One of the biggest organising myths is that you need a HUGE chunk of time to organise anything.

That’s simply not true.

I actually don’t know many people who happen to have hours and hours free just for the purpose of organising.

The thing is, you have to make time.

One of the ways you make time is by looking for the little gifts of time throughout your day.

Even if you think you have no time, I guarantee there are bits here and there.

If you start looking for those treasured moments, you’ll realise you can get a lot more done.

I remember when the babies were just newborns (you mothers will know how crazy that time is) I thought I’d never have time to myself again.

Then I realised that I had 5 minutes here, another 10 minutes there and so on.

I could read ONE article in a magazine in those 5 minutes and maybe even churn out a blog post in the 10-minute stretch.

All that time adds up if you’re ready to take advantage of it.

It’s the same with organising.

You may not have an hour to organise your entire desk but if you find 15 minutes a day for 4 days, you do have that hour.

A change of perspective = opportunities 

You can always organise something in 15 minutes.

Here are a few quick ideas:

• Quickly reply to 3 – 5 emails. The rule is if you can attend to it in 2 minutes, just do it there and then. There are more fabulous tips in Organise your Office
• Organise photos (one of my ongoing projects to use a “spare” 15 minutes)
• Declutter a pile of paper
• Tidy your wallet and toss out old receipts and business cards

See? There are 15-minute slivers of time all around us if only we’ll just look for them.

Make a list of 10 or more quick organising projects you can do in 15 minutes and get started today.

Are you an all or nothing person? Do you tend to look for the big chunk of time versus the little bits?

If you need some help, book a Success Strategy Session with me.

I have a huge project at work getting to the point of implementation.

This is the best part of anything for me – the getting it done stage. However, it also means that it’s the busiest time and so it’s really easy to get to that uncontrollable stage.

The one where you feel like there’s way too much to do and not enough time.

Normally, this would not bother me because I have a ginormous master to-do list and I pull things off of there in terms of priority.

But when there’s a long weekend looming ahead (like there was last week) I just know I won’t be able to fully relax unless I make a sizeable dent in the to-do items.

My preferred working style is to work until done or until I’m no longer effective (!) but I’ve discovered that it’s a pure luxury to work like this these days.

You see, I have to leave at a certain time to get home so the nanny can leave.

Last week I asked my husband if he could get home for the nanny so I could work late.

Well, that extra hour made all the difference.

It sounds strange to say this but it was bliss working til I was done.

That hour was a gift of time.

I’ve since decided that I’m going to give myself the gift of {working until done} once every two weeks or so.

What small thing could you do to ease the pressure in your life just a bit?

What’s your preferred working style?

If you need some help, book a Success Strategy Session with me.

I had an interview with a journalist on Monday and we had a fabulous chat about all things time management.

During the interview I touched on the concept of white space. She seemed to like that so we spoke about it quite a bit.

I feel it’s essential to have “white space” in our lives. For me, white space is room to breathe. Something that seems to be so lacking in many of our lives.

If you’re feeling frazzled and overwhelmed, check to see how much white space you have in the following three areas of your life.

Dullstroom Lake – April 2011

1. Travel/ commuting time

Leave a little bit of extra time when you need to get anywhere so that you’re not constantly rushing. Also, it helps to have some breathing room if you suddenly find you need to fill up with petrol (gas) or if there’s a traffic jam.

Stress is not fun so rather take some reading or work (if you must) with you to use up any time if you don’t like to “waste” time. Although my friend, Beth Dargis, has taught me to also just enjoy being and not doing all the time

2. Daily scheduling

Don’t schedule all your appointments back to back. Some of you are saying, “but Marcia, don’t you always talk about batching?” Yes, I do.

If you do some batching, give yourself a solid break after doing a couple of phone calls/ emails/ etc. E.g. If you’re on the phone from 9 – 12, leave some white space and start another type of activity after an hour or so. And so if you run over with the phone calls, you’re not stressed and anxious going into the next activity or group of tasks, feeling like you’re already behind.

3. Weekends

I know weekends are the time to catch up on things but please, leave some breathing time.

Don’t schedule something for morning, afternoon and evening. Even two activities a day feels like too much. We have a personal family boundary of only one social per weekend day, and preferably only one per weekend, although it somehow doesn’t feel like an extra social if we go somewhere directly from church

I am also guilty of having a to-do list of 20 items for the weekend which…. never gets all done. But I do schedule lots of down time to get things like reading, sorting out my house and weekly meal planning done.

Over to you.

Can you think of an area or two where you can build in some more white space?

If you need some help, book a Success Strategy Session with me.

My twins are now 2 years 8 months and have been falling asleep to their sleep CD for about 2 years 6 months

If conditions are right, they’re off to dreamland after about 1 – 2 tracks.

Well, the CD player in their room broke. From somebody’s enthusiastic handling of the machine.

We just put them to sleep without it but it’s been a lot harder. As in an hour’s chit chat accompanied by lots of giggles and other sounds of naughtiness.

Last weekend I really needed them to sleep quickly without all the shenanigans.

