Well, we went into my creative space and this is what we came up with… I apologise if it gets stuck in your head…it is in mine.

http://allthingswomen.net/wp-content/2011/05/Olivia.m4a

As you may or may not be aware, I have four children and they are great kids but sincerely they can be quite a handful.  I love my kids dearly, but they can take me from 0 to 10 on the anger scale in about 5 mins, cause that’s about how long it takes them to trash a clean house!

We have just started the school holidays and I made it my goal that these holidays we are going to nail keeping the house clean and being respectful to one another.  I was determined that I was going to reinstate my rights as the rightful ruler of my house (which have been eroded because of my focus on other things) and that they were going to learn submission if it killed me!  I simply was over all the yelling, bitching and fighting…I was going to make a difference and motivate my group to great success – or so went my daydream!

I would like to think that someone could come to our home at any time of the day or night and that I would not be embarassed.  I don’t really think it’s an unreasonable request that my children participate in house cleaning, but it certainly does become THE issue in our home and often.  So you can imagine how flabbergasted I was when my 7 year old son declared to me on the first day  of the holidays, “Mum, I’m on holidays.  Don’t ask me to do anything cause this is my holiday and that means I don’t have to do anything you say.”

Well, that was a bit like waving a red flag in front of my face!  I proceeded to march him around the house, him screaming at me that he was not going to do anything, and me patiently and quietly suggesting that he will.  There was the 15 minutes of standing facing the wall stand off, but eventually he caved because I kept starting the clock again everytime he screamed at me about the injustice of him having to pick up after himself.

Seriously, when you are able to distance yourself from the emotion it is hilarious to watch the way children try to manipulate their parents to get out of doing stuff!

Wow, if only life could be that simple.  I’d love to be able to declare to my children, my husband, my clients, the whole world in fact that hey, I’m on holidays and don’t ask me to do ANYTHING!!!

Suffice to say, the war has begun and now more than ever I am determined to come out on top.  It’s four against one, but with my brain and brawns I must have some hope of success…don’t I?

As I type this I am in the midst of a war zone with my 12 year old who has declared that she is NEVER doing the dishes again.  Well if I let her win that battle then I’m going to be the resident dish scrubber and surely I should have been promoted by now.  I’ve told her if that if she doesn’t pull her head in I’m going to record her bad behaviour and put it up on Facebook…she blanched.  Mmm…seems like there is still some tricks in the Mummy persuasion tool bag yet.

Love to hear your stories about how you get children to do the things you need them to do.

As I was getting myself ready this morning, it occured to me that my life has so much noise in it – my children, the tv, the internet, the radio, the phone, the chores that are screaming out to get done – that my soul was crying out for some stillness.
And it was not the stillness of idleness that I was actually seeking. Rather, it was the strategic plan that creates order out of chaos and brings with it peace and harmony.

So I started to think about how I can apply this desire for less noise in both my business and personal life.

For business…

Create the plan…walk out the plan…reap the rewards!

When I am responding to emails instantly, to friends requests upon demand and letting my inspiration take me in whatever direction it pleases I feel the chaos increase. So I am going to stop and consider, to prioritise according to my needs and not just everyone elses.

So today I have started work on my plan of attack of taking back control of my day, of STRATEGICALLY planning how I shall proceed. This is probably harder than many would imagine because when you are as creative as I am you have to go with the wave while it’s there, but it is essential that I take back control if I am to succeed and achieve all that I want in the available time.

So, the first step I am going to take is to turn off Facebook alerts to my email. They are constantly popping up and distracting me. I am also going to turn of Facebook Chat because I spend a lot of time responding to people and although it is beneficial it does suck me dry of time. I am going to close my email program and only open it at set intervals throughout the day, that way I will not have that noise and the little red number glaring at me asking me to respond. And to let callers know a time limit when they contact me so that I can keep control of my time, eg “Hi. I’ve got 5 mins, is that enough time to discuss what you need or should we set a time for a chat when I have more time?”

