Can you learn to ski when you’re adult? Yes, I’m proof of that having my first ski holiday in my early 40s. I didn’t find it easy, there were many falls but also achievements such…
How were November and December for you? How was 2020 as a whole? It was certainly not the year I expected when I started these celebration posts. It has made me look at the posts…
How were September and October for you? They were not great months for me. In fact, I’ve found them the hardest of the pandemic. I felt I went backwards in many of the routines and…
Did you make a big achievement in August or did you make continual progress on a large action? What did you start, progress or achieve in August?
Did you make a big achievement in July or did you make continual progress on a large action? What did you start, progress or achieve in July?
We’re half-way through the year. Even though it is probably not going as you expected, I’m sure you’re still achieving and progressing things, although perhaps in a different way. Did you make a big achievement…
So we’re now done with Spring and heading into summer. The weather has been amazing here in the UK recently, so it feels strange we’ve moved into a cooler spell as June arrived. Did you…
How did you find April? I can’t believe we’re now in May. We’ve been able to focus on settling into the new way of life, that was all a rush in March. We’re developing our…
How was March for you? It probably involved a lot of change. It certainly did for me as the UK went into lock down, so I’m now working at home every day and the children…
How was February for you? What are you most proud of? It has been a big month for me as I learnt to ski. Yes, for some reason I chose to learn to ski as…
“You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.” James Clear, Atomic Habits. It is good to celebrate our progress and achievements, even when they’re small because they mean…
Are you feeling overwhelmed at the number of things you’d like to improve and worried you won’t or can’t improve. Instead of goals use the wheel of life to find your priority annual theme.
Holidays are about relaxation, calm and freedom. Is it possible to keep that feeling when you return to work? These four steps will help you find holiday calm in your work day.
I’m not a fan of having a new year resolution as I’ve found they rarely have a successful outcome. So this year I’m doing things differently and I’m working towards a long term goal. A…
The book Tell your time* is about developing a schedule so you can complete the things you want to do. It’s a short book (which seems appropriate for a book about making the most of…
There is so much I want to achieve that for years I’ve been working on becoming more productive. I’ve focused on do more, do more, do more. However, after several tired weeks when I haven’t looked…
March was a disappointment for me as I wrote just one blog post, so I’ve been thinking why, what happened? And I’ve realised it comes down to one thing – habit interruption, specifically my keystone…
Not exactly a great start to these monthly reviews by missing two months. I’m still working on getting used to working full time and with a longer commute and unfortunately it is my blogger time…
I’ve spent most of the last two weeks finding and deleting duplicate files. A rather tedious task and one that worries me as I think I may delete a non duplicate file by mistake. I…
Seeing as we’re almost at the end of March it seems a bit late to be reviewing my progress in February. However, I don’t want to give up on these progress posts after just one month….