So I took my laptop to their bedroom to play the CD.

Because the laptop was with them and I have a self-imposed no iPad when I’m at home rule, I was forced to do something else whereas normally during their naps, I read a little and then veg, reading blogs on the computer.

This time, I tackled some organising in my study, finished some crafts, got birthday gifts ready, took pics for the blog, etc.

All this in two hours.

This is what happened to the felt placemat – I think it’s very cute!

In other words, I was super productive. All because I wasn’t on the computer.

Even I couldn’t believe it.

I used to have another rule – no more than two hours on the computer a day. That’s once I get home from work, of course.

I’m not sure when that one fell by the wayside… but I need to bring it back so that I have more time for reading, cooking, baking, taking photos and creating.

It’s tough but I know I can do it.

How about you?

What is your computer time comfort number?

PS the sleeping baby pic was taken this weekend. He never even stays still long enough to be held, let alone to fall asleep so I had to get a pic

Gosh! You guys are awesome.

Thanks so much for all your wonderful comments on my last post. I’m determined to personally email each and every one of you so hang in there if I haven’t got to yours yet.

As you know, I rarely get so many comments

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Today is a momentous day for us – my twins moved to “big beds” tonight.

I think they had an inkling that something was afoot because they were up and about til after 9 pm (this is unheard of in our household) last night.

They are adorable at this age – of course the cuteness is interspersed with a few tantrums – so I didn’t get too cross with them.

There wasn’t too much drama tonight – but they still missed their bedtime by an hour!

It made me think about how we all have that inbuilt radar for when things feel “off”.

Sometimes it’s just a bit off like when I start dropping food in the kitchen, burning myself taking things out of the oven or breaking mugs or glasses.

*Ahem* that’s a sign I need to get out of the kitchen before I cut off my finger.

Other times your whole life just feels off.

Off like “I don’t know how I’m going to get through all this busyness” off.

I have my tricks for getting through those times, most of which I share in Break out of overwhelm.

It’s a rhythm.

Personally I can’t deal with too much off for very long which is probably why I work really hard at the balance.

I know many of you don’t believe in work-life balance – neither do I – but it’s the feeling of your life having flow and ease instead of living on the extreme ends of the spectrum.

There are so many demands on all of our time that it feels virtually impossible to ever achieve that all-elusive life balance.

To feel like you effortlessly flow from one area of your life to the next, and not feel guilty about any of the individual parts.

Here are my 6 best tips to achieve flow:

1. Realise you only have so many hours in the day

We all only have 24-hour days. Some of us think we’re Superwoman and have more time than that. We don’t. The sooner you realise this, the happier you’ll be.

2. Write down your different roles and the time commitment required from each of them

Don’t forget to add in managing your home and personal time!

The idea is to see if you’re a time optimist or if you’re being realistic with your time. Sometimes we think a certain activity only takes, let’s say, two hours a week. When you factor in travel time plus preparation time, it may increase to four or five hours. No wonder you always feel frazzled when you think about this specific activity.

3. Now ask yourself these questions:

• Am I too busy?
• Am I trying to do too much?
• Am I being realistic about the amount of time outside commitments take?
• What do I need or want to focus on at this time in my life?
• What can I cut out?
• What can I delegate?

4. Prioritise

I do an exercise with my time management clients where they tell me all the different areas of their lives. Some people have lots and lots of balls that they’re trying to juggle. That’s okay (not preferable though) as long as your self-defined priorities are in order.

Don’t neglect your home and family commitments just to look good on a committee.

My preference is to do less overall and do the things I love really well rather than to feel overwhelmed by taking on more and more.

5. Realise that when you say yes to something, you automatically say no to something else.

Some things in life are just for a season, like the newborn stage of having twins. So while reading and going to my dance classes are extremely important to me, I personally did a lot less when my twins were little because I had to sleep whenever I could just to keep myself sane.

6. Keep evaluating and tweaking

Just when you think you have things figured out, suddenly something won’t work anymore.

That’s normal with organising anything, let alone your time.

Keep evaluating where you’re at – I do this on a weekly basis – and tweak, tweak, tweak. Just because it suited you to work really long hours a few months ago doesn’t mean it still suits you to do so now.

So that’s how I create flow and ease in my life. I want to emphasise that it’s an area I’m always working on!

As always, if you need a Personal Time Session with me, contact me. I have a client currently on a break so I have four sessions available. Do you want one of them?

I’m a bit off at the moment (about a 6 on the scale) because my house is a wreck due to the kids’ big beds arriving and some painting I’m having done. Oh, to have my house sorted again

Do you believe in work-life balance? Why or why not?

How much flow and ease do you have in your life right now?

PS My friend, Beth Dargis, wrote a great blog post on how balance is like perfectionism. Have a read – it’s definitely worth the click.

Just like you, I also get distracted by what I’m supposed to do versus what looks interesting to me at the time.

This humble kitchen timer is all it takes to keep me focussed and on task.

Of course, that’s if I use it

What is your best tip or trick to keep you on task?

