Aargh!!! Please Just Medicate Me Now!!!

OK - so this is just going to be a rambling post this evening as I am getting myself tied up in knots with this ridiculous OCD of mine.

I was just going to bed to chill out with my Kindle for a bit and get a super early night and had no intention of blogging at all.

Then (as so often does) a few little niggling thoughts came into my head reminding me that there are rather a lot of things that I need to get on with, so I thought I'd do the sensible thing and write them down and try to get myself a bit organised.

I'm figuring I should just have a catch all notebook to keep by me whenever I am using my computer at home to list things such as books to read, films to watch, recipes to try, quotes, Filofax ideas, stationery to try/buy, scrapbooking ideas, etc, etc.

The next thought to pop into my head is my neglected 101 list, I am in need of some motivation as my head has been filled up with work stuff again recently, with all the fun of yearend and a project that I'm working on (coupled with sick people at home).

Then I realised where I was writing all this down... was it in my trusty Filofax? No... and there begins the problem. My personal (as opposed to work) Filofax is currently a beautiful Holborn zip, so why was I not writing in there? Is it because when I'm just jotting down thoughts I write in my big, comfortable (sometimes illegible) style - and as I don't embrace this style generally, maybe I am not correctly equipped (big paper, wide lines... lots of space), or maybe I just want my babies to look gorgeous inside as well as out?

Oh well, my mind wasn't going to dwell on that for too long as I will be going to the UK next week where my Plannerisms planner is waiting for me (in Teal, yum!!!).  Time to think about how I will use each section of this to help me be more organised and calm (ha ha ha!!!). I have a list of what the set up is of the planner, so just need to figure out what will go where, but... and this is a BIG but, where did I write it down?

I have spent the last 10-15 minutes before sitting down here searching to find which notebook I have written it in (I only wrote it three days ago) - I thought it would be my Star Wars Moleskine (blog book and now internet notes from other people's articles), no, maybe one of the notepads in my Flex, no, in the notepad (Oxford Office Book ring bound, lovely paper by the way), no... and I'd already checked my Filofax, I have no idea where it is.

And why can I never find anything I have written down (unless it is already neatly available in my head, or already planned and written neatly into my Filofax)? ...because I can't bring myself to write just any old thing into my Filofax, or any of my nice notebooks, idiot!!!

I think it is now time to deal with this ridiculous OCD behaviour once and for all.

For now, any rough jottings that are required will either go in my Filofax (even thinking about doing that hurts right now) or in my black ring bound Oxford Office Book, until it is full (that idea is less painful, so may actually work). I'm going to try to embrace my larger writing (even in my personal filo, it's not like I keep much in it anyway so I have plenty of ring space).

Right, now I've got that off my chest I'm going to go back to bed, move all the stationery off it (you'd be amazed how much stationery needs to be sprawled across the bed just to use a BIC biro to write in one notepad), and read my Kindle. I am not going to have any more organisey thoughts until at least the morning...

God night all,

LJx

101 List Progress Check - August 13th

Sorry!!! I have got behind (seems to be my general state of being at the moment). Work seems to be getting a bit hectic again with project work, and I have just got my boys back from the UK and the started kindergarten and school today. Tonight they are back to normal, not going to sleep and getting out of bed every ten minutes because daddy's not here to give them a talking to - joy!!!

So, here is the lowdown on my 101.

Prizewinner books - I have now completed The Color Purple and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is definitely one I would read again in the future.

Classic films - I finally got round to watching the rest of Taxi Driver. The ending is not quite what I was expecting (although, to be fair, I'm not sure what I was actually expecting), but was done in proper bullet fest mode :o)

Supplements - still ploughing through these babies... yum!!!