The second step I am going to take is to use the system that I created when I started my business – a system of scheduled posting, planned development of my blog and websites. Instead of just responding to the spur of the moment inclination, I am going to become more strategic in my building. I’ve dragged out my excel spreadsheet marketing planner that helps met to log what I am doing every week and monitor how I am meeting my objectives.

The third step I am going to take is to set an alarm on my computer that tells me it’s time to get up and do 10 mins of aerobic exercise or stretching. This is going to go off at 1 hour intervals throughout my day, because I find that my butt is spreading as I am glued to a computer all day long. I am choosing to respond to the inner voice that is constantly harassing me to look after my body!

I think as entrepreneurs who work from home it is too easy to slide into the workaholic mode of giving everything to your business. So I am also going to be making some changes in my home life…

The first is to get off the computer in the afternon when I am least productive and I have my children at home. I’m going to give them my time when they most need it – after school, doing their homework, wanting to share their day with me.

The second is I am going to request that the TV’s stay off until after 8:00pm at night. My husband likes to watch television when he gets home from work but it interferes with our meal and the quality time that we need to have as a family (wish me luck there, ladies!).

The third is I am going to devote 1 hour a day to maintenance of my household. I will use that time of the day when I start to feel most tired, to get myself up and do some housework. Then I can silence the inner voice that taunts me when I walk past children’s mess in my home.

I have decided to make these plans public so that I am now accountable.

This is my personal challenge…what is your personal challenge today? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Then tonight I stumbled over this lovely unplugged song on YouTube.com, so I thought I’d share it with all my beautiful readers.

Enjoy!

In 2002 I went through an horrendous season in my life following the birth of my son.

This article, Out of the Blues,  was featured in Pearls Women’s Magazine published in 2007 in Perth, Western Australia.  It is my story of how I overcame post natal depression.

Download now by clicking here Out of the Blues. PDF 504kb

We’ve probably all read the books like Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – which incidentally is brilliant just in case you haven’t read it! – where he tackles the issue of prioritising.  However, it is one thing to know it all in theory and entirely a different thing to practise it all the time!

Which brings me to the whole point of this post…

Why is it that To-Do Lists just seem to never get any shorter?

I mean you start off with 10 items and you work your way through them meticulously and by the time you start to make good progress, another  10 items have arisen to take their place!  It hardly seems fair.

I have been using the To-Do function on my computer.  It creates this lovely space for me to type in the task, some info, the timeframe.  It pops up and reminds me about tasks and it is driving me absolutely nuts!  Why?  Because when I set up the task I have an idea of when I would like it to be completed, however, in the meantime a thousand other things have arisen that have pushed out my timeframe.  That is, unless it is an ultra urgent item with a firm deadline.

So I was talking to Kiera and it occured to me why this was.  I have four children, and they continually harass me about what they want me to do and when they want me to do it by.  They remind me daily leading up to their birthdays, their sporting events, their social engagements, their concerts…even getting them to school daily.  I am so REMINDED OUT!

Consequently, after pushing the snooze buttom so many times that it literally was driving me nuts, I have abandoned the To-Do List function altogether.  After all, even when I have completed the tasks it still shows them there with a line through them just to confuse me!

Before I had children I had a very simple system.  In Tray – Out Tray.  If it’s in the In-Tray, it’s to do today.  If it can’t be done today, then it is in the long-term projects tray.  At the end of the day, I worked hard to ensure my In-Tray was empty or close to as possible but that was before I had four children, a household to run, a business, a community association and a husband to care for.

I guess being a very visual person, a simple list, that has an alarm that is sensitive to my mood swings might work.  Can someone please invent a to-do list that is telepathically controlled and updates automatically and only reminds me when I have the space in my heart and life to respond?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on To-Do Lists.  Do they work for you?  What do you use?  How do you manage getting all those odd little things done effectively.

I look forward to reading your response!

The beauty is that further along the pathway it becomes completely evident to me why I needed to do them as they were the stepping stones in the pathway that has led me to be the person that I am today, doing the things that I am doing.

