Fresh

A new year, a fresh start! Well, it was a new year a few weeks ago and the fresh start has been somewhat hampered by lots and lots of snow and excited children wanting to build snowmen. Simon has also become pretty busy and as his time requirements in the office increase so mine slowly disappear. It’s a hazard of keeping your child care a family affair.

Still, my first morning in the office since mid-December and I’m going to spend a little time organising myself and reviewing where I’m at with printing and other projects. Doing all this just makes me think about how I go about organising myself though and I’m going to waste just a bit more time writing about it rather than doing it……

I’m pretty new to blogging and all things associated with it but so far it has helped me to really focus my ideas about life and connect with some great people who are interested in the same things. It has also helped me make some really important decisions about what I want and perhaps more crucially what I don’t want (I want more experiences from life and less stuff – sounds so simple and it is). What it hasn’t done is help me find a way to get there. A way to stay organised, focused, move my projects forward, keep my life flowing in the right direction, not get distracted. In fact, the sheer amount of advice and information has been, at times, more baffling than it has been helpful.

Clearly different things work for different people, but I guess I just don’t respond well to being told that this particular way is the way to do something. I imagine I share a preferred way of learning with at least some other people out there, but the direct, “this is the way” one ain’t it. Blogs that present information in this way are so often contradictory, even within themselves on occasion. I’ve learned, for example, to make a list, not to make a list, to prioritise, not to prioritise, to de-clutter, of course not to de-clutter, to organise, and yes, you guessed it, not to organise (the argument here being that if you have stuff to organise, you have too much stuff….). I’ve learned the importance of setting myself goals that I must achieve in order to be productive, and then to forget the rules, not to set goals for fear of failing. To digitise everything but of course not to constantly be at the beck and call of digital devices but to switch off from the world. Blogs that set out bizarre systems seemingly for the sake of having a system.

I don’t ever seem to manage to follow a particular system either. I read a very good book recently which set out a whole approach to life. It works, apparently, and on the face of it it certainly seemed to offer solutions to all the things I want to achieve. A system for keeping notes, having a clear desk, not forgetting stuff, moving forward on projects, being productive, achieving. But it fundamentally goes against my instinctive way of organising myself. It requires constant attention. It’s like a machine that needs to be fed otherwise it goes crazy and sends your world into disarray. I have a more ad-hoc approach. I have limited time in the office and two small children who require my attention (and to whom I’d much rather give it!). I can’t devote enough of my brain capacity to such a system. I’m not organised enough to be organised!

So how do I learn? Well I’ve found out over the years that my learning style is much less direct. I learn from other people’s stories. My favourite blogs are those which offer someone else’s experiences for me to share. No right or wrong implied, no direction given, take from it what you will. I wonder if people are essentially unchangeable. If we can tweek our ways and methods but major change just isn’t possible. Or is it just me? Our mothers advise us girls that we can’t change the men in our lives and to try is just a recipe for heartbreak. Maybe that goes for me too. I can’t seem to adopt another person’s system. Interesting though they are to read, those lists of ten ways to do whatever just don’t work. I have to find my own way. It would be great though, if a list like that did work. So quick, no effort required, just tick them off and away you go.

Right then, where’s that piece of paper….