Category: Life Management

Getting and staying organised, at home and everywhere else

The power of a list

That Moleskine diary
That Moleskine diary

It’s a standing joke in my family, the way I make lists. But really, they work. This is not just shopping lists, though I make those too (in the computer, with all the standard items ordered by aisle in the local supermarket). There are different classes of lists, with different calming powers.

Everyday lists – reminding me to do things like renew the library books, or get the deworming tablets. I make these a week in advance (off a rolling master list), so Things Get Done. That old thing about asking a busy person to do things is true – but only because the busy person has taken the trouble to get organised in this way so you don’t have to.

Routine lists – also made in advance, saying things like put clothes out at night, pack lunch. I write them down even though I do them every day. It makes me feel better.

Longer-term lists – guess what, they are made in advance. This is things like make mince pies in October and freeze them so I am not running round like a crazy person in December.

Big event lists – here is the real power of a list, the preparation for a big event. An exam, a training course I am running, a holiday, a house move, a wedding… all of these are conquered by a list (or many lists). Sitting down with a cup of tea, a black Moleskin diary and a preparedness to think things through can instantly reduce that feeling that things have become too complicated, too overwhelming, toooooo much. Panic subsides. I move through the list, one item at a time. I’m still nervous and still worried and still anxious, but I have a plan. And as every South African knows, making a plan is everything.

You are so organised, say all my friends. I’d say to them, it is just the lists but I know they don’t believe me. So I smile and say thank you.

NOTE: This is a response to WordPress’s Daily Prompt for October 4

Women’s Day ghetto? Count me out

So, here we are again in the ghetto. Women’s Day is with us, and politicians, beauty spas and restaurants are having a field day. Newspapers are running stories like this, and I am feeling crabby. That article rightly points out many of the major issues facing women worldwide, but I am here to say that designating a special day is not the way to address those things.

I would ask you to think about one question as you go about this day – how would it all feel if the stories you were reading and the tweets you are sharing and the promotional specials you were seeing were in honour of black people? That’s right, a special day to celebrate the specialness of black people. Patronising? Racist, even? Okay – now you know why I dislike Women’s Day so much.

In March 2012, I wrote a column for IOL on the subject, which you can read here. But I still think this:

Whether we are honouring heroines of the struggle, or celebrating the achievements of the women’s movement, or suggesting that some special woman deserves breakfast in bed or a day at the spa, we are saying that women are somehow different from men. We are saying that something about them needs different treatment from men.

And what does being “special” in this way do? It opens the door to discrimination, is what it does.

Women all over the world are still oppressed, beaten, killed, deprived of education.

Girl children are killed because they are girls.

And that happens to them because, fundamentally, they are seen as different, useless, not fully human.

So how does a day celebrating their otherness (and giving rise to a lot of patronising woolly thinking) help the cause, sisters and brothers?

I’ll pay a wealth tax when…

This is one of a series of columns I wrote for IOL. The original, from September 2011, is here.  This is perhaps even more relevant in 2014.

COLUMN
Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s call for a wealth tax got a lot of people
hot under the collar, in that great journalistic cliche (how many of
us wear collars anyway?).

What I’d really like is a chance to thrash this out with the bishop.

I am a formerly (and still) advantaged white South African and I pay a
lot of tax… and I mean a lot. I pay for my own health care and my
own security and for a large portion of my son’s education and I fully
expect that that will all keep going up. I don’t begrudge any of this
money – it is the price I pay for our history, and I am glad to pay
it. Other people have paid far higher than this.

Continue reading “I’ll pay a wealth tax when…” →

How (and why) to give up swearing

The column below is one of a series I wrote some time ago for IOL Lifestyle. The incident it refers to is long forgotten, but the issue lives on in my life. I now swear considerably less than I did, and here’s how… I pay my son R2 for every swear word I utter. It works, and I feel a better person.

The column, which was first carried here:

There are going to be a lot of asterisks in this column, but bear with me.
Continue reading “How (and why) to give up swearing” →

Archives: When is a child spoilt?

This is one of a series of columns I wrote for IOL Lifestyle in 2011. See the original here. When is a child spoilt? There’s much hand-wringing in the British press about a Unicef report
which reckons that UK parents buy their children branded toys rather
than spending time with them.

The report – according to the London Independent – says that British
families are unable to resist the “materialism” of modern childhood.
Many parents told researchers they felt “compelled” to buy things for
their children, even though they knew much of this spending was
“pointless”.

The author of the report, Dr Agnes Nairn, is quoted as saying: “Fears
about ‘brand bullying’ are much stronger in the UK. Parents seemed to
feel much more helpless. There was an incredibly strong feeling that
children have to have these things to fit in – otherwise they’ll be
the only ones in their class not to have them.”

Researchers looked in depth at the pressures on parents and children,
and compared the experiences of 24 families in the UK with others in
Sweden and Spain.

Out here in the wilds of Africa, we are not immune. Who hasn’t bought
a Ben 10 T-shirt, or a Barbie nightie? I’ve been a staunch cheap
takkie mom – but finally my son does indeed have a pair of brand-name
running shoes (they were a reward for winning a race at school –
that’s what I’m telling myself, anyway).

Some of the triggers for buying expensive or pointless things for our
children are clear: guilt, pressure, fear of our children being
outsiders. But I’m interested in the whole question: where do we all
draw the lines in what we give to our children?

Beyond the clear duties (love, food, education, respect, safety,
routine, enough sleep), I’ve observed such different ideas about what
is okay.

One kid gets R10 a week pocket money, another of the same age gets R30.

Big ticket items (eg bicycles) are for birthdays – but other children
get them when they need them.

One kid has two skateboards and a J-board. Another has none of these,
even though they are affordable to that family.

My son desperately wants a pair of soccer boots – even though at his
school those kinds of team sports only start next year for him. Some
hard-assed part of me thinks he should wait till he’s actually in a
team; a wiser (and nicer) colleague says buy him a cheap pair now, he
just wants to fit in.

At what point does generosity turn to over-indulgence? What’s a parent
(or an uncle or an aunt or a grandparent) to do? Use our comment form
below to share your tips for sense and sanity in a materialist world.