Tag: bloganuary

Lights of the World -My Inspiration

There are so many people out there that inspire me that it is not possible to choose only one.

I am inspired by Steves Jobs’ creativity and insightfulness. He understood what the consumer needed before they did and he made it simple to use and beautiful to look at.

I am in awe of Elizabeth Gilbert and Anne Lamott’s writing. When I read their work, it feels as though I am listening to an old friend share pearls of wisdom. I had a similar sense when I read Michelle Obama’s Becoming.

What I love about Oprah is all that she has brought into our homes, our lives and our consciousness through her talk shows. Whether you perceive her topics to be good or bad, that most probably changed the way you viewed the world in some way. That’s powerful. I was listening to a talk the other day that spoke of taking action and having impact. Oprah’s actions have a huge impact the world over.

Tyler Perry. I am fascinated by Tyler the person even though I don’t know him and all he has achieved. To me he is an example of what can be accomplished if you allow God to work through you. (In fact, everyone I mentioned above is if you think about it.)

I have never heard Tyler Perry take credit for any of his achievements and he has many. All credit is given to God. Not only does he not take credit but whenever he speaks he uses the opportunity to share a lesson, or drop a pearl of wisdom for you to walk away with. One of my favourite speeches of his is his BET acceptance speech. There are 3 key messages in this speech that inspire me every time I listen to it:

  1. Help somebody cross

Tyler shares a few examples of how he has been able to ‘help somebody cross’. He has used laughter, physically helped a man cross outside his school and being given the opportunity to provide employment for people. There are so many ways that we can help people get to the other side of a bad experience, fufill a need or move forward in their life. All we need to do is listen and take action in the moment.

  1. Create your own table

As a woman and a person of mixed race living in South Africa, I have often felt the need to work extra hard to earn a seat at the table of the white man or the Indian man and more recently, the black man. The reality is that I am unique and so are my talents and if I focus on using those talents in a productive manner and for the good of society, I will be building my own table. God willing, it will be a round table that many others can sit at as well. The reality is that we do not need to compete with each other. We live in an abundant universe and there is enough for all.

  1. There are people who’s live are tied to my dream

“Every dreamer in this room: there are people whose lives are tied into your dream. Own your stuff, own your business, own your way.” This is the most powerful message in the speech. We are all interlinked. This is also linked to creating your own table to that you can make space for them.

I hope that these wonderful human beings who, I believe, have learnt the art of stepping out the own way in order to let God’s light shine through, will inspire you in some small way too.

“Let your Light shine before men, that they may see your Good Works and Glorify your Father in heaven”

Matthew 5:16

I Have a Dream to be a Supremely Organised Being

Photo by JESHOOTS.com on Pexels.com

Today’s prompt is “What is something you wish you knew how to do?”. I let this one marinate the entire day and, believe it or not, the only thing I could come up with was “be more organised”. My desk is most often full of clutter and so is my inbox and my desktop and my folders. You get the picture. Every day I juggle being a student, a single mum, managing a team and working in a hybrid role so you would think I have this organisational thing down pat by now. But noooo, not me. Every day I am caught by surprise by something I forgot. It’s exhausting. I have tried everything I can think of but the skill of organising stuff well continues to elude me. Here’s a taste of the various ways I have tried to master this skill.

Apps

I cannot believe how many apps there are out there to help you get organised. I have tried a few but none have quite stuck yet. I have tried:

  • Evernote: note bad but things like tables can’t be viewed in full on a screen. I also suspect that I have not investigated it’s full functionality though. I love that I can lock this app with a password.
  • Notion: this is actually not too bad an app. I love that I can organise pages inside pages. I found some of the templates useful as well.
  • Mem: I actually love this one. Talk about organising pages inside pages! You can link so many different types of information in so many ways. It’s pretty cool.
  • Microsoft To-Do: A good every day app to set up reminders if I remember to actually create the tasks🤦‍♀️
  • Any-Do: Not dramatically different from Ms To-Do.
  • Ms OneNote: This one is great on the computer. I am so thrilled that I can “dock to desktop” again. An extremely useful feature that allows you take notes while working.
  • iReminders: same functionality as Any-do and Ms To-do
  • iNote – I probably use this most often to save bits of info that I come across and create the text for an IG post.

I’ll stop there. I know, I know I might have an organisational app hoarding problem. I discover most apps through articles on Medium. I have now learned to scroll past any article that promises the new best app to organise my life. It’s not the apps. It’s me.

Paper and Pen

I love paper and pen. I love writing. I have diaries. I have planners. Heck, I even designed my own planner on Canva to help myself. I write in them about once a month, if I remember. That tells how well that’s working out for me.

Habits/Systems

Soooo…since it’s probably not the tools that I have chosen to try, I decided to try creating a routine that would ensure that I make better use of the tools and thereby become better organised. (Phew, that was a wordy sentence!) Enter James Clear’s Atomic Habits book and course. “If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.” he says. Well I have yet to master putting together a system that works for me.

Maybe being organised is just not part of my identity yet and that is why I have yet to create a system that works for me. Since my word for this year is “Action” and my mantra is “This is who I am now” every time I need adopt a new action to replace an old one (I learned this method of reshaping your identity to change your habits from a David Goggins interview), perhaps this is the year that I finally succeed in being a well-organised person.

Of course I am always open to tips and tricks so please do share what works for you.

My Favourite Toy…Once upon a time

I must admit that today’s prompt has made me think really hard. I fished out my old album to try and jog my memory about the toys I had back in the day. There were definitely dolls in the pictures and I vaguely remember playing dolls house with my sisters from time to time but that’s about it when it came to toys. I do remember treasuring a tartan teddy when I was really little but he disappeared during one of our moves.

My favourite tartan teddy

The things I treasured most when I was a kid was books. I loved reading. My mum had bought us a set of 12 Disney books that I read over and over and over again. I remember The Jungle book and there a few Donald Duck books. There was a donald duck story where they had they had to ask a donkey to wiggle his ears and coins would fall out. It just so happened that my father could wiggle his eye so he would do it whenever he read the story to us. You can imagine how many times he had to read that book!😂 I was very curious so I read our reference books cover to cover as well. One was called Disney’s Wonderful World of Knowledge and I still have it today even though it looks absolutely battered. I just can’t part with it. Once I was old enough to venture to the library by myself, I made sure I was there at least every 2 weeks to swap my 3 books which was all I was allowed. When I wasn’t reading I was trying my hand at slantwords and crosswords and the like. I didn’t do puzzles though and colouring in was definitely not my thing and still isn’t.

One of my favourite books

When I wasn’t reading or doing word puzzles, I was outside playing with the kids from the neighbourhood. We played hopscotch and hide and seek and ‘stocking’. We rode our bikes and skated with our roller skates. I remember being horrified that my parents had bought me these adjustable metal skates with straps over the top while everyone else had the boots. In the end though it didn’t stop me from having a blast everyday with them. In summer I was at the public pool swimming my heart out. It was just up the road from our house so I was there every day. I was so sunburnt and I didn’t even realise it. I found a pic of myself from back then not so long ago and almost didn’t recognise myself. I was burnt to a crisp …lol. I also had ballet classes twice a week so I was a pretty busy kid.

I have actually enjoyed writing this piece. It brought back wonderful memories of being a kid. I am so glad that I grew up when I did. We had loads of fun and barely spent time in front of the TV. Toys were cool but for me books were probably way more important and still are. I am still constantly surrounded by them physically and even electronically. I love reading and I love learning.

Thank you for taking this trip down memory lane with me. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.