Ripped abs - OK, so I have totally fallen off the wagon with this one (mainly thanks to my dad and his feeder personality - and my obvious lack of willpower). I have now put back on five of the eleven kilos that I lost. However, today Ben came home with one of these body fat scale things and apparently I have a body fat percentage of 38%. Having since looked on the internet and discovered that in most guidelines this puts me in the 'obese' category I have decided that:

                 a)       the scales don't work; or

                 b)       38% isn't actually obese (although that sounds pretty high...); and

                 c)       I really need to get back on the healthy eating and get some sort of exercise routine

                           re-established (stopping recording that in my filo was a bad move - I lost all
                           accountability)  

                 No-one needs to worry that I am suffering from any illusions as to my size, I know I am not huge and have no intention of trying to lose three stone or anything drastic as that would make me officially underweight and in danger of malnutrition. Just for info, I currently weigh 59kg (approximately 9st 2lb), and am 5'6".

Seeing Jessica Ennis in team GB has also helped my motivation - she is stunning, and those abs? Utter perfection.

Skincare routine - four weeks done, and I have kept it up since I finished (apart from one evening), so there is hope for me :o)

Finish work on time with no work to take home 2 days a week for 3 months - I have finally got round to checking my work log (I have been monitoring as I am trying very hard to leave work on time every day, apart from monthend, and have been doing pretty well). I have discovered that I completed this particular challenge quite early in June, and have further success regarding the third of my working hours challenges.


Work very late for 2 nights at monthend, and 2 'normal' late nights per month with no work to take home for 2 months - I managed this for March, April and May, but it messed up by one extra proper late night in June due to some project work, but as the challenge was only for two months then it's all good - yay!!! In fact, the last few monthends haven't even needed 2 very late nights, just the one for the close itself - double yay!!!

And the final work one...? As above, but with hours back in the form of working from home on Fridays with an early finish... Well - for the monthend close nights I have been having the hours back in  the form of time off, I don't do that with the standard late nights though as I don't see a need to. When this challenge was set my working hours were excessive to say the least and I really didn't think that the working hours challenges were going to be achieved so early in the 1001 days, and that these hours have now pretty much become the 'norm' for me is pretty amazing.

I am happy therefore to say that all my working hours challenges have been met, and as much as everyone likes to laugh at my Filofax collection and how much I love them and praise them, it is pretty much entirely down to the use of them for work that I have been able to achieve this more balanced work/life thing. Go team Filofax!!!

Ooh - almost forgot!!! I successfully completed my two weeks of being nice. The last day was a bit of a struggle, so I just had to remember how much effort I had already put in, and that I didn't want to have to do the first 13 days all over again just for one mindless comment :o)

Have a good week,

LJx

101 List Progress Check - August 1st 2012

Hi Everyone (Anyone...) and Happy Swiss Day!!!

Yep, August the 1st is the national day over here and there were fireworks going half the night last night and it sounds like firecrackers are currently the order of the day (lots of bangs going all evening so far, and as it's still light out I'm guessing it's not full on fireworks).

So, what have I achieved since I last posted a 101 progress update... let's see...

Shakespeare - complete. I read The Taming of The Shrew last week and I have to say it is probably the most enjoyable of the five plays that I have read.

Prizewinner books - I have now started reading The Color Purple, and it's shaping up to be pretty good. I a looking forward to see what happens next.

Make up daily - yay!!! Another challenge completed. I wore it every day for a whole month and am still going even though I no longer have to.

Skin care - yep, that one is still going on, have I noticed any difference in my skin? I'm not sure, but then I don't look at it that carefully - maybe I'll check it out properly at the end of my month :-)

Being nice - wow!!! Today is day twelve of my two weeks of being nice challenge (it sounds better than day twelve of my not being horrible challenge) and I am doing remarkably well. It is monthend at work, which is usually the time when I am most horrible, and I'm not. Two days to go... maybe I can arrange to work from home on Friday...?

Supplements - is there no end to these things...? Although to be fair the challenge is for three months, but I think I got about six months worth.

30 Lists in 30 Days - another achievement. I have one which just needs a bit to finish it off and need to get them posted on here, but I am done.

