Managing Expectations, Planning, Books, Useful Stuff and Self -Esteem.
Under-egging the pudding.
🤔 Thought for the week
It's been a hectic week! The busiest week of the year. The Women In Business Big Show 2023 was last Thursday, and it was a brilliant day, but lots of walking up and down, loads of talking, problem-solving on the hoof, and doing everything from serving the coffee to sorting out blocked loos.
Despite having a year to prep for this, I hadn't organised my time well nor managed my own or other people's expectations about how regularly I could publish to what was then called Sunday Sparks - now updated to The (too) Busy Businesswoman.
By calling it SUNDAY Sparks, there's a definite suggestion it will be published each Sunday. That was the idea, anyway. I know I can schedule hundreds of episodes in advance, but it's supposed to be a journal about recent thoughts and events.
So, that brings me to managing expectations, mine and those of my readers. I'm not a woman who can turn her creative energy on and off. Sometimes the words don't come. Sometimes the words come out, and they're crap. I suspect this is one of those times.
This is and will continue to be, a compendium of thoughts and ideas for the week. Just not always on a Sunday, although that may be when you want to read it.
The problem is a skill shortage (mine) around estimating how long something will take me. I live around 20 miles from Bluewater Shopping Centre and go there a lot to mooch around in coffee shops with my journals. I always tell people it takes me 5 minutes to get there. It doesn't; how on earth can it? I don't have a rocket or the secret to time travel. Scottie doesn't beam me up. Yet, it still takes me 5 minutes.
This week's derailment was printing badges for the Women In Business Big Show 2023. We had around 200 to print with individual names and business names, attach a lanyard and pop in an exhibitor pack along with some information that needed stapling and folding. My estimate? One and a half hours. After three hours, it was apparent I was wildly out. Let's think it through, though. 200 badges and packs? Allowing 5 minutes to find the information, check it, print it, attach the label, label the pack and pop in the info, that's 1,000 minutes which is 16 hours.
Can you see the problem?
I'm cross with myself because all of this is figurable-outable.
We can't allow for everything; spanners get in the works, printers jam, we need more wee's than we thought, pass out at the desk for want of wine and crisps. But by running the numbers, there is no way it would take 1.5 hours to get that job done.
Where does this get me? First, see the 'What Have I Learned' section below, but really what this means is thinking through how your publication schedule will work. What will you write and publish, and what if your creative time gets eaten away, even if your actual time doesn't? Plus, what type of content do you want to publish? This is a long newsletter, so what about short, easy-to-digest snippets? Consider audio-based posts for when people are too tired to read; they also bring a different dimension. What about image-based posts when we need additional inspiration or creative outlet?
By creating Sunday Sparks, I boxed myself into a publishing corner. So it's time to shift slightly. I will still publish a long-form newsletter interspersed with short posts of around 300 words.
I do hope you enjoy 🙏
🧑🏻🎓What Have I Learned This Week?
Before you start doing stuff, plan it. Add in the time you can calculate and look at a best-case scenario. Then multiply it a few times.
It’s so easy to get started on a simple job, dive right in and get that hit of satisfaction as you tick items off the to-do list. By getting a realistic time estimate, your important creative projects won’t get overtaken by the mundane admin.
📖 Book of the Week
I've finally managed to stop my struggle with being messy, thanks to The Clutter Connection.
In my head, I'm not a disorganised person; I’m a perfectionist when it comes to being tidy and organised. In my head.
Outside of my head, it’s all over the place, and now I know why.
After reading the book, it seems so obvious that I'm unsure how I went through 60 years of not understanding.
It's blindingly simple - I don't know where things go. If I can't SEE where something should be, I stand there, mouth open, object in hand, turning slowly and pondering.
The solution is to keep things visual with open shelves, transparent storage boxes, and good labelling.
Author Cassandra Aarssen identifies four types of 'clutter bugs', and I'm a butterfly - how cute. 🦋
💡Quote of the Week
"The task is not to see what has never been seen before, but to think what has never been thought before about what you see every day."
Erwin Schrödinger (1887 - 1961)
🤸🏽♂️ Look Good, Feel Good
I love this excerpt from Sarah Millican on self-esteem and reconnecting with her school bully…
🛠 Useful Stuff
Let's dip into the kitchen. Part of living a good life is eating good food. The best place to get organic, grass-fed, nutrition-rich food is from your kitchen. Our most helpful gadget is our Instant Pot Duo. It's a pressure cooker, slow cooker, air fryer, grill and oven. Perfect for when we're going to be late back from an event and need some good food, fast.
One of our favourite meals is Duck legs into the air fryer with raw chopped sweet potatoes (about 1-inch square) and then on for around 25 minutes at 185°C.
Obviously, check they're done yourself. If you don't fancy the sweet potatoes, how about buttery, creamy mash with cranberry sauce and baby organic spinach (wash and put into a pan and cover for about 2 mins.
Sorry, there isn’t a pic of our duck legs 🤣 but we ate them too fast. Here’s the instant pot instead.
📓 Thoughts and Words 📝
Furious vs Miffed
What you say to yourself affects how you feel and how long it lasts. Your mind believes your words. Someone had badly annoyed my son. The thing is that within the scope of what can happen in the world, this wasn't up there with terrible. After days of him thrashing around about how furious he was, he was livid. Red face, bulging eyes and it was only getting worse. I suggested he change his word to say he was really miffed. (This wasn't as smooth as it sounds. He didn't just say 'ok, Mummy' and do it. I had to get very insistent indeed). Finally, he changed it to miffed, and a little smile crept in.
Why not give it a go yourself? It's best to do it now while not in a mad funk about something. Whatever you're feeling now, make it a lighter word and see how you feel. This can take a while to tune in.
Be very careful about saying things like 'This has destroyed me'. You can recover from a setback; you can recover from being upset; you can't recover from being destroyed. It's final.
🎧 Latest Radio Shows 🎙
I host the Women In Business Radio Show, recorded live in our UK studio and transformed into a podcast on Substack, Apple, Google and Spotify.
Networking
The next online networking for The Women In Business Radio Show subscribers is on Wednesday, September 13th 2023, at 6 pm UK time.
To see it in your time zone, use this link:
To Subscribe to the Women In Business Radio Show Substack, click this link below.
Events In South East England.
Kent, UK Events For Women In Business
The next Women In Business Big Show is 8th August 2024. The event isn’t yet updated on the website as the whole team is knackered. It will all be sorted by next week.
For more details, visit the website at https://thewomeninbusinessbigshow.com
Cafe In The Calm Events
Calming Health and Beauty Fairs at Maidstone, Longfield and Rainham (Kent)
Intuitive Development Circle
More information about the Circles here
