Did you see my post about the washi tape binder clips on Friday?

I kept to my word which means the reason I was able to post is that I finished the 3 things on my book to-do list.

Yay me!

The public accountability worked so well (because I did a few extra things too) that I’ve decided to let you help hold me accountable again this week.

This week I need to:

1. format the content according to guidelines
2. add some additional information (I noticed they want some extra bits and bobs)
3. merge two sections that have similar content into one

I’m giving myself until Friday

Until then, have a wonderful week!

How are YOU doing on your November goals?

Remember 30 days of lists?

We’re halfway there.

Is anyone else doing this with me?

I thought I’d share some of what’s been happening on my journey.

• One of the prompts really threw me since I just don’t have a context for it so I made up my own question … because I do want 30 lists at the end of Sept
• I start being more aware of how imperfect my little book is when I see the cute and very creative books in the flickr group
• Short is very sweet. I love that I made my book so small as I never feel overwhelmed and anxious about filling all that space
• A daily ritual is very easy for me (I blog every night and complete my little book straight afterwards)

Here’s some inspiration for total drool-worthiness from my new favourite blog.

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If you’re not doing 30 days of lists, how about your goals for September?

How are you doing with those?

Me?

I’ve done 7 out of 13 for personal and 2 out of 10 on business

Lots of people comment about how visible I keep my goals so I thought I’d share my methods (of madness?) with you.

I have a 10 X 15 cm photoframe on my desk.

I mostly type up the goals but if a few days have passed and we’re already into the month, I just write them out quickly.

I don’t let perfectionism hold me back.

There they sit on my desk as a visual daily reminder.

If you decide to do the same, you could use a whiteboard marker to cross them off.

I don’t – I like it just like that, almost like goals art

Questions for you…

Do you set monthly goals?

If yes, do you display them anywhere? Diary, in your wardrobe, etc?

Do you live in Gauteng?

Do you need some time out?

Bookings are now open for the live workshop I’ll be holding on Saturday morning, 13 August.

Click here to find out the full scoop and see how you can join me.

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I had so very many questions in the recent survey from readers wanting to know how I manage to do it all.

I’m not sure if I should be flattered that you think I do it all because I really don’t.

Yes, I probably do a lot because I’ve always had quite a bit of energy but there’s much more I don’t do.

Let me explain:

1. I’m very clear on my life purpose

I have a life mission typed out (not pretty or cute, just typed out) and I know my definition of success in life.

I also know my values. A quick secret – one of those values is not to have the laundry perfectly done (far from it), but it is to take consistent action.

Are you clear on your life purpose?

2. I’m best friends with “good enough”

For me, it’s better to have something done than have it perfect.

If you’re cringing at that sentence, let me tell you that I used to be you. Until I got coached on the fact that trying to get the last 20% of any project perfect usually takes more time than it took to do the previous 80%.

E.g. if I think of something that’s completely out of my comfort zone, making a picture collage in Picasa, it literally takes a few minutes to select some pics and group them in a collage. The playing with it to get the best configuration with the best background and font, etc, etc takes about 3 – 5 times longer than just the collage.

Of course, there is a time and place for prettying something up – maybe for your children’s birthday party *ahem* but for general sending out of occasional pics to family, it’s not necessary to be perfect. Good enough is more than fine.

Do you know when 80% is enough, or are you still stuck on perfect?

3. I have a To Not Do list

We all know there are 24 hours in a day and there is not enough time to do everything.

So it is key to know which things to leave on the To Not Do list.

In my business, I do only things that need my “essence” (for lack of a better word) and delegate the rest.

My virtual assistant, Patricia, uploads my articles to the directories and does everything on my to Not do list.

In my personal life, it’s important for me to cook from scratch (I like knowing what the “babies” eat) but I don’t peel and chop the veggies myself, the nanny and Pick & Pay help with that.

Can you see the difference?

4. I decide where I want to use my time and I don’t feel guilty about the other areas

Be intentional about your time usage. I watch (it’s on in the background) about 20 minutes of TV Mon – Fri as I change from work clothes, pack gym clothes and work bag, etc.

That’s it.

If you spend more time watching TV because it’s your relaxation, have at it. Don’t feel guilty.

I’ve chosen to do otherwise. Neither is right or wrong.

I do spend about 3 – 3.5 hours on the computer in the evenings, working on the business and connecting with friends through email/ Facebook.