Classic films - I haven't actually watched any more yet (fingers crossed for this weekend), but I have bought Scarface starring Al Pacino...

Dinner by candlelight - we had dinner at the hotel when we were in Germany, complete with lit candles on the table. It wasn't actually dark yet, but it still counts, right?

I need to check my work hours and dates to see if I've completed another of the challenges for those, fairly sure I have, but as I have decided to have a separate work Filofax I need to remember to bring it home to check.

And the piéce de resistance? Wearing feminine clothes for a whole week. I started this one on Wednesday last week (including wearing feminine clothes at the weekend) and finished it yesterday. It was so nice to get a pair of jeans on for work today, but I may be back to dresses for the next two days as it seems to be easier to be nice when I'm wearing feminine clothes. And here is the proof that I really did do it...

Wednesday - red H&M dress and lily-white legs 

Thursday - black and cream River Island retro dress , again with the lily-white legs

Friday - H&M casual butterfly dress, legs hidden

Saturday - ready to shop in black skirt and top, lily-whites are on show again

Sunday - black skirt, girly top from Next

OK - so that wasn't the best outfit for going to the Giger museum, but how was I to know that it was going to be all sloping cobbled streets - oops!!! Although I did (eventually) manage to spot someone with even more inappropriate shoes than me there :o)

Monday - new butterfly dress from H&M

Tuesday - newish swallow dress from H&M

That's me for now.

Enjoy the rest of your week :o)

LJx

101 List Progress Check - May 6th 2012

Oops!!! I thought I had posted an update last weekend, but clearly I hadn't, so here is the latest re my 101 challenge...

Last weekend I managed to cross off my challenge to watch 10 new releases, so here is my final list:

• Thor
• Harry Potter (the last one)
• Captain America
• The Green Lantern
• Happy Feet 2
• Puss in Boots
• Contagion
• In Time
• Jane Eyre
• The Help

For the classic films, I have now watched Brief Encounter and I'd been led to believe that it was supposed to be one of the most romantic films of all time, but I just didn't get that. Some married guy tries it on with a married lady, they kind of hook up, but don't, but fall in love and then it's all over and they are sad - the end... maybe I'm heartless, or maybe I was just expecting too much. I thought I'd be in floods of tears, but just didn't identify with the characters.

I have also managed to blog about my set up for my A5 Filofax - the format of the blog wasn't quite as intended (ie write post for Lucy re my A5 work FF) for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I lost my A5 work Filofax shortly after I wrote my list and since then have moved between various set ups so now I am using one A5 Filofax for everything, and as I have my own blog now it made sense to post the details on here instead of sending it to Lucy to post onto hers. You can see my post re my A5 here, and if you would like to see what binder I am currently in (I have moved twice since), you can see this here.

Prizewinner book number two is ow started - The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. I am finding the short sentence structure that she uses a bit unusual/awkward at times, but it seems good so far.

 I started taking my supplements again on Thursday (after forgetting to take any since my last 101 post when I said that I was going to take my ones for that day when I finished posting, and then not doing so).

This weekend I have been browsing at modes4u and artbox, checking out the funky stationery so I can get some for using in my happiness binder to write quotes/jokes on that make me smile. Unfortunately I now have wishlists totalling approximately £200 - I really need to reduce those lists before I end up with a whole stationery shop in my cupboards...

Today I completed the task of making a birthday cake. As I haven't made a cake from scratch in many years it was an interesting experience... Unfortunately you can't get self-raising flour over here so I had to find out what the right amount of baking powder that I needed was as the recipe book doesn't have that info (despite being a general cook book that gives all the basics), and I didn't have any caster sugar... Oh and I didn't have any sandwich tins so had to stick it into one deeper tin, which I'm sure means I should have adjusted the temperature and times, but never mind. It came out a lot better than I was expecting it to, and although I wouldn't go as far as to say it was a total success, it was far from being a failure and actually tasted really good.

