CwL On the Road Ep 3 – How I keep organised as a non-details person

So I was at my son’s soccer training the other night and was talking to a few of my friends there, and 1 of them was explaining the job that she does, and it is a full-blown coordination, organization management job. Lots of moving parts, lots of different people. She isn’t really is obviously a super duper organized person.

And I immediately went into that space of, oh god, that’s so not me.

And it’s funny because I have to be careful about this. This really speaks to the identity that we hold for ourselves and the stories that we tell ourselves, but also a a good, nice, fair, and honest reflection of what we know about ourselves. You know?

And I think that there’s a part of me that attaches to this being a disorganized person vibe. And then there’s the part of me that actually leads quite a structured, streamlined life because that’s what makes parenting my kids easier you know, managing a house, a business, children, my own life, I actually have a whole heap of systems in place. I actually love the rhythm that I have created for us. I am quite routine about a lot of things. And I actually keep a lot moving. So while I can feel disorganized, I actually have brought a huge level of organization to my life.

And yet things get a little bit too much for me. I can just almost enter, like, a frozen state with myself. Anyone who has ever worked with me and worked with me effectively knows the way that I work through things is quite particular. It’s all about breaking down tasks into the smallest possible job. So I wanted to share just in case anyone else kind of thinks that doing something at the last minute for someone who is look. It’s not my strength. My strength is coming up with the ideas, not necessarily in the execution of the ideas. 

And yet here I am, responsible for the execution, or am I? And this is the first point that I would like to make. There’s so many different moving parts that I am trying to be on top of right now. And I decided to create a beautiful Google spreadsheet, and I had 3 different tabs on it, the things that I need organized for home, the things I need to get organized for work before I go, and then the travel section. It was great. I sort of did a bit of a brain dump, and I haven’t looked at it since. So that’s effective. But it’s there. As a bit of a brain dump. 

Do you know I keep reverting back to a system that has worked for me for years and years and years. And as a reminder that we don’t have to get fancy with ourselves. We often know the best way to do things for ourselves, the best way to get from a to b or, in this case, a to z in a short amount of time. For me, it’s and it always has been an A4 notebook. At the moment, it’s a fresh page every single day. Based off a big list of things to do, that I just pull over the things that I need to do that day or the things that I’d like to get done that day.

For me, I need to keep tasks front and center, or else I absolutely forget about them. I have a brilliant system with my team that is online. We use monday dot com to for all project management and Lisa kind of work tasks, but I like writing it out. I like using a pin and writing out my tasks, and I like crossing those damn things off the list. It is so satisfying. And my tip that really does work for me is to make those tasks as small as possible. I mean, I have people all around the world that I am talking to right now. In Facebook messages and on emails and all sorts of things, WhatsApp, because we’re doing a lot of visiting of people. 

There’s a travel agent who’s sending me through stuff that’s via email. There’s Amy, amazing Amy from my team who is cross checking things and filling in lots of gaps, and this is the thing. I actually don’t have to do it all myself. But I need to remind myself to be in contact with the people who are helping me do the things. That kind of level of to dos that I just need to, you know, get in contact with blah blah about blah, done. Done. Done. 

And here I am moving through everything. And it feels strangely quite ordered. But if I don’t write it out, I’m all over the shop. I am literally all over the shop. And I don’t think that that’s unusual. I think anyone who has a lot of things on their mind, a lot of things to work through, needs to get it out of their heads and either onto paper, into an app, like, into a project management system, however you do it. 1 of my big worries was that I wasn’t going to be organized enough to pull this off and carry it off that I’m gonna get frustrated with the level of detail. 

Because outsourcing and asking for help from people has become something that I have well, in my business, I have always had a team because I knew very, very early on in my days of setting things up. Gosh. 11 years ago that I was gonna be the roadblock to the level of pace that I wanted to create in my business. So I just got people on board who were way faster and way clever and could do things far better than I ever could. I brought that over into my real life as well. Where I can outsource things, I will. 

As a solo parent, I genuinely can’t do everything. Most moms take on too much to the point where they feel scattered and overwhelmed a lot of the time. I certainly get that feeling too. I’m not immune to it, but My mom was the business manager. At a school, she ran 2 campuses. She is so organized. She’s such a good researcher. She just ticks things off at least like it’s her superpower. And so for me to be able to say, hey, mom. I need to hire cars here and here. Could you help me out? Sure, darling. Hey, mom. I’m not too sure how to get an international driver’s license. Okay. Here you go. Mom, I need blah. And she’s right on it and genuinely, genuinely happy to help. 

It’s brilliant. I mean, travel agents, this is their job. I can cut down the time that I’m spending on having to make decisions and research and look at a whole heap of stuff by going with someone who knows the ins and outs. Brilliant. I will. Getting things done is possible for me personally if I don’t do it all myself. No. No. No. There are still a lot of decisions that I need to make. But once again, I will write down on my list each morning, the decisions that I need to make that day, that becomes 1 of my to dos. 

Otherwise, I will literally just put it off. For as long as I can. Decision making. Oh, there’s a lot right now.

I just wanted to share that with you.

It’s not fancy, but it’s getting me through. And it might all come down to the crunch, and I pretty much expect that there’s gonna be a lot of last minute things. But at this stage, you know, 2 and a bit weeks out, it’s all rolling. Getting it done. Yes. It’s not my strength, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find a way through.