Marcia Francois's Blog, page 73

{Living intentionally} A simple Christmas

Before I start today’s post, let me quickly point you towards my apology at this post. Go have a read and then, don’t hesitate to book your place!

For the past couple of years, I’ve done an elaborate (for me!) Advent Calendar with 25 activities for the kids.

Granted, I’m clever so a lot of things we’d normally do would still go on the calendar, like buy presents with Mummy, buy presents with Daddy, put up Christmas tree, etc.

I also put up easy things to give us a breather like “go for a drive t...

Some reading for the weekend

I have some wonderful links to inspire you and give you some food for thought this weekend.

1. Please read this post – I love it! Getting organized is not your end goal

Image from this post

2. One way to get your notebook organized

3. Another way to get your notebook organised. I’m a teeny bit obsessed. This pic is from this blog where I first read about it.

4. I’m a big, big fan of Dan Ariely and this post is just golden

5. No surprise why I love this post. It’s about planning for the possibility...

{Make it count workshops} which would you prefer? online or in-person?

I’m putting together a new workshop called Make It Count which will be offered both in-person and virtually next year.

I’m going to help you set your intentions for the year ahead, choose a word as your theme, guide you to choose some things you want to work on and give you all the tips and tricks to actually set yourself up for success and get them done.

My personal goals success rate is over 90% every year because I’ve set into place easy, customisable systems to make my life count and live m...

Make it count this Black Friday

Edited to add:

Oops! Apparently the buttons to the shopping cart were showing R0. They are now fixed so I’m extending the sale through to midnight on Monday 1st Dec.

Get your ticket now.

I’m putting together a new workshop called Make It Count which will be offered both in-person and virtually next year.

I’m going to help you set your intentions for the year ahead, choose a word as your theme, guide you to choose some things you want to work on and give you all the tips and tricks to actually set...

Let’s talk about menu-planning – part 2

We’ve spoken about menu planning before; this time let’s talk about the how.

I like to keep things reaaaaaally simple.

So we have a very easy plan.

1. Use a printable or meal planner pad and keep it visible

For years I used the printable in the Household Organising Kit (part of the Organise your Home printables). These days I buy a menu planner pad from CNA and stick it to the side of the microwave so it’s visible to me, D (if he’s interested) andour nanny.

2. Mark off challenging days

On Wednesday...

{Ask the organiser} Procrastination, saying no and overcommitment

Well, I haven’t done one of these Ask the Organiser posts for a while.

Since I’m retired I find that my needs have changed. I would like to see how to keep organized and stay on task and not waste time simply because I feel I can always do it tomorrow. How do I keep from procrastinating?

I have gotten myself too involved because I thought I could do more since I am retired but that’s not true. Believing you have more time can become a handicap for a retired person. You start to take on too many...

{Living intentionally} How to give meaningful, thoughtful gifts

It always helps to arrange things by colour. If you’ve bought a book, and want to add something else, look for a complementing colour

I really like to give gifts to friends and family.

My love language is not gifts; it’s actually acts of service, which usually means I choose to make my gift-giving personal and thoughtful.

Here are a few ways to be a thoughtful gift-giver:

1. Pay attention to what they say and what they wear

Welcome to summer :)

My one friend always looks fabulous in a particular co...

Let’s talk about menu-planning – part 1

I always get a lot of questions about how I do meal planning, my thoughts, preferences and so on.

That’s not a surprise since I’m also a very curious person and if I were sitting down with you, I’d ask you for yourdetails too!

I meal plan because it saves me TONS of time, I don’t like to wait for food when I’m hungry (and it seems my kids are the same) and it saves us money too since we “eat from the freezer and pantry” once a month.

1. Main meal

I like to cook the main part of the meal and have...

{Living intentionally} Capsule wardrobes – part 2

If you want fast results that you can maintain, this organising solution might be just the one for you.

I started talking about capsule wardrobes last week. If you haven’t read that post, you can catch up here.

Oh how I love this concept. Remember my intention was to do a capsule of 40 for work and 40 for home. I work in a business environment where Fridays are business casual (jeans is fine, but not “beach casual”) and Mondays to Thursdays are standard business attire.

I was quite a bit demotiv...

{Organising} Organise your wallet

I want to write a few posts about 15-minute organising projects simply because they make ME feel super accomplished when I get one or two of them knocked off my list.

And, as I’ve mentioned before, we often think things take longer to get done than they actually do so it could take us an hour to do something (due to faffing around) or 15 minutes.

Organising my wallet is an activity that takes even less than 15 minutes but makes me feel AMAZING.

These are my DREAM steps:

Decide what you’d like you...