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Guess what?

I had three parcels waiting for me when I returned from our holiday.

1. a gift from a friend
2. some rubber stamps I’d ordered – one of them has my word of the year, create, on it
3. a book I have TWO essays in

If you buy the book, my entries are on 6 August (my birthday) and 18 October (a random second date I was allocated). Here is the link on Amazon

I also have essays in the Moms and Motherhood version released around Easter last year and the Personal Heroes version which was released on 11 Sept.

The quality of this book is beautiful.

Do you know the best thing about having two pages in this book?

I’m inspired to get my book done!

How about you?

Are you inspired by your goals?

On Monday I told you how to choose your goals.

Today let’s talk about how to go from goals to reality.

My goals audio and handbook set goes into much more detail.

I could write about goals for the whole year – there is such a lot of ground to cover but instead, I’ll share the 3 tips that I think will get you at least half way there.

1. Write them down

If you’ve never written down your goals, then they’re only in your head and they’re dreams.

When you write down your goals, you “seal” your intention by putting pen to paper, or words on the computer document.

I’ve proven this in my own life and so have many clients, current and ex, as well as workshop attendees.

I firmly believe that just writing them down gets you a good way ahead of the pack.

Are your goals written down somewhere or are they on a mental list?

2. Print them out and stick them somewhere

This goes very nicely hand-in-hand with number 1.

Once you’ve written down your goals, you can stick the paper in a drawer or file folder, never to be looked at or you can stick it up somewhere.

For the record, I still think you’re better off just having written them down but making them visible is a secret tool in your arsenal.

Last year on the blog (http://OrganisingQueen.com) I put a picture of my goals. This post still gets TONS of real-life comments from people (sadly, not on the blog!) as well as emails.

Do you know why?

Because I put my goals in a little 10 X 15 frame on my desk because I honour them.

Where are your goals?

3. Make yourself accountable to someone

Most of us would do something more if we had accountability.

E.g. There’s a weight loss programme here in South Africa that is very successful. I think only a small part of the success is the food part but a HUGE part of people’s success is the weekly accountability. You’re accountable to your group leader so you go and weigh every week.

This is the same thing that happens with coaching.

When I know I’m talking to my coach in two days time, I knuckle down and get my tasks done. It’s the accountability that motivates me to action.

How about you? Do you have someone to be accountable to?

A like-minded friend, your spouse, a coach?

If you don’t have someone, I’d love to be your cheerleader. Book your personal session now.

Start putting those 3 steps into action and I guarantee you’ll be at least halfway to your goals, if not a lot further.

Look out for the Feb goals form on Monday.

lists are boring

Do you harbour any other myths about lists?

Are you a list-maker?

Are your lists working for you?

So the other day we were chatting in the office.

I think it started because it was cool or hot and one of my colleagues was dressed either too summery or too wintery.

Whatever.

We asked her about it and she said, “this was the outfit for today”.

Of course my ears perk up and I started interrogating gently questioning her.

She chooses full outfits for Monday to Thursday (we have casual day on Fridays) complete with handbags and jewellery on a Sunday, for the week ahead.

And then arranges them in a specific place within her wardrobe. She took a pic to show me but hasn’t sent me the jpg.

The funny thing is I was watching the other ladies as she was talking and some of them were twitching – it was way too structured for them. LOL

I choose my clothes the evening before as part of my evening routine.

I have to know the next day’s weather before I can choose clothes, you see.

One person said she thinks about what she wants to wear while in the shower and yet another said she first showers and then goes to her wardrobe, decides what takes her fancy and then dresses.

I love all the variety in thinking and organising styles.

What does your clothes prep look like?

BTW, if you read this by email or in a reader, please click through and leave your comment.

Spring into Organising happens tonight.

There’s still a few hours to join in.

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I like doing time experiments partly because I’m passionate about time, partly because I coach on this stuff and largely because I’m a nerd.

So I tried something different last week – I decided to batch blog for the week, all on a Monday night.

I noticed something interesting.

The first hour went very well and according to my plan – 3 posts in an hour.

The next hour went a lot slower and I did 2 posts in that hour.

Clearly I hit a peak and then my productivity slowed.

I want to try it again in a week or so’s time and see if the same thing happens.

Pros of batch blogging

1. I was working to the clock so I didn’t dilly-dally and check emails in between tasks like I normally do.
2. All posts done in one shot so I didn’t have to think about blogging for the rest of the week.
3. Saved me at least 30 minutes over the week, if not longer.

Cons of batch blogging

1. I was forced to plan everything for the week, on the weekend. I do have at least 2 – 3 posts planned (in my head) at any one time but this forced me to go the extra distance.
2. Lack of spontaneity

The pros definitely outweigh the cons. Hopefully I can sort out my productivity slump and come back stronger next time around

I happen to think that batching tasks is one of the best time management tips around. I do it regularly with cooking (on Friday night I cooked 4 meals in about an hour) and it saves me tons of time every week.

Do you batch blog? Do you do any tasks in batches?