This is my new monthly progress post, but as I did progress posts for two years up to 2009 I wanted to call this something different and came up with something a little cheesy. Unlike my previous…
#blogitforward is based on the concept of Pay it forward, an idea I first came across through Bookcrossing; through the book Pay it forward* and the activity of Random Acts of Bookcrossing Kindness. Wayfair has…
I’m very excited to announce that I’m the editor for the new BritMums Environment Round-up. This means I will be writing a monthly post for the BritMums site to showcase posts on environmental topics from…
I’ve written before about not being a big fan of making new year resolutions because I think it adds too much pressure and you are more likely to make successful changes if you set a…
The children are in bed and we’re having a quiet evening after our busy Christmas so I’ve got the opportunity to think back on the year. It has certainly been a year of change, with…
I continue to work on becoming a morning person as I believe it would improve how I feel and how much I achieve, so I’ve been reading a lot on the topic as well as…
If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter you may have noticed a few photographs of red wine recently. This is fairly new to me; I used to drink mainly cider (and before that Bacardi…
I was made redundant yesterday. Over the last two weeks I’ve been asked many times how I feel; a very confusing question. It would be very easy to feel bitter and angry, but I don’t…
Three mornings a week we aim to have all four of us out of the house as close to 7:20 as we can. But we like to maximise our sleep time (by hitting the snooze…
We often hear about the health benefits of eating porridge; filling you up and slowly releasing energy throughout the day and is very popular in our house with my three year old son happy to…
It is the start of half term in our household (at least for my daughter and husband, I’ll be working next week). Although I know children need a break from school, I worry that the…
Technology advances every month offering new products and, through technology convergence we’re offered products that combine more and more features into one product. However do these advanced products actually benefit us or are they marketing…
International Women’s Day is celebrated around the world on 8th March; recognising the achievements of women for over 100 years. Tanya, Annie and Penny, the Team Honk founders, are learning about female achievements in Tanzania…
Starting is often the hardest part of any activity and Team Honk created the right combination of factors to get me cycling again; a big challenge, raising money for charity and a group of amazing…
Tasks, there are lots of them; ones we want to do, ones we do for other people and the ones we feel we should do. I’ve worked on improving my productivity for years and used a variety…
Chicken and cashew nuts is our favourite slow cooker recipe and it goes down well with the whole family, plus because it only needs to cook for four hours you don’t need to remember to…
These posts celebrate completed tasks that have been on my to do list for a long time, and analyse why they were not completed earlier. Textured crochet blanket At a few months old it was clear M…
Thursday is my day with the children, and it is a busy day with swimming and gymnastics classes. However, at the moment I am on a train to London, in a suit on my way…
Can you only call it a success if you complete the plan? My plan for the weekend was to clean the house using a process I’d found through Pinterest. My checklist suggests I didn’t get…
University is harder than I remember; although as I was an undergraduate over 15 years ago maybe it is my memory! I’ve been quiet recently because I’ve been away at University of East Anglia on…
Repeating tasks are the key to achievement; either by making sure things run smoothly or by encouraging the little and often approach to completion. It is over five years since I had the revelation of…
Writer’s block is a known phenomenon and as my last post was in August 2012 it could be assumed that is what I’ve been suffering from. But it isn’t. In fact I wrote the next…
Email has become an ongoing issue for most people and despite being able to access it just about anywhere any time the problem doesn’t appear to be reducing. It is estimated almost 300 billion emails…
Through Pinterest I recently found a new blog that is so where I am at the moment I want to share it. Get on with it already! is written by Stacey-Lee and she describes herself…
Photograph by kikishua With 2 million blog posts being published every day how do you keep on top of them? Of course you don’t. You probably have a number of favourite sites you follow, but…
These complete posts celebrate completed tasks that have been on a to do list for a long time, and analyse why they were not completed earlier. Introduction When I was discussing ideas for my father…
As I get older I’m more aware that I have the same 24 hours in a day as everyone else, so what I achieve comes down to how well I use that time. My initial…
Finding the perfect productivity system is a goal for many people, including myself. I’ve been searching for the system for many years, as shown by the second post on this blog and think I may…
The old saying to kill two birds with one stone is a great example of achieving more with the same effort. If you can find these in your life it feels great because you make…
These complete posts celebrate completed tasks that have been on a to do list for a long time, and analysis why they were not completed earlier. Introduction A few years ago I started learning digital…
I recognised recently that to have more time to spend on things I want I need to either remove, complete or get quicker at my other tasks. Particularly, if I want to make my list…
In my inbox this morning was an email from Mark Forster with the details of his latest time management system, called Final Version (because it is the last one he is developing). I’ve been a…
It is important to complete your tasks because it helps you feel better, helps you identify what you should be working on and you complete more tasks.