I don’t feel guilty about that time because I know why I’m doing it.

Of course I procrastinate sometimes by surfing blogs too much but since I generally get things done, occasionally if I slip up, I don’t beat myself up about it.

How about you?

Where do you want to be spending your time and why? Are you intentional about it?

5. I take consistent action

Unfortunately getting things done is not going to just happen so you’ve got to take action all the time.

Whether it’s doing just one big forward leap or lots of little leaps, I try to take some action every day.

I’m fairly good at constantly reviewing where I am in relation to my goals – I don’t know if it’s because that’s just who I am or because I coach.

Confession – when I feel like I’m getting stuck (which happens about two – three times a year), I get specific coaching to help get me unstuck. There is nothing worse for me than that feeling of not moving forward.

I’ve been working with a new coach and one of my key goals for the next 3 months is to start and finish my book. So far so good.

Do you take enough regular action? Do you have a plan when you get stuck?

To end off, let me leave you with one of my favourite quotes:

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.

-Lin Yutang

I am passionate about life lists in a big way.

This was way before bucket lists became popular a few years ago.

I just love the idea of living life FULL and enriching your experience by tapping into all the little and not-so-little things you’ve always wanted to do.

Recently I spoke about life lists and dreaming big and some people said that they didn’t do life lists for a couple of reasons which I’ll talk about here.

Maybe you can relate to some of them and this article is meant just for you?

1. The idea of writing a list makes me freeze up

No problem. You’re not a linear thinker. Use a mind map format or just start doodling and see what emerges.

Or you could start with a vision board.

2. Writing a list stops me from thinking big because I get stuck in the mundane

That’s okay. Go with the flow. At some point while you’re writing a laundry list of littles, you’ll cross over into the dreaming zone. It’s around 10 – 15 minutes for me.

Try it and see where you go.

3. What if I’m setting myself up for failure?

This is a big one. Have you ever heard the saying, “reach for the moon and you’ll touch the stars”?

That’s my philosophy.

It’s in the reaching that the magic happens.

4. I struggle to set realistic goals

Add things to your list that are really teeny-tiny and super achievable and once you’ve built up a track record of reaching them, start stretching.

5. What if I get disappointed?

I can’t promise you that won’t happen but I can promise you that you’ll be much more disappointed if you never try anything and live with regrets.

Have I convinced you yet?

Do you have new questions for me? Post in the comments.

P.S. The things on my life list include places to see, things to do, things to accomplish, fun things to try, etc.

Let’s do a quick review seeing as one-third of the year is gone.

Pull out your 2011 goals list.

• Are you on track and have you made about 1/3 of the progress?
• Which goals do you need to let go of?
• Which do you need to up the ante?
• Where do you need help?

If you didn’t do goals at the beginning of the year, no worries. You can start right now.

Also, God is into goals. But best of all, He’s into new beginnings.

Doesn’t the Bible say “His mercies are new every morning?”

I love that.

No matter how much I’ve messed up, not done something, etc, every day is a CLEAN slate.

So, if you haven’t done so yet this year, pull out a fresh piece of paper.

1. What do you want to achieve this year?
2. Why do you want to achieve it? If you’re mainly looking to achieve something for other people, it’s going to be an uphill climb. Search deep for YOUR own motivation.
3. Do you have the skills and know-how to do this? If not, find out. Buy books, take courses, go on workshops, hire a coach/ professional organiser, etc.
4. Do you need support and accountability? I’ve shared before how I need a personal trainer to work out as I’m supposed to, and apparently I also need Weigh-Less to get me eating properly So I’m happily paying so that I keep at it and reach my goals.

If you need help, contact me for a kick-start goals session and let’s get you moving, or moving again

How are you doing on your goals?

(As always, I’m doing very well in some areas, okay in others and haven’t started some others. It’s all still looking good overall though)

One of my goals this year was to hire a personal trainer to get me to my goal weight.

I’ll be honest – I was really loathe to do it at first but I’ve now accepted that I’m the type of person who has to pay for accountability otherwise it just won’t get done.

Two months in and I’m not there yet but am making good, steady progress.

When I mentioned my intention to people, they’d say things like, “oh, but isn’t a personal trainer expensive?”

My answer is, “depends how you look at it.”

I like to think of this as an investment in my health and fitness.

