Katrina’s story
I live in a compact (read small!) inner city apartment with my two young children. I decided to embark on coaching as I was feeling frazzled and disorganised in life generally and seriously losing a grip on my direction.
In one of my first coaching sessions I identified that I never knew where to find anything and that I was always rushing around searching for my favourite shoes or clothing when I was overdue for a social function.
At work, I was feeling just as overwhelmed. My job is in a highly competitive media organisation and I am constantly up against demanding deadlines. When hard news stories are breaking I have to literally drop everything I’m working on and run with the story. Meanwhile, my in-tray grows, emails pile up and I used to leave not so urgent work untouched for as long as possible. I’ve uncovered again my longer term passion to be a freelance writer and work on project based assignments, so I can spend more time with my children and choose work to fit around their commitments.
I honestly felt though that my main obstacle to reaching this long term goal was being totally unorganised and constantly feeling that I was ‘fire fighting’. I seriously needed to simplify and overhaul how I was running my life.
With Andrea we explored all the possible options to help me organise and simplify my life to make way for my priorities.
Top of the list for immediate action was clearing clutter at both home and work. Then I needed to implement workable ideas that would work for me every day. I began by spending an entire weekend with the kids, spring cleaning the apartment – discarding anything that was no longer being used. It was a fun time and the kids loved this new game.
I also organised my paperwork at home so when I begin working from home, I’ll have a space ready. Tackling my wardrobe was also a big challenge, but I’ve grouped items together so I can access them in a second. I now know where everything is. I also explained to the kids about donating items we no longer wanted to charities and even sold a few books. After this spring clean, I felt energised about facing the world and clearly had more physical space.
Next, I tackled my work space and took a few hours to give everything the once over. I installed a new filing system that I felt would meet the demands of my work and experimented with time management ideas until I found tricks that worked for me. Even quick easy ideas like handling a piece of paper only once mean that I now make instant decisions rather than setting aside for future consideration and never getting back to it.
It may sound like small changes, but slowly I’ve been adding to the changes, all the while making sure they become regular habits. I feel much more in control of my life since before I began coaching and I’m ready to start the next part of my plan which is following my bigger work dream of going out on my own.
Katrina
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Katrina's coach, Andrea Molloy, has some tips to help you get organised and take control of your time.
5 Tips for Getting Organised
