) and read almost nothing.

Okay, I’m being a bit melodramatic about the reading but compared to how much I used to read, I read practically nothing last year. LOL

When I was going through my reading book (yes, of course I have a reading book – don’t you?), for the early part of 2010 everything was about babies and sleep – I read 6 books on the same topic – how to get your babies to sleep through the night.

The answer?

It depends on the baby, how many you have and how much you like to hear crying.

he still sleeps like that

Turns out we had one who freaked out if left to cry, one who freaked out more and we didn’t like to hear them cry since they woke their twin and parents who had to function at work the next day, so we did things the old-fashioned way and waited for them to outgrow their night wakings at 10 months.

My goal was 7 books a month, 2 non-fiction, same as it’s been the last couple of years BUT when I had my birthday in August I realised I was being unrealistic so changed the goal to 5 books a month, 1 non-fiction.

I ended up reading 46 books in total for the year, 28 fiction and 18 non-fiction. If not for all those baby sleep books, I think I would have read more on the whole, as I take longer to get through non-fiction than I do fiction.

Are you the same?

Look – I tabulated all the reading for the last 5 years.

This year my goal is again 60 for the year – 5 books a month, of those 5, 1 non-fiction.

What are your reading goals for the year?

My first guest post for the year from James Adams

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If you are like many people, you likely have a home office, a work office, or both. Chances are that there are times you might like to throw everything away in order to declutter and get a fresh start. This is usually not a feasible idea, however, as you might lose many important items and get into a lot of trouble as a result.

There are better ways to get your office organised so that you will once again enjoy your time and not be so stressed out because you can’t find what you need. Keep reading in order to find out how.

To get your office into somewhere you can actually work and get things done, start to clear your clutter with these ten tips!

Tip 1: Go into your office and spend a few minutes simply visualising how you want it to look. Imagine that everything is arranged and in its place and how good that makes you feel. This will help you prepare for the task at hand.

Tip 2: Recognise that this is probably going to be more than a one day job. If you think that you are going to be able to do everything in one sitting, chances are you are going to get overwhelmed and abandon the task altogether.

Tip 3: Look at the arrangement of your office furniture. Are you able to walk between and around your furniture or do you have to fight to get through? Making sure that you have ample space to operate is a key step to decluttering.

Tip 4: Does you office equipment have its own space or is it fighting for space with the other essentials in the room? Make sure that your printer has a stand and that it is not sitting on the desk taking up unnecessary room. Put your fax machine on a little side table so that it has its own dedicated space as well.

Tip 5: Take an empty box and label it with the word “Maybe”. Start putting things in it that you might use in the future but are not sure about. These are items that could potentially end up in the trash at some point, but you are not quite ready to take that leap.

Tip 6: Take a good hard look at your desk. Go through all the loose papers and scraps that are there and throw away anything that you are not going to use again. Take the loose files that are sitting on the desk and put them in the file cabinet. If for some reason, you don’t have a file cabinet, now is the time to invest. Get some stacking trays and actually use them. Label them Inbox, Outbox, Miscellaneous and this will go a long way towards putting the remaining papers in their proper place.

Tip 7: Look in all the drawers. Again, go through and throw away unnecessary items that you have stashed in there. Buy some trays that are specifically for the drawers and use them to organise pens, pencils, scissors, staples, etc. You may even want to label your drawers so that you can quickly know what goes where.

Tip 8: Look at the floor. Are you stacking things on the floor because there isn’t room for them anywhere else? Now that you have decluttered the desk and drawers, you should be able to move the excess off the floor and into its proper location.

Tip 9: Now that you have most things in their proper place, go through and really clean the office. Vacuum the floor, dust all the furniture, hang the pictures you’ve been meaning to do all this time, place a candle or scent jar on your desk. Make it someplace that you feel at home in; almost like a sanctuary. If you want to be there, you will be productive.

Tip10: Just like in Tip 1, stand back and visualise, but this time do it with your eyes open and be proud of what you have accomplished.

James works at Spares Next Day, one of the UK’s top suppliers of hoover bags for vacuum cleaners. Click here to read more of his work.

Don’t they look like watermelons?

I love them!

If you see me around, ask me for one – I don’t mind if it’s for you or a friend – let’s spread the watermelon-y goodness

Credits

My photo – Jeanette Verster Photography

Business card design – Tracey French Designs

Printing – Wild Moon Studios

P.S. Have you checked out my advertising page on the header?

Marcia Francois

Joburg, South Africa

I’m a wife, mother to boy/ girl twins and I work full-time.

I’m also a speaker and coach to overwhelmed, busy women who want time and freedom to live life to the full.

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I am passionate about goals and goal-setting for the simple reason that if I didn’t set goals, I would have achieved little to nothing over the last 13 years.

Seriously.

People often wonder how I manage to get so much done from my life list.

The simple answer which is very short and sweet is that I set annual, monthly and weekly goals, and I work towards them.

That’s it – it’s not magic.

Do you know what is the number 1 reason most people don’t achieve their goals?

It’s not lack of motivation.

It’s not lack of willpower.

It’s not lack of planning ability.

It’s the inability to manage their time.

I get it.

How can you even think about writing your book/ going on a mission trip into Africa/ starting a home for pregnant teenaged girls  when you’re rushing around the whole day just putting out fires?

Almost impossible.

If you don’t set out to manage your time and life with purpose and intention, chances are you’re going to stumble through life and keep wondering, “where did that year go?”

At this time of year I love blog browsing and reading all the wonderful dreams people have about being more present, living more fully and impacting others around them.

Can you tell I read lots of inspirational blogs?!

The sad thing is that after a few months these same people think these Big Dreams are merely flights of fancy or that they were silly to think that they could actually do it.

It’s not silly.

It just takes some work.

My challenge to you

1.      Grab a piece of paper and jot down just 3 things you want to accomplish this year. Let’s keep our expectations low and take the pressure off.

2.      Choose the ONE most important thing to you right now.

3.      Create some time to work on just that one thing. I like to work with time blocks per week so that I don’t feel pressure on a daily basis. For example, you may say, “this week I’m going to spend two hours (which you can break down into 4 X 30-minute sessions) deciding on my next holiday and figuring out how long I want to stay there and how much it’s all going to cost”

4.      This is the most important step – schedule the time in your planner and mark it as sacred, in other words, keep the appointment!

If you have no idea where you’re going to find time to do the thinking let alone the doing, have a look at the organize your time system.

And if you want a customized plan just for you, book a Success Strategy Session with me. These sessions pay for themselves around the 20-minute mark with all the ideas you get and then it’s free sailing after that

Have you set the time aside to work on your goals?