On Pushing the Boundaries – A French Goal Setting Story
7 October 2015Ever noticed how much faster and more effective our life lessons and personal development are when we push, or are pushed by external factors, outside our comfort zone. One of my life goals for some years has been to learn French, and right now I’ve allowed it to kick (not just push) me right outside […]
How to Save Time – Do It Right the First Time
22 September 2015For the first six months of this year I was housemother/flatmate/grandmother for my oldest grandson Sam, aged eighteen and in his final year of high school. His parents were on an overseas posting. Many times over that period I found myself saying, ‘Don’t put things off. Do it right the first time and you’ll save […]
Back To Basics: A Crash Course On Procrastination
11 December 2013One of the most frequently asked questions I received from people during events and workshops was how to beat procrastination. Office workers, parents and the elderly- it seems that no one can escape the ‘head in the clouds’ syndrome. After all, procrastination is something that comes and goes, which we all suffer from on a […]
The subtle shift in attitude that means success or failure with our goals
7 May 2013I picked up a great distinction last week from a participant. Tam from the NZ Rural General Practice Network in Wellington had this to say in regard to achieving our goals: ‘We might WANT something, but until we have an INTENTION, nothing will happen.’ Think about when you want to lose weight, or get fit, […]
Stacey’s simple stress-reducer
18 September 2012I’ve been working with Stacey* for a couple of months as her productivity coach. She’s the GM of a successful company in the engineering field. She used to be a big list maker. Often she’d have five pages of items ‘to do’ – but hardly anything got done and the lists just got longer. Result? […]
Get Faster, Work Better – By Doing Things Differently
2 August 2012What do I mean? I learnt something very interesting last night. I was MC for the National Speakers Association of NZ’s National Awards and had the pleasure of listening to our guest speaker Wade Jackson, a Double World Champion of Improv and founder of New Zealand’s Improv Bandits and Covert Theatre. One of his points, […]
Master overwhelm quickly and easily
7 June 2012At a conference, we’d been talking about how to do daily planning and ‘to do’ lists. Martin, one of the delegates, made a great contribution. ‘Robyn, you gave us some great advice about writing a list of all the things to do for the day, identifying just the top five, and working on them. The […]
More on how to declutter and organize – reduce the space available
10 April 2012I’ve finally completed a declutter task that’s been nagging – and nagging – and nagging! The Easter break was fun, doing lots of fun things with friends and family. And – in the gaps I did something I often help others with. I ruthlessly attacked my most regularly-used office files. They’re now cleaned out, pruned, […]
The Procrastination Tightrope And How To Keep Your Balance
1 September 2011Want to beat procrastination? Here’s some easy tips you can apply right now! Have deadlines for your goals. Beware, however, of being unrealistic. Working towards impossible deadlines is very de- motivating and won’t help you break the procrastination habit. Break a task down to smaller, bite-sized pieces with realistic achievable time-lines. This can often help […]
Don't Do What Someone Else Can Do
15 June 2011Who opens the mail? Who does the filing? Do you find yourself constantly getting bogged down with tasks somebody else could do? Over lunch some time David Eddy, Project Director of a great First Time Principals programme via Auckland University, shared the following tip. It was given to him by a colleague early in […]