Sarbani Sen sets out a fool-proof plan – 5 steps to get organised!
In a joyfully overwhelming world with trillions of things to do every day, and as a mother of five, running two businesses, teaching in two schools, keeping a thriving relationship with my husband and honouring my beautiful self, I definitely need to stay organised.
People often wonder how I manage to do everything I do and still have time to take care of my nails, pamper my man and hang out at the latest cool bar. What’s the secret they ask? Well, to start with I have these amazing German genes that definitely help. But more seriously, I am also very organized and have developed a talent at handling different issues with a resolutely positive approach. My magic motto (which I wrote on all my files) is: “All of life comes to me with ease, joy and glory.” This magic phrase opens doors, dissipates resistance (ours and others) and is definitely the backbone of my life philosophy. I say it’s the perfect space to start this article on getting organised!
1. Fly high: First of all, you needto have a very strict – royal like – approach to all your tasks, after all you are the one handling all these issues so you should know best: Is this urgent? Is this to be handled by me? Can it be delegated? Can it be postponed in time? Is it consistent with who I am today and with my annual objectives?
So, yes, to keep the coherence in all you do, I suggest you do an annual planning per trimester, and readapt it with who you are today. I usually do it in the format of a ‘mind map’. It can be done online or on paper. Take an A3 sheet and see big. Let your imagination help you get organised. Start with facts and items that are in your life today, then develop each item, starting from the centre and see the magic happen. Before you know, you have a plan coming out of nowhere and concrete ideas showing up. I love this tool.
‘Bullet journaling’ is very interesting to get organised too in that sense, because it invites you to write every day (about emotions, deeds, fears, basically empty the emotional sand bag), dive into colours and beauty, just for the sake of it – super healthy for us unicorn girls! How many of us are depressed because we are on our Fablets all day and don’t use our beautiful colour pencils anymore? Start today if this brings up sometears, plan monthly, plan seasonally, plan annually and come back to a more cyclical approach to life. There is a lot of material on YouTube if you want to start one! it’s very creative too.
2. Smart agenda: Somehow this autumn I started looking into paper agendas again. I realized I wasn’t happy with my smartphone agenda because I couldn’t repeat events or add information. So, I analyzed all versions of Calendar apps. I finally opted to upgrade my present version (Readdle Calendar). Now I can also add colours to the events which makes it very visual to see how your week is coming along. This is my personal colour legend – pick yours!
– Everything to do with family (kids, husband, events) is yellow. – Work & projects in Brussels (purple) and abroad (deep blue) – Everything to do with sports, yoga and dance (red) – Generic holidays or leaves for longer periods (grey) – Everything that is personal Soul food (dinners, concerts with friends) is green.
As soon as I schedule events into my agenda, I make sure to use the correct colour to get organised. So, all the weekly kids’ activities are there already (sports, scouts, music school), the classes I give are there already, the special events I am planning to attend are there too. Of course, I make sure my week is harmoniously filled with all the colours.
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