Marcia Francois's Blog, page 13

The week that was…weekly reflections 6/22

Gosh, what a week! I was so glad to see the end of it on Friday

This was not the greatest workweek of the year thus far – someone said to me that in other weeks, one or two of those things could have happened and they would be dealt with, but this week it felt like everything conspiring to complicate things. Nothing felt easy. I even asked, “is there a full moon?”So I increased my listening of my current bookish delight, Daisy Jones and the Six. It is my second time listening (my first l...

Rest 22 in 2022

on a photowalk – these are very restful for me

I used Gretchen Rubin’s walk 20 in 2020 to simply track when during the month I got some exercise – around 12 times a month is standard for me as I have a 3 times a week habit.

Read 21 in 2021 was my most successful daily project – I chose to read 21 minutes from a non-fiction book (preferably on my shelves) and I made it. It was a great success and I cleared 32 books from my shelves and will continue until all my non-fiction is done!

I kne...

The week that was… weekly reflections 5

This photo was taken in Cape Town during early December 2021

Wow, that was a week. All four of us said on Friday night that we were completely and utterly exhausted.

We visited a high school expo to gather information for the application process. Yes, that is apparently the phase we’re in now. Also, for my US friends, high school in South Africa starts in grade 8. There was so much information and so many pamphlets…. and so I found that we needed to just discuss what is important to us and...

How I’ll be setting goals in 2022

Before I tell you about the change, maybe I should tell you how I used to set goals.

I have a number of areas of my life and I’d set goals in each of these areas every month, e.g. family, friends, finances/ home, fun/ play, fitness & health, work, Organising Queen/ coaching, etc.

I think you’ve already worked out the reason I’d end up with at least 30 goals every month. Fine in a pre-pandemic world but it started feeling like it was a lot and I was adding extra pressure to my life.

...

The week that was… weekly reflections 4

Peaches!

I told myself I’m not going to keep saying “can you believe it’s the end of January?” so I’ll say it now and then we’ll just move ahead

This was the last full week of January and I’m pleased that I managed to get all my work goals done that I’d set at the end of December before I took a two-week break. Look out on Wednesday for more on goals as I’m doing mine a little bit differently this year. It’s feeling really, really good to have three exercise sessions a week again as i...

My 2022 word of the year – delight

Choosing my word this year has taken a bit of work.

This print is from a course called Elevate The Ordinary I took with Andrea Scher in 2012. The poster summarises my life manifesto

I did a word of the year exercise with my team where we all shared the word we felt “2021 work” had been for us and that we were ready to leave behind, and then we all chose a word we wanted our work lives to be in 2022.

My 2021 work word was stretch and the work word for 2021 is balance.

(for the record...

The week that was… weekly reflections 3

This has been a big week for us:

We’ve made some changes at home and no longer have the 3-times-a-week nanny we had since the kids were 3. I had to arrange transport to collect my kids from school and drop them off at home. I felt a little silly telling the owner of the company that we are a mere 250m from the school gate but the truth is I don’t feel comfortable having them walk home and cross a very, very busy street by themselves and if they have after-school activities that end after ...

Weekly reflections 3

This has been a big week for us:

We’ve made some changes at home and no longer have the 3-times-a-week nanny we had since the kids were 3. I had to arrange transport to collect my kids from school and drop them off at home. I felt a little silly telling the owner of the company that we are a mere 250m from the school gate but the truth is I don’t feel comfortable having them walk home and cross a very, very busy street by themselves and if they have after-school activities that end after ...

How to choose your word of the year

If you’ve been around awhile, you’ll know that I have chosen a word of the year for a long time, in fact, every year since 2008. This is year 15! If you scroll down to the end of this post, you’ll see a list of all my previous words.

Gretchen and Elizabeth, on the Happier Podcast, use either a word or theme for the year. 

It’s all good; the idea is that your word will guide you, inspire you and motivate you.

So how do you chose a word? There are many ways – also, let’s be honest, sometimes my word ...

The week that was…weekly reflections 2

hello friends, please enjoy a photo of stationery My red Moleskine is in the middle flanked by my current bullet journal on the left and one I’ll use later in the year on the right.

Do you have a diary or a bullet journal to show me? I’d love to see!

I went back to work! It was not bad considering there was a bit of a deluge of emails as there always is after a break. Still, my word of the year for work, balance, is serving me well and I worked reasonable hours.The kids went back to s...