Happy (nearly) New Year! So I got the planner...

Sorry, I didn't come back before Christmas as I was flat out on work deadlines up to the last minute and then cooking for two days. I finally feel a bit more human today so came back to blog. 

I gave in on the whole journal planner thing...I'm sure you knew I would...and put it on my Christmas list 😀 (somehow, the Daily Stoic Journal also slipped onto my list. I've been eyeing it up for a while). I've been sat here working on the annual forecast part of it, deciding how I want this year to pan out, what I want to focus on and want I want to spend less time focusing on. Things have gone off track for me a bit over the last six months, and I'm not making decisions based on things that are important to me. 

I like the layout of each page because it is based on the Eisenhower decision matrix that I have used and I know works for me. There are weekly, monthly, six-monthly and yearly reviews of the most important self, relationship, passion and work goals.

The Daily Stoic Journal is a bit different. I've wanted to learn about Stoicism for a while but it is difficult to get a good idea of something this complex by just reading a big book. When it comes to learning, I favour learning-by-doing. 

Stoicism was practised by the ancient Greeks and Romans (Marcus Aurelius was the most famous Roman practising its tenets) and developed a philosophy of personal ethics based on using self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions. This journal is a learning tool, looking at a Stoic idea every week and encouraging self-reflection each day using guided questions. 

I thought it sounded an interesting way to keep those things that are most important in life top of mind, and help me become a bit more centred and grounded. Stress has really been getting to me lately and I need to take a step back and consider whether some things are worth the aggravation. 

There's an interesting article about the benefits of Stoicism here.

So, with less than three hours to go before midnight, it's almost time to out the old and welcome the new. 

Happy New Year!

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Steel Kitten

Starting over

For years I always thought the 12 days of Christmas started on 21st December and ended on 1st January. It seemed quite a natural time period for it to happen, 20/21st being the Solstice and the official start of Winter and 31st/1st January being the end of the year and the start of the new. 

Then as I grew up I realised that it was the Pagan 12 days of Christmas, and the Christian version started on 25th December (Christ's birth) and ends January 5th (Epiphany; when the three kings/wise men visited Jesus with gifts). 

Somewhere along the way I decided I like the idea of both and so my period of reflection and plans for the future start on 21st and go right through January 5th.

Today I kicked off proceedings by unexpectedly waking up at 4:30am, wide awake for no particular reason but knowing I was not going to be able to sleep again. I didn't purposefully do it to see the dawn but maybe it was in the back of my mind. To be honest I've been very busy at work and stressed about it, so this isn't the first morning I've woken horribly early and got up, but this is the first one where I've got up and not started work. I just sat downstairs at the dinner table with a few cups of tea, reflecting on my job, health, inner and outer life, spirituality and purpose. I then I watched the dawn come up through the mist and rain.

“Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations.” — Earl Nightingale

I think this year is going to be a very different one for me because my attitude and expectations are changing by the week. 

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Steel Kitten

Throwing caution to the wind

So, a big thing is happening in January. Huge. We're going on holiday. Yes, I know. Doesn't sound big really does it? But for us a holiday is always a big thing as it has happened so rarely and this one is huge. Australia. Yep, we're going to Australia in January for three weeks! For the most part we'll be staying in Cairns as we both want to do a lot of adventure stuff and then we have a few days with a friend in Melbourne.

We very rarely take holidays so for this to come about, and so quickly in the last month, is nothing short of a miracle. A few things came together all in one go and we made the decision to throw caution to the wind and go for it.

1. We've thought about visiting Australia for years but there's always been something stopping us. Normally Martin's work. His last office refused all leave for longer than two weeks and anything longer than a week had to be granted special permission by a not-so-nice office manager, who rarely, if ever granted it. We'd given up the idea years ago but never thought to ask after he moved to this new office. The idea came up again, he checked and the new office said "no problem, enjoy yourself". Woohoo!

2. MIL will be 85 next Spring and is relatively healthy, but she will not fly anywhere and cannot sit in a car for longer than a couple of hours. When she starts to decline, decent holidays may not be able to happen for a long time if she needs nursing care.

3. My BIL has temporarily moved to the area, so he can keep an eye on MIL if we go away. She doesn't need a lot of looking after but doesn't like to be left alone at night so BIL can stay and make sure she is ok. The cats won't take to catteries for the first time at the advanced age of 14 so this means they can stay in the house. Come next March BIL may be moving elsewhere and it gets that much harder to achieve a holiday at all.

4. Brexit has had an odd effect on me lately. It occurred to me that if Brexit prompts a recession then my instinct to batten down the hatches may mean we will end up not taking a holiday for a few years to ensure we achieve our retirement goals instead. Therefore ideally we need to do this sooner rather than later.

5. Affording it. We achieved our savings goal for the year, made the last payment into the accounts for 2018 on 1st December ( I make sure we pay ourselves first every month and make do on the rest). Our saving account is healthy and can stand the expense.