These days hotdesking is not necessarily about moving desks within an office, it could be working between several offices, hotels or at home. It is unlikely businesses will move away from hotdesking or mobile working…
Many fine things can be done in a day if you don’t always make that day tomorrow As a two year old at nursery it is not uncommon for my daughter to come home with…
My personality means I like to learn and make improvements, this means I usually have an interest in new things (although I consider if they offer worthwhile improvements to my current methods or items before…
Sometimes you stumble across an item or idea that increases your productivity. Recently for me, it was a gift I was given for Christmas that I understood would be useful, but did not appreciate how…
Working towards your dreams is a gradual process, moving there action by action. It is also good to prepare your mind through methods like saying your goal several times a day and spending time with…
Every month one of my most popular posts is Ask advice: how to label keyboard keys so in response to this interest I’ve put together a list of different keyboard key related items you can…
I hotdesk. Every morning I start with a desk and monitor, and at the end of the day I pack everything away. This means it’s easy to keep a clear desk as there is no…
Recently it has become increasingly clear of the importance of my goal to have multiple sources of income including passive income as my main income stream maybe threatened. I’ve been tracking the sources and level…
There are times when you feel overwhelmed with tasks; everything is urgent. So what do you do? How do you choose what task to work on? You could choose the task with the nearest deadline,…
Over a year ago I asked for advice on how to keep a daily log and I used a lot of the suggestions when I started my own log. I kept my log from August…
I admit I like processes; in fact I’ll go as far as to say I love processes. There are so many wonderful things about processes, here are a few: help explain what needs to be…
It’s easy to identify an action or goal; sometimes it’s easy to complete them and cross them off your list. However, it is the maintenance actions that really make a difference. For instance, in terms…
I’ve had a few problems recently. The most noticeable being the loss of my computer. The battery stopped charging and only occasionally registered the power supply. One theory is this may have been due to…
There are some tasks that you really want to do, but are so big that you don’t know how you’ll find the time to complete it, or even where to start. There are two solutions:…
Writing down your goals is good, but of course it is even better to take action to help realise the goals. When I announced the second draft of my goals, Gary asked how often I…
AutoFocus is such a simple system that I think some people find are finding it difficult to get started. When I wrote my review of the system I thought about including some pictures of my…
One of my goals is to have multiple sources of income including passive income. My first action has been to review my current situation so I have a baseline and to aid in decision making….
April has been a better month and I feel I’m starting to make progress in many areas. I’m currently thinking about ways of tracking and reporting on this progress, so until I’ve decided this is…
I’m a big fan of Mark Forster and have all three of his books (pre-ordering two of them). Mark has lots of tips for increasing productivity that do not involve a complex system like Getting…
Having developed your goals its important to review them at a later date, particularly after any major changes in your life, to ensure they are still relevant; you don’t want to be working towards something…
In the last month I feel that I’ve started to complete things for me as well as looking after my daughter, however progress has still been slow so this is a combined post reviewing personal…
I am in the process of reviewing our bank accounts and investments and researching what accounts to set up for our daughter. The majority of my time has been spent on the internet, reading newspapers…
I am a big believer that it is important to develop your own organisation system that works for your lifestyle, so I have spent a lot of time developing my own organiser. In the last…
I have been working on my goals for a long time but seemed to stall at identifying what my top level vision was. Looking back on my notes it appears that I’ve had the content…
I didn’t write a making progress report for June and I think that says a lot about the lull in enthusiasm I’ve been going through, but hopefully I’m on my back now. I’ve been helping…
The first thing that is noticeable from the shape of my wheel this month compared to last month is the improvement in the vision area. I have finally committed to paper the first draft of…
For the whole of this week I am on a Prince2 project management training course, so over the last few weeks I’ve dutifully been doing the pre course reading. I’ve just finished the first day…
I recognise that I’m not good at moving outside my comfort zone, but every now and again I like to push myself, and my summer holiday last week was one of those moments. So my…
Okay, its been a few months since I last did a wheel of life analysis, but I things are looking up in most of the categories. I’ve been to see the dentist and chiropractor and…
