Marcia Francois's Blog, page 42

What I learned in July

This has been a full month of birthdays, holidays, and catching up at work.

It’s been fun to start and play with a new bullet journal

I’m using dot grid this time and it’s fun! Like blank, but more structured. My 3rd bullet journal last year was blank so this is the third type I’m trying out.

Speaking of bullet journals, are you signed up to my list? My newsletter’s going out later today and there’s a fun bullet journal survey in there.

If you’re on instagram and you use a bullet journal, pl...

Getting motivated, Four Tendencies style

Our theme for this month is refresh and what better way to make yourself feel great than to refresh some parts of your home or office environment, if that’s where you need it. Maybe it’s your schedule where you feel too busy or overwhelmed?

Flylady says, “you can do anything for 15 minutes”. I love this mantra and I repeat it to myself to get me moving with any task I find myself procrastinating.

You have to decide and take a little bit of action before anything will click into place. There...

My new bullet journal – #2 for 2017

I used my first bullet journal for 2017 (and my 4th overall) for the first 6 months of the year, and when the time came to replace it, I had a couple of choices:

use a thicker notebook for another 6 months, or use thinner notebooks so I could try out a couple of different styles

I asked for your feedback here and you weighed in

Letting go

We went to the beach for a week and, as I usually do, I took a USB modem with me to still have internet access.

Well, my ISP must have withdrawn from the area we were in (they were there the last 6 years) because suddenly the modem didn’t work.

Some real talk today. I planned to write blogs for the week and get lots of other internet-y things done. But suddenly, my ISP’s not working in this part of the country. . . For those of you thinking, that’s not a holiday, I actually relax best in a...

Creatives can’t get organised. Myth or truth?

It’s true that creative people need different ways to organise themselves because traditional methods usually don’t work too well for them.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to organising; in fact, since each person is unique, each person’s organising system should also be different.

Let’s look at four areas to organise yourself for success:

Attitude
It’s a myth that creative people can’t work in a structured environment. On the contrary, having a bit of structure in your life actuall...

My half-year word of the year review – “give”

My word for 2017 is give and I wrote all about why I chose it and what it means for me this year here.

I took stock at the end of March and that post is here.

Spoiler – it was going very well. But I set a few challenges/ focus areas and not all of those went this well the next 3 months.

And so, how have the last 3 months gone?

To be honest, as a big picture theme, “give” is working well for me, but on the day-to-day, I think I need more of a daily, in my face, reminder. In years past, I’d o...

{My year of happy} June update and my July project – refresh

My June project’s theme was to nourish myself in 3 main areas – more sleep, more walking and eating better.

The sleep was excellent – I ended off the month on an average of 7 hrs 45 minutes. It is exactly what I said before – if I don’t track it or intentionally go to sleep more, my sleep is awful.

My goal was 4 walks and I managed 3, so not bad, but could be better. I feel really good about one of those walks though because it completely nourished my soul.

The eating better? Yes and no. I c...

What I learned in June

Quick reminder – my newsletter goes out tomorrow. If you’re not yet subscribed, you can get on the list here, and  your free goodies will be delivered to you immediately upon signup.

It feels like just the other day when I was writing the what I learned in May post :0

I don’t have many things this month but they are big ones.

I will survive when my children go away and leave us at home alone

My children have probably only spent about 5 – 6 days away from home in their entire nearly 8-year-o...

How’s your word of the year working for you, Cassey?

As you saw in my post earlier this week, I look at my word of the year at the half year to see how it’s been working for me.

I decided to also ask a few readers if they were interested in sharing their experiences. (If you’re interested in sharing your thoughts, it’s not too late – please email them to me on marcia AT organisingqueen DOT com)

So today, let’s welcome Cassey to the blog.

What is your word for 2017? 

Achieve

Why did you choose this word?

A combination of putting my goal...

I’m on the So Suzy Podcast

Is anybody out there still reading from 10 years ago?

If yes, you may remember my organising buddy, Suzanne Moore.

Suzanne and I both blogged about organising way back in the day when people still commented on blogs. Ah, it was a glorious time back then.

We even met up in Scotland in 2008 and spent 3 wonderful days together in Stirling. Here’s my favourite photo of the two of us at Loch Lomond.

Suzanne also had a podcast back then called Let’s Talk Organizing but nobody knew very much about...