Hearing loss and living life
It has been a month, the month of June 2021. We had a beautiful holiday in Magoebaskloof. We did not see another soul and still came back after a week of fresh air and hiking to be tested positive for COVID. So be warned that this is not a perfectly planned and edited post, it may come off as a bit of a rant. So look at me being kind and inserting the ” read more” option here.
Continue reading “Neglect”
After a lovely break in the Eastern Cape, my tribe is no back at home. We arrived back on Thursday and have been doing mostly… washing (because adulting is laundry).
Let us also be honest, there is nothing as motivating and inspiring as the start of a new year. And that inspiration probably lasts well into the first day back at work until you realise that your low carb intentions actually suck and that your goal to drink more water is not as satisfying as the third cup of coffee. Some form of discipline is required for those days when motivation does not show up for work. Because good intentions only count if you follow through.
Continue reading “Planning ahead”
Today I finished a book. I adored this book. And even if it did take me almost three months (due to being distracted by many other wonderful thing) I have now completed it and now I feel sad… that I have to let go of these characters and the beautiful scenes and the descriptive language and plunge into another book. And the food. Oh my word there was so much lovely food! It sometimes feels like you are letting a friend go home after a perfect weekend. Even though this was an extended stay.
I have always been interested in what other people read. A friend of mine whom I visited this weekend has the beautiful principle that on his birthday you should give him a book that you love. And he promises to read it, because that way he gets to know a little bit about you too. Not only is it the perfect gift but just think about knowing that you can look forward to all these books on an annual basis.
I have however now been so happy and familiar with this book that I am unsure what to tackle next. I have to admit that I really try not to be judgy, but I do get judgy about people who do not read. I am suspicious if I cannot see bookshelves in your house. And I don’t know what small talk to make if it cannot be about books.
I registered on Goodreads about four years ago. Not only to answer my tracking addiction (I did not even know that I had it then) but also to be able to connect with other readers. Not only are there fantastic reviews but you can also see, for example, in what order a newly found author wrote their titles. You also start to get to know which of your friends like the same genre’s as you do and you can then safely click on “want to read” if they gave it a good review.
Goodreads therefore also gives you a fantastic starting point for when you are in the mood for a specific author and unsure of what is available. Nowadays it also has a link directly to Amazon. So it is actually almost too easy.
I do however think the best feature for me and most applicable today, is that I can choose a book from my “want to read” list. I have to admit that even though I am a tremendous fan of hardcopy books, our household simply does not have enough space. I do buy books. But those are the ones that I want to keep. I bought my first Kindle eight years ago and it has given me endless late nights but it broke about four months ago and was immediately replaced… no questions asked (except for what cover I want). What I love about the Kindle is that when we go on holiday I now only pack books for the Lilliputians. The Engineer and I have endless possibilities on our Kindles (I converted him too).
That is a very long ramble about books to say what I actually want to chat about today, that you always need to have something to look forward to. I think that is why “hard lockdown” was so difficult for me because the days were all the same and there was no end in site. I also believe that that is why the Engineer and I started the cooking together during lockdown – it was something to look forward to after a day where we were both working from home and trying to keep the Lilliputians alive while turning a blind eye to the dishes.
Speaking of the Enigineer, he actually has a fantastic rule. While in the car back from a vacation (even if it is a weekend away) you have to make a plan for the next one. And it is exactly so that while you are doing the laundry from this one you already have something to look forward to in the future.
Now, let us all admit that this year kicked our asses with that rule. Everyone had plans that did not quite pan out. But maybe I can start again with the small things. Looking forward to my first cup of coffee in the morning, or my run. A pilates class or an episode of a series. But there should always be something. This is why I am so perplexed that I do not have my next read downloaded yet.
– How I deal with not being a morning person in a world where you have to be up
Today is the 2nd of November, and I have a crazy October behind me. This time of year is especially hectic at work and this year even more so due to a lot of extra publications that we did not plan for. I am however grateful for a fantastic team who runs with it.
The Lilliputians have also demanded more of my attention at home, simply because they now get bored and have become expert little manipulators with the ability to get everything they want. I adore them but have to admit that by 7 am I have easily lost about nine arguments with tiny little versions of myself.
Continue reading “Morning people… and the rest of us”
I started my bullet journal and the planning around it as an extension of a task given to me by my psychologist. In short, the task boiled down to “Find something that works for you to get your butt in gear”. She was kind about it, but the message rang true – stop complaining about feeling overwhelmed. You have identified the problem, now put in the work.
So a plan started taking shape. I wanted to identify what I needed to do every day, write it down and do it… even if I did not want to. I wanted to stop avoiding things that I felt was too hard or would be too much effort. I wanted to stop angonising over everything on the list and just know that I would get to it eventually. Rome was not built in a day. I wrote a little about my time blocking plan here.
I started the time blocking in August and I am still not quite winning. I am however determined and stubbornly persevering because on the days it works it really does work great.
With all this notetaking and analysing and list-making, I did however realise that I have gotten to the point of overplanning. The effectivity of it all got lost in the writing things down and not actually doing them. So… back to why of it all.
2020 has been a year where I had to put in a lot of work into figuring out why I do things the way that I do them. It has been a year of accepting that I am an overthinking, overplanning, colour coding ball of anxiety, and converting these elements of my personality into strengths instead of weaknesses. And in many cases, it was actually just a mind-shift and a happy realisation that some people are really just different and approach the same problem in different ways.
I have recently done a lot of reading on goalsetting. Mainly because I want the things that I do and the things that I am to have substance and a clear purpose. Various resources advise on how to formulate goals but nothing quite made sense to me. Of course, you have to write them down, but to write them down you first have to have something to write down!
Which all boiled down to the simple questions:
For example, while putting on my running shoes:
And while on said run a penny dropped. When goal setting I should perhaps not ask what do I want to achieve, but instead, who do I want to be. By doing this my goals align with my morals and values or at least and should, in theory, steer me towards an improved version of myself. In a roundabout way this makes me trustworthy and accountable and moving towards something instead of just hanging around.
A simple example: I make time every morning and every afternoon to answer and organise my work email. This helps with my to-do list and also that you do not get into a position where things just remain unanswered. It also helps to not be on my email the whole day and then just generate more email. Yes, I will share my inbox organisation tricks with you soon :)! And why did I decide to do this? Because at some stage when things were all happening at once, I realised that I was not getting to my email and things fell through the cracks. So the little block on my schedule dedicated to my inbox is me just trying to address that failure. Again this is something that I am now trying. I am trying goalsetting and will see what works, what helps and what does not actually contribute anything. And yes, I will happily report back in an overthinking fashion. So yes, I have identified the problem and I am putting in the work.