But that got me thinking about the main 3 reasons why I need to have a personal trainer:

1. He challenges me to go further and do more

My natural style is competitive which is why I’ve always loved group classes. There’s just something about the energy of healthy competition that makes me push myself more and stretch my limits.

If I didn’t work out with a personal trainer, I’d never do the exercises I should, simply because I’m weak and feel pain at the slightest thing.

He tells me I can do it and is my cheerleader through the pain.

2. I pay a month in advance

This helps me to not be a slacker when I feel tired or not in the mood for exercise. Or if it’s raining. (Traffic in Jhb is terrible when it rains and any sane person would stay indoors)

I know that because I’ve already paid, I need to get myself to the gym and use up that money.

3. He teaches me to do the exercises correctly

This is a big one. There are many exercises I’ve seen and done versions of in my 8 years of going to gym.

Apparently for a lot of them, I’ve been doing them wrong all these years. Who knew?!

Working out with him means he is checking my posture and making sure I do exactly what I’m supposed to, and that all my muscle groups and joints are correctly supported.

In the two months, I’ve worked with Frisco, Sara and Kyle and they have all kicked my butt. I don’t like it at the time but I do LOVE the results of a flatter, trimmer, toned tummy and centimetres off all over my body.

Have you ever worked with a personal trainer?

How are you working towards your health and fitness goals?

Coaching challenge:

Do you recognise your stumbling blocks with your goals as I had to with mine? It doesn’t have to be health and fitness goals; any goals will do.

How are you going to overcome them?

Do you need accountability and support? If you have organising goals, Spring into Organising is just for you.

 

So, it’s 1 April but this is not an April Fool’s joke
I want to know what your organising and time goals are for the month.

I’ll go first. Mine are

1) enjoy a lovely holiday – we’re going away for 4 days this month – so quite a bit of packing to do

2) get this blog redesigned – it’s about time, isn’t it?
3) declutter and organise the kids’ clothes as we go into the colder weather
4) get chest of drawers and other dresser painted (I’m going olive green for the one and turquoise for the other)

Last month I didn’t get the filing done but I did declutter their toys.

Sometimes you just have to ask youself, “what’s driving me more crazy right this minute?”

So, what are your organising goals this month?

PS I’m also going to blog every day this month. So I need some ideas – what questions would you like me to answer? Ask in the comments and I’ll pepper my answers throughout the month. And don’t forget to send me your inspiring space, or the link if you see some gorgeous spaces while you’re blog-hopping.

Let’s talk about the difference between URGENT and IMPORTANT.

Urgent refers to a time deadline.

Important means it is high value.

Every day things come across our path that are of low or high importance, and low and high urgency.

Grab a piece of paper and draw a big square. Now draw a line down and another across. You should now have 4 smaller squares.

Along the top, write High Value and Low Value. And along the left-hand side, write Deadline and No Deadline.

Basically, you want to always focus your time in the blocks on the left.

The top block is high value AND high urgency, which means it must get done NOW and it is VERY important. I like to think of client work in this block. Clients are why most of us are in business and there are usually deadlines attached. If you’ve ever bought a product of mine, you’ll know that you’re redirected to a page telling you I have a 24-hour turnaround time. Private 1:1 clients know that I’ve committed to ALWAYS respond within 24 – 48 hours.

The block below that is HIGH value but LOW urgency and it is here that you need to focus if you’re ever going to move towards your goals. Why?

Nobody is standing over my head saying “you need to work on an email teleseminar” but I know that if I want to reach my goal of running x number of live teleseminars this year, I need to MAKE TIME to do that.

And it’s the same for you.

Whether your goal is to improve your fitness levels, get your home organised or have 3 hours of free time every week, you’re going to have to put some work into that quadrant.

That’s if you want to reach your goals.

I don’t even like to bother with the other two quadrants but I know that’s going to drive some of you crazy so let me just give you some email examples –

Low value tasks with a deadline are things like “send this email to 10 people within the next hour”. They have absolutely no value and the deadline is usually imposed by other people. Most interruptions also fall into this block.

Low value tasks with no deadline are emails with jokes, funny pictures and the like. My suggestion is to get these out of your inbox permanently as they disrupt your focus and waste your time!

For the next two weeks, your challenge is to focus on the top two quadrants and only do tasks that fit there.

• Bonus – really step it up by making sure that you definitely get AT LEAST one task in the “goals” quadrant done every day.

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?