10 Tips I Wish Someone Had Told Me Years Ago... They're Not Rocket Science But They Work!!

1. Whilst the kids are in the bath, give the sink and toilet a clean... you’ll be in the bathroom with them so can chat and join in their games, but the bathroom gets cleaned too and will never be a task in its own right again!

2. Break your housework down... rather than having ‘dust the sitting room’ on your list, have ‘dust the tv cabinet’, ‘dust the mirror’ etc on your list. By ticking off the tiny tasks, the bigger task never has to happen.

3. Fill your car with petrol when you can rather than when you need to. Topping up when you have time means no more stressful journeys worrying about being late because you need to stop for petrol, or because you are worried about running out.

4. As you fold the laundry, put them in ‘people’ piles – you’ll be amazed at how much time it saves. It makes for really speedy putting away.

5. You can only do 2 things with time... change how you spend it, or bring other qualities to things you HAVE to do with your time... For example, I’m not a fan of cooking, so listening to my favourite CD’s whilst I cook transforms it in to ‘me’ time rather than it being a chore.

6. Always put the cordless phone back on the base after you’ve used it so you don’t have to look for it every time rings. Or stick to a corded one.

7. Always hang your car keys up in the same place, or buy a sound activated key fob. Get a hook put up if you don’t have one. Save that time hunting around for them, or the children picking them up and leaving them behind the sofa!

8. With digital TV (sky / cable etc) record tv programmes and watch them after the
event. You can convert an hour programme in to 45 minutes by the time you get rid of all the commercial breaks.

9. Buy a packet or two of birthday cards to keep in the house so you don’t have to go shopping for cards as they come up. Especially handy for children’s birthday parties which come thick and fast! Check out www.squashed-tomato.co.uk.

10. Put things on the bottom of the stairs if they need taking up and tidying away and then never go up the stairs empty handed... take one or two things up as you go and put them away there and then.

Simple but very effective!

‘I can’t be bothered!’ - Is it OK to say that?

So here I am, a coach, helping people to be motivated, focussed and clear in what they want to be and do. I love it.

But yesterday (one of my ‘mum’ days - not a work day), I woke up and thought to myself ‘I just can’t be bothered with all the things that I’ve got to do today’.

Did I feel guilty about it? Well yes, initially, for a fleeting moment I had a pang of ‘but come on, you’re procrastinating, what’s beneath that, what can you do to change that’ etc etc. All good stuff. It normally keeps me right on track in achieving what I want to achieve and understanding how I tick. Yesterday however I chose to take a different approach….

After that tiny ‘pang’ my second thought was ‘Grab it, go with it, and give yourself a day off!’

And so I did. I shamelessly didn’t check my email (well maybe only once!), I didn’t do any domestic stuff, I didn’t speak to anyone on the phone unless I could possibly avoid it, I didn’t EVEN prepare a decent meal for the family. We played, we snuggled up on the sofa and watched FAR too much TV. We ate quick fix food and (lovely) unhealthy snacks, and we made a mess all day and didn’t clear it up.

… what’s that noise? Can I hear many mothers around the world giving a sharp intake of breath?! Or is it all the disapproving frowns I can feel making waves across land?!

Well guess what?…… I can categorically say, that I don’t give a toss!

Did the world come to an end that day? Have I damaged my children for life just by letting them eat some junk food? Did the house crumble to the ground from being mistreated in such a brazen fashion?……

NO – AND IT FELT GREAT! :-)

Now, of course I’m not saying that this is how it’s going to be for me everyday. I am turning my back on all my responsibilities as a mum and a good ‘housewife’. All I’m saying is that I did it, I didn’t feel guilty about, my children LOVED it and so I will definitely be doing it again at some point… and I can’t wait!!

Is all this ‘recession talk’ making things worse?

All you here about on the news at the moment is recession recession recession. House market has slumped, banks are on their knees, the motor industry has died. Constant doom and gloom.

I like to keep up to date on current affairs to a point, but does all this talk inhibit our thinking and make things worse for us on a day to day basis?

I’m a firm believer in positive thinking... shoot for the stars and you’ll hit the moon.

And I firmly believe that anything is possible when you put your mind to it, so how about we all stop concentrating on THE RECESSION, and concentrate on THE RECOVERY and how we are going to make things better instead.

I’ve banned the word ‘recession’ and ‘credit crunch’ in our house, and we either refer to is as ‘the current status’, or we say ‘the recovery’. Simply doing that just makes our worlds feel that little bit lighter each day, and allows us to look forward to being better, stronger, living life to the full and achieving our dreams, rather than just sitting there mulling the fact that “this is the worst it’s been since the war” blah blah blah blah blah.

It may seem like a tiny change, but next time you find yourself saying ‘that word’, stop for a moment and just see what it is doing to you, how you feel inside, what your internal voices are saying to you with respect to your ‘wish list’. I bet phrases like ‘I can’t possibly do that at the moment because....” and “not in the current climate...” are popping out all over the place.

On the flip side, what happens if you start to replace those with positive phrases.... “Well, if i just did this... then”, and “my first step would be... “, “I can do that if I do....” It’s amazing how many ways round a problem spring to mind when you start to lift the limitations on your thinking.

If you speak to a lot of businesses for example, you will hear that some of them are having the best year of their careers... why is that do you think? Luck??! Or just that they believe in themselves and what they can achieve, and have made their own dreams come true.

So, recession smession. It’s time to turn down the ten o’clock news for a while, and start carving out your own future. In the words of Sara Henderson “Don’t wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel, stride down there and light the bloody thing yourself!”