This is a question I’ve been asking myself for the last year or so, and I’m sure I’m not the only person who has a task list that never seems to get smaller. I’ve tweaked…
It can be difficult to get back on track when you’ve lost momentum. This is certainly the situation I’ve found myself in at home over the last few months. However, I feel I have finally…
May has not been as productive as I was hoping, as you my have noticed from my lack of posting. Due to the changes to my job, my work is now at a very pleasant…
April has been a strange month. It was quiet at the start as I had left one of my projects and was able to pass all outstanding actions on to someone else, however I have…
Things are challenging at work at the moment and it is making me question further whether my organisation system is fit for my job. Since the beginning of April I have gone from working on…
I really like my current organisation system, but I have noticed one serious flaw recently; it is very easy to procrastinate when I’m selecting tasks. My energy levels have been very low over the last…
March has been strange a month because I’ve been on leave for two weeks and it is the last month of my company’s financial year so I’ve fluctuated between relaxation and being very busy. Plus,…
Over six months ago I asked for advice on how to label the key on my keyboard where the letters had worn off. It has surprised me how many other people have the same problem…
It has continued to be busy during February, but I’m hoping normality will return soon, and I think for my health and sanity I think I need it to. However, the good news is I…
Getting Things Done has a huge global following amongst people working towards improved productivity, while Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management appears to be rising in popularity. I used ideas from both…
Contexts are a key part of Getting Things Done, in fact they are the first step in deciding what action to work on next. The basic idea is to list tasks by what you need…
Having decided the next step in my goal development is to develop a personal mission statement I have been doing some research. Just about everything I’ve read suggests there are many benefits to developing a…
Not surprisingly January has continued on from December and has been another busy month, it is unlikely that this will change until April. However, this month I have seen some outcomes for all this effort,…
I am a big believer that a good organisation system should work in the office as well as at home. So when I first created my day planner for work I used the same format…
Despite a significant amount of resistance I finally completed the next stage of the goal setting tutorial, the brainstorming exercise. The aim is to draw out the subconscious thoughts that show what you are really…
Everyone is used to a task list that grows until it is overwhelming, but since introducing concepts from Getting Things Done and Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management I have noticed a…
December is always an exciting month because not only because of Christmas, but it also means the arrival of my birthday. As I’ve mentioned previously my lovely husband bought me a laptop which I am…
As I’ve know I’ve already said a couple of times October and November were busy months for me and although I was not writing on my blog I was learning interesting things about myself. Here…
You may have already noticed that November was a busy month for me. I spent less than half of the month working in the office with several overnight stays. Of course when I was in…
Instead of a month focused on action and improvement October ended up being a month that feels like it never actually got started. Goals – I didn’t progress this. I can’t even say that I…
There are many reasons an organisation may introduce hot desking; to increase flexibility, to reduce costs, to introduce a different culture. It can be a difficult time for staff to move to this new way…
As the most popular post on my blog continues to be How I successfully plan my day I’ve realised there is obvious interest in my planner incorporating ideas from Getting Things Done: The Art of…
I feel I could have made more progress during September than I have. I have been feeling very tired, which is a consequence of being very busy at work and not having had much leave…
The last month has been slower than I would have liked with regards my progress, but worryingly the last 30 days have disappeared very quickly (I’ll be 30 before I know it). I am still…
This morning when I left the house I had to relearn how to drive, which as you can imagine was a surprise at 7am. I am currently away with work as I am presenting at…
In the process of developing my organiser I have learnt a lot from other people’s systems, from around the world. However there has been one problem with this globalisation and it is increasingly frustrating and…
Repeating tasks are important as they are frequently the small tasks that help make our lives run smoothly, e.g. reviewing project finances, tidying the house and phoning friends. However, they are also annoying when it…
August has been a mixed month. It was nice to have a long weekend in the sun in Dorset, but I needed this time to relax after two hectic weeks at the office. Goals –…
