Friday, 31 July 2015

Time flies!



Hello Minxes,
Today's the last day of July, I know everyone says it, but where did the month go? Because I'm just getting over a nasty bout of flu & August is my birthday month, I've decided to take a month for myself.  I have various work roles (rather than just one job) and so I have taken a holiday from one of them (I will try to limit the time I spend on the others) because I want and need some ME time!

I think that part of the reason why I got the flu was that I haven't been taking enough care of myself (like a lot of folks I've been focused on other people's needs) and somewhere in there I forgot about me, so the plan this month is to ease off work, try and read some good books, work out what really matters to me in life and how to achieve it and generally get my stuff together.  The reason why I need a month to do it, is because I have ignored these questions for so long that they now need my complete attention.  Which is where the point of this blog comes in,  don't forget about yourself & your needs, life is NOT and should not be something that happens to you while you're doing something else.

The main challenge, in my opinion, is how to [nicely] stop other people draining all your energy, this may sound selfish and I know that by helping others you can help yourself (I do volunteer work, which I enjoy), but this point is really about boundaries.  You have to have a little area inside you with enough time & space to figure out the things that are important to you, then the time to make plans about those things and finally to act on those plans.  Admittedly, buying a mansion in the country may not, currently, be an achievable goal, but saving for a deposit & selling all those things you no longer need may be more reasonable.

Anyway, this is just a little reminder from one who knows, that you have to find time for yourself.  I plan to keep writing this blog throughout August (it's one of my guilty pleasures), speak to you all again soon.

Wednesday, 29 July 2015


Minimalism & In Praise of the New...

Sometimes I like to have something new, whilst this may not be good news for my struggle towards minimalism I do believe that it is good for both the spirit & for keeping up with innovation.  The reasons why I believe it's good for the spirit come from the belief that inside us all is a little child, who loves to have a treat and who also loves new shiny objects!  In other words, when we get something new it makes us feel special.  I know that you're probably yelling at the screen right now that we should be mature & regulate our desires etc.  But I honestly think that a little of what you fancy does you good, subject to certain restrictions, namely, that you can afford what you're buying & that it will genuinely give you pleasure for more than five minutes.

In all fairness you could keep playing your old CD's and make your calls on an old brick mobile (with no sense of post modern ironic style) for as long as your equipment lasts, or you could favour the Kondo Minimalist idea of keeping what you love and gently saying goodbye to the other items, which does give you the opportunity to replace some of them with shiny, new, more efficient & usually smaller items (an Ipod versus a CD collection) and yes, my whole music collection fitted onto my Ipod Classic (even though it amounted to over 90GB).

Minimalism teaches you to work out what is important to you and attach values to what you have in terms of what it adds to your life, so if you do choose to upgrade or replace something for a shiny new item, don't feel bad, but do make sure that you savour every moment of unwrapping it, playing with it and generally enjoying the kidlike pleasure of a treat - just don't get sucked into buying too many of them!  

Tuesday, 28 July 2015

In Praise of Order

 
Hi fellow Minxes

Today I want to talk about a subject very close to my heart, I'll start from the beginning....

My name's Minx and I'm a list maker, I've been a list maker for as long as I can remember, possibly I was making lists in my pram & hiding them behind my teddy!  Seriously though, I see a lot of YouTube advice about how to pick the prettiest planner & how to get the nicest paperclips & post its, but in all these videos helping you to get more organised there seems to be very little emphasis on ACTUALLY DOING WHAT'S ON THE LIST!

Perhaps it's just me, but I write a list of to do's in my diary (day to a page) and strike them off as I get them done. If it's a busy day, I will put time slots beside them.  I also have lists of things I need to buy on torn up bits of recycled paper in my purse (not the prettiest, but they do the job & I like to think they also help save the environment too).  I must admit they do not add to a minimalist sense of order around the place BUT they do get the job done (and then you have the minimalist satisfaction of throwing them away).  Watching some of the videos I get the distinct impression that the planning is an end in itself! From my perspective, there are few things more stress reducing than knowing what you have to do at any given time & (even better) knowing that you have done it at the end of the day.

While I admit that in the ideal world we would all write our lists in elegant tooled leather notebooks with beautiful fountain pens, the reality is that scribbling ideas on a crowded bus is probably best done on a smaller scale and that although it's lovely to write all these lists & plans, don't forget that on this occasion, it's the bottom line that really counts.