Marcia Francois's Blog, page 63

{Goals} Bouncing back from a not-so-great goals month

My goals update was supposed to go up on Wednesday last week

Use those stickers

I believe in burning the candles and as far as possible, I do use the good stuff.

However, I was reminded recently by 3 separate incidents that this is a problem MANY of us face.

I bought a notebook (a really pretty one) for a new work colleague and she loved it but when she immediately said it was too pretty for work, it made me sad. I showed her the link above and I do see she uses it in the office now The kids wanted to craft so I took out cardboard, markers, stickers, etc. When we were...

Finding the good part of obstacles (aka loadshedding)

Some of my American friends find the concept of loadshedding crazy. In a nutshell, the power utility doesn’t have enough power to supply South Africa with electricity, so we have loadshedding. Depending on the severity on a particular day of the week, we might have no loadshedding (happiness!), or anything from stages 1 – 3/4.

Many of the municipalities are very organised and if an area is due to be hit say from 6 – 8 pm, then on the dot of 6 the power goes out and exactly at 8 pm, it comes b...

Some reading for the weekend

I’m a big fan of Myers-Briggs profiling. Normally I refer people to the similar minds site but I found a new one that I really like. Go here if you don’t know your MBTI type and don’t forget to come back and tell me which one you are.

(I’ve finally figured out the rebels will never do this!)

(I’m ESTJ)

I can’t tell you how much I love Paula’s blog. This is a great post on how to save more money. I took her 1% challenge at the beginning of the year and I only realised when reading this post...

10 questions for your half-year review

I do a Goals Night on the last day of every month. It’s time to take stock of the month that’s passed, what went well, what didn’t and to set goals for the month ahead.

When I get a little way into the year, then I occasionally take stock against my annual goals.

Here are a few questions to ask as you take stock half way through the year:

On a scale of 1 – 10, how have the first 6 months of 2015 been? What are your reasons for the number you chose? What is working well? Why? What could be...

Better than before – maximiser or satisficer?

In Better Than Before, Gretchen Rubin’s stance is that the better you know yourself, the better you will be able to stick to and sustain good habits.

I agree wholeheartedly.

So let’s talk about being a maximiser or a satisficer.

A really quick way to explain the difference is to give two examples:

Say you need a pair of black pants for work.

There are about 5 women’s clothing stores who would have black work pants.

A maximiser would check out the black pants at each of the 5 stores, and then...

How I currently organise my handbags

I post a lot more organising tips on the Organising Queen instagram feed @organisingqueen. Are you following yet?

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Fun fact – I’ve been wanted to write this post for weeks but I had no decent (well-lit) photos because it’s winter and I get home too late.

But now, thanks to the public holiday on Tuesday, I can finally share this post with you.

I’m a handbag person. I’m certainly not as crazy about buying them as I was before (bought one two weeks ago,...

Coaching the Four Tendencies

When I was listening to the book, I realised something really cool about coaching the Four Tendencies:

I’m an Upholder. I have coached other Upholders but usually only for laser coaching where the person was clear about what they wanted to do and just needed strategies and guidance on getting there. Here’s the thing – they didn’t need the weekly accountability part of coaching because they already respond very well to their own inner and others’ outer expectations.

I have never coached a Reb...

Are you a lark or an owl?

I finished listening to the audible version of Gretchen Rubin’s new book, Better Than Before, on the very last day of May.

I really loved it a lot and can thoroughly recommend it to all of you, because you all want to improve your lives. I know this because you read my blog.

One thing she says is that that it’s a good thing to know yourself because that informs how you make changes in your life. Strategies that work for one person will not work for another (which we all know, and that’s also...

My life in Instagrams – March

The fact that I’m posting my old Instagrams here every two weeks is a great motivator for me.

What could you do to make yourself accountable so that you can get something done you really want to… but just need a little push to do?

The weather started cooling just a bit… tea, baking bread….

Hairdresser time, books I bought for a library project and cute kids :)

One year of doing Spanish the second time around, tea, traffic and my first movie with the kids!

I love doors so I started a little pr...