I can tell you, figuring out how to do housework with a Little Someone in tow has been a huge adjustment for me. I started out writing this post in a ‘how to’ voice, with three tips I’ve learned, but scrapped it as inauthentic. It gave a false impression of my efficiency and success, and, Read More…
Category: Organisation
Digital Declutter of My Writing Folder – Plus Some Thoughts about Marie Kondo’s Method
For the last three months, Mike has had to listen to my grumping about how much I am DYING to unpack and sort our things. You see, we are still waiting for them to arrive (which we now think should actually be soon). In the meantime I have had to exert my willpower not to Read More…
Virtual Clutter, or The Downside of Organised and Unlimited Space
I was talking to a friend recently who mentioned that she liked to make sure she deleted old documents on her computer, things like receipts from years ago. It struck me that I almost never do this – but that sometimes virtual clutter can weigh on my mind as much as physical clutter does. I’m Read More…
Cleaning: I Love It, I Hate It, I’m Going to Do It
Let’s talk about cleaning. I feel like a person who ought to be really good at cleaning, because I love household management and I love to organise. But I honestly don’t think my household cleaning has ever been anything stellar. It’s only recently that I’ve had a functional cleaning schedule, with the attitude that, if Read More…
Getting Things Done: Reviewing
It’s been a while since I started a series of posts based on the book Getting Things Done, but I never actually completed all of the steps outlined in the book. Or, I should say, I never wrote about them all. I got this far: Collecting Processing Organising And, in fact, I would say that what I implemented Read More…
Getting Things Done on a Thesis (Coffee Break)
Here I am, taking a coffee break in the midst of my first round of thesis proofreading. I wanted to discuss something I mentioned a long time ago, namely how I’ve been trying to implement some new strategies for organising my PhD work, based on the book Getting Things Done. I’ve discussed this book at length already Read More…
Two Reflections on Being Organised
I always do some organising in the new year. Recently in particular, I was reviewing the current state of my thesis and making a detailed plan for everything that needs to be done before I finish. In doing this, I’ve been recalling some of the principles I learned from David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. I Read More…
How to Get Rid of Things
One thing I enjoy about January is the chance to reorganise, de-clutter, and generally take stock of my commitments and routines. I enjoy these things anyway, but January feels like the time of year when re-evaluation is most appropriate, and I don’t feel guilty devoting some time to these activities. The part I have the Read More…
Timed Tidying
One problem I routinely encounter, working at home, is something I can’t remember reading about anywhere in all those blogs about work-at-home productivity. This is the problem that, when I’m trying to work at home, any sort of mess at home bothers me much more than it otherwise would. I never like waking up to a Read More…
Saturday Thoughts on Simplicity
Proliferation seems the great tendency of life. Not just that it tends to become more and more full – like the branchy tree outside our window that suddenly leapt into leafiness one day – but that each branch splits and multiplies. This complexity often manifests itself as a shortage of time. Our commitments have multiplied, Read More…