Recently a friend asked me how my to-do list worked.
I replied by saying I keep my list in my physical diary but also use Google Keep for noting things down when I can’t get to my diary (while driving for instance, by talking to Google Assistant).
I sent my friend the link to the article in which I explain my task management plan … and then paused. I realised that in fact I don’t really use that system at all any more.
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It’s 2pm on a Friday, and I’ve just had a little nap – which will keep me going all afternoon.
I discovered the power of an afternoon nap when reading Make Time, where one of the key concepts is making sure you have enough energy to do all the things that need to be done in any given day.
That means the obvious things – a good night’s sleep, eating nutritious food, going for walk, taking breaks. For me though, it’s meant something less obvious – a gradual shift in the way I approach my working life.
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There’s a deeply moving and little-known Bruce Springsteen song about falling on hard times, released on the 2012 album Wrecking Ball. Many of the songs on the album are about the bleak world caused by the 2008 market crash. The words of Jack Of All Trades go like this (but I urge you to listen to it): Continue reading
I took the Facebook and Twitter apps off my phone because some dorks told me to.
And no, I am not being insulting. The dorks in question are Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky , who call themselves Time Dorks, and run a blog called Make Time. They’ve also written a book, which is inspiring my latest foray into finding better systems to live by.
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In our house, we share the cooking duties. I cook supper for a month, and then my husband cooks for a month. In the month we aren’t cooking, we take care of the laundry.
It wasn’t always that way: for many years Bob was the chief cook, and I was the washer of clothes.
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When I was a child, in a country far, far away, there was no television.
It was South Africa, and what there was, was the SABC (look at page 8), divided into three categories: the A service (in English), the B service (in Afrikaans) and Springbok radio (with adverts! And popular music!).
And on the A service, every weekday afternoon there was a 15-minute children’s programme.
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The other night, my 17-year-son said: “Mom, you were right.”
I sat up and listened. It turns out he had been persuaded by a video he saw on YouTube that he does indeed need a diary to keep track of his schoolwork.
I smiled, and said we would go buy one.
Readers, I have been telling him he needs a diary since he left primary school, when the school made every kid keep one for their homework.
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