As I mentioned in the August Wheel of Life post, I have made progress on identifying my goals by completing the first exercise of the Goal Setting College tutorial. The exercise asks you to look…
My solution: read about how I solved my worn keyboard keys I’ve started having a problem with my keyboard as the letters are wearing off some of the keys. I understand that old keyboards had…
I’ve made progress during the last month in a few areas, although I have to admit that it doesn’t feel like I’m progressing very quickly. Plus, looking at the wheel of life, it doesn’t look…
It is about time I finished writing about the remaining sections of my organiser. However, I have been procrastinating on this because I don’t find the remaining sections as exciting as the earlier ones because…
I chose to start this blog to record my path to a simpler, happier and more productive life, however I seem to have forgotten this in the excitement of starting to write publicly for the…
I’ve now had my Blackberry 8800 for over two months and I’ve been pleasantly surprised how useful I am finding it. Here are six of the ways I’ve used it to help my productivity. Themes…
Postit notes are fantastic aren’t they? You can write notes on pieces of paper and stick them places so you don’t lose them. Now imagine if you had a section of your wall where you…
I have felt tired and lethargic during the last month and forgot to take action to improve the balance in my life. However I believe my relationships and close family score have increased because I…
I am very proud of my organisation system and will talk about it to anyone who will listen. I think the key to organisation is to develop your own system and believe the reason many…
Edit: You can now download the final version of this calendar from E-junkie Stephen at HDBizblog has developed a weekly calendar and overview on one page. One of the things I have found most interesting…
When I first introduced the ideas from Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management all tasks that came in today were added to tomorrow’s list which meant I had a plan of action….
This has been an interesting week so I wanted to write a quick summary to share two of my successes and one annoyance. My blog As I mentioned in my May review I ‘lost’ my…
After writing my earlier post I decided to take action straight away and looked at possible books to help me. I choose Work Life: Achieve Your Goals which arrived at the weekend. So far I…
The second section of my organiser is my ASAP list; these are all the actions that I could work on now and should be completed as soon as possible. Unfortunately because I’ve been following Getting…
For the last few weeks I’ve felt overloaded at work with an ever increasing to do list which I wasn’t making much impact on. Instead of the usual 3 sheets of double sided A5 paper…
Work has kindly given me a Blackberry, so I can check my email when I’m out of the office. I am in the process of writing about my new organisation system which is really working…
I have struggled previously with paper diaries because of changing appointments which get messy and then confusing to decipher; I have therefore stuck with electronic diaries for the past few years. However I had inspiration…
I haven’t posted for the last few days because I have spent a fair amount of the previous week at a large business environment exhibition at which I was kindly asked to present. Presenting for…
Sometimes things work so neatly you can’t believe it. After five years, I was expecting to make my final student loan payment in March which would mean I had extra money to spend each month….
Okay, I’ve gone on now for four posts describing how my organiser came into being, but have not yet described what it consists of. That is going to change now as I work through each…
This is part two of my post on paper versus digital organisation, you can read part one here I previously owned a filofax at university which was pocket size so was great because it would…
The weekend is over and it is time to review what I have achieved while I’ve been home alone. I’ve broken the list into sections and coloured red everything which was on my to do…
I like computers. I got my first computer in 1995 before going to university, when most of my friends thought I was mad not putting the money towards a car. I got my first pda…
The husband is away this weekend, sailing. I am, therefore, planning to get lots of things done from my to do list, as well as the chores such as food shopping and clothes washing. However…
When I’ve read books and articles on introducing organisation into a workplace they often recommend clearing your desk at the end of the day. As a hot desker I question whether this is as good…
Before Christmas things were getting busier and more hectic and I knew if I didn’t want to be stressing about my workload I had to review my system. For me, the way forward was to…
As a consultant working on multiple projects, task management is a key skill and one that I’ve never really been taught. Instead (after noticing the importance of the skill) I tried to improve by picking…
I have a team meeting this week, so decided to prepare some muffins for the team to eat as an incentive to attend; especially as the meeting is booked in for an hour longer than…

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