OK - it's far from perfect and as I was rubbish with the 'decorative icing' I made it into a face - and no it wasn't for a
4-year-old, it was for a 36-year-old 

On the work front - I have now managed to finish on time on Mondays and get home in time for DF to go to band practice, and haven't had to bring work home with me (excluding monthends, where I have either left later, but still in time for DF to go and with no work to bring home, or have left work on time and brought some work home with me - which was all part of the deal so that is fine).

Until next time...

LJx

101 List Progress Check - 19th April 2012

Hi folks!!!

Sorry I'm not updating weekly as I'd planned, but the good news is that some of the tasks may end up being crossed off sooner than expected.

New released films (DVDs) I'm talking about you :o) I ordered 4 DVDs from Amazon's new releases and they arrived last week, so we watched Happy Feet 2 (not as depressing as the original, but still not that happy...) and Puss in Boots (love the voice of Antonio Banderas as Puss) last weekend.

After reading The Help towards the end of last year, I was really looking forward to watching the film, so settled down to watch it - some weepy parts (but maybe that's just me being a bit weird at the mo). It was a good film, the book was better, but then that's no surprise as it's rare to get a film to pick up the finer details of a book.

Tonight I have a date with my man, the sofa, and Contagion - no doubt by tomorrow morning the cold that Marcus keeps trying to give me will be in full swing and I'll be convinced that I am going to die in the supermarket... update, it is now 5am the morning after, and although I watched the film and thought it was good, it hasn't left me with the feeling that I will ever watch it again, not because it's going to make me paranoid every time I get a cough, but because I just didn't seem to get the feel for many of the characters. Although maybe I should watch it again, maybe I missed something...

Ben also picked up In Time a couple of weekends ago, so we may watch that this weekend, then I think I only have 3 left. War Horse is now out on DVD apparently so I have to get that quick before it is no longer considered new enough to count towards my list, although I nearly cried just watching the trailer for it last night - I am such a wuss!!!

I have started my 3 months of taking supplements with some twice daily vitamin & mineral thing from Beachbody that came with the 10 Minute Trainer programme. Unfortunately I have enough of a problem trying to remember to do anything once a day let alone twice, so I have been pretty rubbish on the one so far (it is now 8pm and I will go and take my two doses for the day shortly).

I am currently on my first of four days off so I shall (attempt) to sort my paperwork, order the prize-winner books off my list (one is ordered from Amazon already for one of the guys from work to bring back for me and another five I can definitely get via Kindle), and be a bit more consistent on my exercise in my endeavours to get ripped abs... although I have lost 18lbs so far, surely there can't be much more hiding them - clearly I just need to make them bigger :o)

I have been logging my working hours since before Christmas to keep a record of how I am doing against my work/life balance targets and am pleased to say that I have been managing pretty well with finishing on time on Mondays and not bringing work home, and only have two more weeks to get through for this one to be completed. I have also managed to finish on time two days a week since March 5th, bringing no work home, and am half way through the three months, only six weeks to go - I am very proud of myself (and my Filofax) for managing to do this.

For the classic films I picked a couple up of DVDs at the airport the last time I was in the UK, only to discover when I got home that Papillon and The Sting were not on my list of classic films to watch, but as they are definitely classics I will just add them to my list (I'm allowed to do that right?). I have also discovered that a friend has Brief Encounter on DVD so I will be adding that to the list and borrowing that shortly.

LJx

101 List Progress Check - 18th February 2012

Hi all, sorry I'm not keeping this as up together as I'd planned to and have been writing the bare minimum for the updates - P90X is keeping me pretty busy and seems to be taking up so much of my head space too that I'm just not having the time or inclination to think about anything else - even my poor Filofaxes are beginning to feel neglected. So at least the ripped abs challenge is still currently on :o)

Another fairly short run down of where I'm at as I started to write this a week ago, got sidetracked by a workout and an afternoon out and have to work out shortly and then it will be time to finish getting packed to go to London for a course as I have to leave in the morning.