What this has taught me is to value every experience, sucking the marrow out of life and being grateful for the many wonderful opportunities that have graced my life.

I just wanted to encourage you that sometimes what on the surface looks like it has nothing to offer you in the way of tangible benefits, yet you feel drawn to the opportunity, that it may have hidden treasure and that those around you may question you and you may not have an answer to give them immmediately.

If I stopped writing back when the first person questioned my ability or my use of my time I would never be feature writing for a national magazine now. And if I had questioned writing for that magazine for no payment immediately, I would never have gotten the opportunity to get my name known in the writing world. And if I had never started the Pearls Women’s Magazine project, I would never have gotten my foot in the door at the National Women’s Magazine. And if I’d listened to those that were questioning the value of giving my time to develop Pearls, all those people who read the magazine and their lives were changed in some positive way would never have happened.

Sometimes risks are essential if we want to find the hidden treasure.

I think you get my picture. You just never know when what you are doing has a positive spin off for others or for your own destiny, even if it is painful and a negative experience at the time.

There is a verse in the Bible that I love and brings me comfort. It says, “All things work together for the good…”

You may not understand which thread you are sewing with at this time in your life, but you are creating a rich tapestry and one day you will get to see it from the top side down, not just the underside up. Keep sewing!

I must have looked like a child with a new toy when I proudly thrust the magazine under my husband’s nose and said, “Look at this…and this…and this…and this!” I could see that he was actually impressed. He was seeing the fruit of my labour. He knew I was doing some writing for a magazine, but I don’t think he really valued it until he saw it there in cold hard gloss paper, LOL.

I feel like busting open the bubbly and celebrating…just like I did when we put together our very first edition of Pearls Women’s Magazine and we received the 5000 copies in cartons that filled our loungeroom from floor to ceiling. The bubble burst a little when we had to shift them, to weigh them to work out if all the copies were actually in the box and then to check every copy to make sure it was in tact. That part was not so exciting!!!

Ahhhhh…just had to share the moment cause I know some who read this blog will totally relate. So have a virtual bubbly on me!

But here I am.  A mother of four children.  43 years of age and I find myself heading up an International women’s association.  How did I get here?  When did my passion for women grow?  Why am I doing what I do?

Well, for one, I am a woman, so I guess it is going to come as no surprise that I understand how a woman thinks.  Consequently, it is no big jump to think that perhaps I would want to work with what I know.

Secondly, I started a women’s magazine.  I didn’t set out to choose to do that, it just came and tapped me on the shoulder and I said yes to the opportunity.

But I think I really started to develop a heart for women (in a very pure way) as I started to hear their stories.  I was galvanised by the powerful stories of women who were taking action, in their own little worlds, in a positive way and I didn’t just want to tell theirs, I wanted to become my own story.

So I made the decision when I resigned from Pearls Women’s Magazine where I was co-founder and co-editor to start a women’s organisation that was focused on the whole “women can” philosophy.

Women are amazing creatures I have learned.  We can partner together and create amazing community events.  We get things done.  We make the magic happen in life.  We are creative, intelligent, patient and enduring in our vision and purpose.  We don’t have to be caught up in ambition, in bickering, in trying to climb over each others.  I have learned that it is a very precious thing in life to actually support another woman to see her shine!  In fact, this is how I came out of post natal depression after my fourth child was born; by reaching out to help others I became well myself.  I love this part of Women Can International Inc and I love this part about my business, The Creaticians.  It is an honour to see other’s shine.

I find myself surrounded by women who are amazing voices on women’s issues.  I hope to share their stories with you through this blog over the next months because they are TOTALLY inspirational to me.

So it seems that life has chosen me to represent women and to work with them in a passionate way for their betterment.  I don’t really understand it all.  I don’t know why I feel driven to surrender so much of myself and to sacrifice my time, but I just know that there is a reason and a purpose and this is my pathway for the time being.  So while I am on this pathway, I shall give it 100% of my best efforts.

I’d love to hear about what life has chosen you to do.  Please comment.