However,  all my intentions to pay for it flew out of the window when it actually came to getting the money out of the savings account. I cannot bring myself to see that wad of cash disappear yet. I've scoured the market for a credit card that offered 0% interest for 18 months and put the cost of the holiday onto there for now.

Until the moment when I had to pay for it, I had been delighted to have the money saved and made all preparations to transfer it across, but I suddenly turned into Fraser from Dad's Army in The Miser's Hoard (s9 ep4), where he counts out his gold sovereigns and rubs his hands. I just couldn't do it. I'd rather spread the cost interest-free than see a large chunk of cash disappear in one go. It hurts less!

I'm not sure whether that is a good instinct or a bad one. I suppose it would be a bad one if I was incurring interest payments but no interest for 18 months just seems like a bit of a gift really so we can keep that liquid cash for emergencies and pay off the holiday in regular chunks.

So, I'm finding it a bit difficult to concentrate on Christmas at the moment. I want it to be over so I can go on holiday!

Photo Credits: Reef, Fraser

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If you've commented on my blog recently and haven't had a response I'm not ignoring you. It appears that blogger has decided my replies are not blog worthy and hasn't bothered to publish them. I only realised this morning that my responses over the last month have not been published and have disappeared from my account entirely. I shall go back and redo them all.

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Steel Kitten

Do I really need another planner?

So, work is nuts and I've been scarce around here. This time of year my firm does 25-30% of its business so that works out at about three times my usual workload. And I can guarantee one thing that will simultaneously happen at this time of year; I will go mad for planners and organisational journals. Because everything is happening in a whirlwind and I'm lurching madly from one crisis to the next my brain convinces me that if I had some hideously complex life planner it wouldn't happen.

Every year like clockwork I end up buying a journal or diary that I abandon mid-march, pick up again in July, lose track off in August and then November it starts again.

I have tried so many different ways of organising myself and none of them have worked well.

I've done an A4 diary with a day to a page with time slots. Not a chance. Tried it in A5 size. Another nope. Normal diary with a day to a page and no times, both A4 and A5. Nope. Sometimes filled it in, sometimes not. Tried a small pocket diary. Never kept it in my pocket or bag, and kept putting it down. So small I couldn't find it if I put it down because I move a tsunami of stuff around the house every day.

I've done David Allen's Getting Things Done, which involves always getting everything out of your head, onto paper and filed appropriately. I fell at the first hurdle. I couldn't get everything out of my head. I think I have an abnormal amount of thoughts, ideas, imaginings. As fast as I was getting them out they were going in/popping up. Losing battle.

I didn't get on with bullet journals - mainly because I didn't realise they are actually a hobby not a work tool. It took me a ridiculous length of time to put together the structure of it. I want a planner to already have all that stuff. I also couldn't get along with the wasabi tape and sticker business. I haven't got time to colour.

I've had a daily greatness journal, and while that has been the most successful to date I still only kept that up for 90 days because I had been putting off getting started with the smallholding stuff when I got here and that got me going. But the second 90 days? Nope, never happened. I actually found the questions a bit monotonous and I rarely, if ever, went back in the evening to reflect on my day. The only saving grace with that one is that as there are no dates, the next time I want to do a 90 day challenge I can pick it up and fill up the next quarter.

Gratitude journal? Ok when you're in a good mood, disastrous when you're in a bad mood. Once that bile is down on paper there's no going back. My hormone hate can be directed against even sunshine at the wrong time of the month :)

On a week-to-week basis I'm more of a do-er, not a planner. I don't have time really to sit and plan my day, week, month. I get up in the morning and just get on. In my mind I have periods of time when I know I must work and not do anything else, where I want to read and not do anything else, and the rest of the time I fit in what needs to be done. I look around and think "sink needs a clean" "there's a load of washing to be done" "what's the next thing in the inbox" and I just do it.

I have a list on my phone of things to buy and or do in town and I keep a relatively good appointments calendar on there too. I have a work notebook to keep track of work stuff and a personal journal where I focus on my emotional intelligence, self-esteem and mental health. I have a third book where I track my personal development through the films and plays I see, books I read, and programmes I listen to. That last one started because I sometimes beat myself up for not reading/watching enough good stuff so it was quite a surprise when I started writing it down and realised I did.

So, why this post?

Because, of course, I have been suckered in by the promise of another planner. I'm not going to say which one because I don't want to provide free advertising. I don't think I need it, I don't think it will add anything to my already over-pressurised life, but my goodness do I want it. I just can't shake the feeling that I haven't yet found the right planner, THE planner that will somehow be so absorbing and engaging that I will keep using it. And that THIS one could be it!

Then Martin said the fatal "do you want it for Christmas?" and that's where I am tonight.

Struggling over the decision on whether to have another life planner. Hmmm....

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Steel Kitten