I now have one classic book left to read as I have finished The Great Gatsby since my last update, which is a book I'd heard quite a lot about as the year above me at school read it for their English A-Level, whereas we got Sergeant Musgrave's Dance or something like that... I wish we'd been given the Great Gatsby, it was a good book and I couldn't put it down.

I have also started on the Shakespeare plays, with the first being King John. It has been many years since I read any Shakespeare and it took a while to get into it and work out what the hell was going on, but I seemed to get the hang of it towards the end. I'm not sure if this is a challenge that I am going to be enjoying or not yet.

I was doing so well with drinking my water the week before last. Monday to Thursday I drank 1.5 litres each day at work and then drank more during and after my workouts, but then Friday came and I just wasn't thirsty. I couldn't drink that much no matter how hard I tried. And as for weekends - I have no hope. When I'm at work it's not to bad as I grab a 1.5 litre bottle out of the cupboard in the morning and it is there, right in front of me all day as a reminder, but Saturdays and Sundays I am lucky if I remember to have a drink at all before lunchtime. I have no idea how to get over this - I have never been one for having a good fluid intake (apart from in the past on Friday & Saturday nights, but that's not quite the same thing). Will try again this week and see how I get on...

Eating my 5 a day is getting there - I think I am probably doing it most days as part of my following the P90X nutrition guide as well as doing the exercise, but I must start to log this properly somewhere so that I can be sure of what I am achieving.

I need to set up some kind of proper schedule in my beloved Filofax so that I can schedule everything in and log it all properly. I have proved I can do this to my benefit with my work stuff, hence I am now up to date with my work and am almost down to my planned 42 hour week. To assist in my organisational skills I will be spending a little of my airport time planning tomorrow, and will be visiting the Paperchase store on Tottenham Court Road to browse the various inserts, pens, stickers, tabs and all the other stationery - it's nothing to do with the fact that I am obsessed with stationery and FF inserts at all!!!

As I have to be in London next week, I think I should aim to complete another of my challenges - to see two West End musicals. I am planning on getting tickets to We Will Rock You and Rock of Ages. I may even be tempted to go and see Shrek the Musical while I am there as well.

I should also be able to watch a couple of new to DVD releases as the person who I am going on the course with has a Love Film subscription - it's all going on this week!!!

Wish me luck,

LJx

One Life One Filofax... Really?

Hmm, I saw an interesting post re David Popely's GTD setup here and am now thrown into a quandary as to what to do.

As you will have previously seen, I own a number of Filofaxes in various sizes, and as simple as one life on Filofax sounds, I just don't know if I can do this...

Currently I am using a personal one for me, one to track my 101 in 1001 days challenge, a happiness binder (which will be used properly shortly), an A5 for the family (although I have to wonder if I am the only one who uses it...), an A5 for work, a mini as a wallet, and... I think that is it at the moment.

Now the idea is that all my planning should go into one binder, this would knock out the family binder, the work binder, the 101 in 1001 days binder, and my personal binder - and then all this would go into one place... can I do this?

There are three problems that I have to overcome to do this:

1. My obsession with my filos means that I want to touch more than one each day - could I get round this by having a 10 minute gazing session at the end of each day? Or as suggested, I could swap the binder I am using regularly so that I don't feel that any of the binders are feeling left out.
2. I temporarily used a personal size FF for work after my A5 went missing and found it very hard and it didn't really work for me, so I really need an A5 for work. However, I don't want to be carrying an A5 round with me everywhere and I only have 3 A5 binders.
3. I like buying stationery, and want pretty things to go in my FFs as I am now at the stage where I can think about pimping them up (inserts only, I can't do anything to the outsides - that would just be weird), what will I do with fewer binders to play with?

Can I get round this by sticking with my A5 for work (this is kept mainly at work except when I have to do planning at home as I never have time to do it while I am in the office), whilst using one binder for everything else?

