Category: Life Management

Getting and staying organised, at home and everywhere else

‘My friend is so organised she makes me sick’

So, we hate housework. We think we have some higher purpose in life. And we think staying home to do the housework and take care of others is lower status work.

We also, it seems, disparage the idea of being organised… as exemplified in the  attitude I heard expressed in a lift one day: “My friend is so organised she makes me sick.” Being organised is  uncool (at the same time as being a target of covert envy).

All of this makes for a pretty toxic way of living: we either live in mess, or we keep things tidy resentfully. And we either live in chaos, or we pretend that we are not organised, so as to appear creative and spontaneous.

So here I sit on a Sunday morning, with a set of lists made for the whole week (in the central black Moleskine by which my life is conducted). I know what we will be having for supper next Sunday. I have a set of outfits in my cupboard all made up and ready to be taken out each night for the next day. And I’m proud of all that. It takes work, but it removes stress. So, uncool I am and always will be.

God (or whatever) is in the details

Writing in the Financial Times, Simon Kuper describes the creation of Unitaid, an international drugs-purchasing agency which many people have never heard of (briefly, it   has raised $2.2bn to buy medicines for some of the poorest people on earth, largely through a small tax on plane tickets).

Kuper describes the work that went into creating this agency, largely by then French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy and quotes him thus:

“Everything is in the detail,” he told me. “Politics taught me that. And medicine too.” [Kuper concludes] Lives are saved not by ideology or personality but by boring details that hardly anyone wants to read about.

 What a wonderful idea for the people in the world who care about details… that by paying attention to them, great things can be achieved.

‘Something about staying at home’

knitting by the fire

A recent book by Hannah Rosin entitled The End Of Men caused a stir in the twittering classes. An article by Katie Roiphe about the book in the Financial Times  did a good job of looking at the book itself, and the debate surrounding it.

One particular passage in that article caught my eye, interested as I am in housework, chores and our attitude to them. Continue reading “‘Something about staying at home’” →

Declutter your fantasy life

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In an article published some time ago in the Financial Times, columnist Simon Kuper muses on the fantasies of wage earners everywhere: that they will one day become the person they really are and make a movie, write a book or retire to the country.

He says, though that “it’s usually best to let these fantasies stay fantasies. For most people, being a hack – doing routine work for money – is the happiest, simplest and probably even the most authentic way to live.”

And then the killer blow: “At the root of my housemate’s fantasy was a common delusion: that the authentic self is an artist.” Continue reading “Declutter your fantasy life” →

Five words to ponder

Spelling shouldn’t really be a problem, should it? You can look words
up in a dictionary or online, after all. But what if you really think
you know how to spell a word, and you don’t actually know how to spell
it? I learnt this lesson early in journalism, when the night news
editor looked at me wearily and said: “There are two i’s in liaise.” Continue reading “Five words to ponder” →