Clearly I will still try to use as many binders as possible for other things (eg the happiness binder, photo albums, recipe books - like I'll ever get round to doing that), but for planning purposes, can I manage to use just one for personal/family etc?

Hmmm... time to get my thinking cap on before I do my 2012 setup (although I think I may be going with the WO1P with notes so that should be able to cope anyway...)

Ooh - could a slimline cope with being a one file one life filo? Although having just got my Deco I think I can guess where I'll be heading first...

Any advice will be gratefully received.

LJx

Work Filofax - More Decisions

As some of you already know, I managed to leave my laptop bag on a train the other week which wasn't one of my smarter moves, especially as it had my aqua A5 Finsbury filofax that I use for work with hours and hours of planning stuff in.

I know, I know - if I'd have done it on my laptop it would have been backed up, but 2 hours in an airport and an hour or so on a plane is way more conducive to writing than typing. And on paper you can sketch stuff out as well, hence I had managed to make changes to the diary template that I was already using. That along with the fact that I just love my FFs and writing things down - colour coding all the way, just means that I will probably never be a technology girl (apart from my iPad and my Kindle and my MacBook - what is it about stationery and FFs that just may writing such a joy).

Anyway, after a few weeks I had to come to terms with the fact that it wasn't going to be returned to me
and so I had to search for a new one.

The aqua Fins hadn't been bought with the purpose of being my work filo, in fact I had decided that it could only ever be a spare as I already had the aqua Fins in personal size. I was using an A4 Metropole in brown as I have always used an A4 day to a page diary as I need that much space to write my task lists.

I had been on Philofaxy one day and read a few posts where people were using the A5 for work and wondered if it could work for me... As it turned out, yes it could!!! All I had to do was to take my A4 templates (designed by me using Excel so easy to reduce in size to fit the A5). The bonus about this was the fact that I had a smaller page size without losing any lines. Yes, it meant I had to write a bit smaller, but as I only write on every other line anyway this wasn't a problem.

Finding a replacement has been tough, I loved the Fins, tough, pretty and practical, and decided that another Fins would be the perfect replacement, but in raspberry as I don't particularly want 2 the same. However, after searching and being unable to find any major bargains I decided I should consider other options.

Philofaxy stepped in again with a notice that the Filofax Denmark site had a sale on, and on there I spied an A5 Graphic in red (looking very similar to the A4 Logic that I had got from the Germany sale - see post) which although not leather appears hardwearing, practical - and very heavy!!! I also saw a bargainous A5 Chameleon in raspberry which will be with me next week, and although these are leather I am not sure if it will be sturdy enough to be my work filo, which will be a great shame as it is beautiful. And so the dilemma starts...

A5 Graphic - sturdy, scratchproof, actually quite attractive

A5 Chameleon - soft, leather, soooo pretty

The second part of the dilemma is the setup of my new work FF. Do I print out my usual day to a page diary sheets which were working rather well for me, or do I try to use the Danish inserts which look like they may actually be up to the job... here is what I'm talking about:

My templates (mostly from in my A4 and not the most recent version, as they were in my missing FF, but close enough).

Month on 1 page

Day to 1 page

Notes page

An A5 page that I had in my bag from using to scribble on after I updated the design I wanted

And then the inserts that came with the Graphic from Denmark:

Black inserts and quadrille paper

Fold out activity plan with quadrille reverse

To do lists

Week on 2 pages

As the Graphic comes complete with July 2011 - December 2012 diary I think I shall experiment with what I have and see how it goes. I have a trick up my sleeve that I already started using when I had a day to 1 page in my work FF, that may even make it possible to move to a week on 2 pages ;o)

I am looking forward to blogging about this one as without an A5 FF for work I have been a bit lost (which is pretty weird as I'd only been using it for a few months). I have been using the personal Fresco for the last couple of weeks to try to ease the pain, but will be so glad to move back into an A5.

Any advice, recommendations? Bring em on!!! :o)

LJx